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American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

economist.com

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Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#261

Post by okwubodu »

The second order effects of affirmative action's repeal are going to be very entertaining. You can get a sneak peek by taking a look at the student body at a school like UT Austin where, by law, 75% of students must be in-state and automatically admitted according to class rank (GPA). https://admissions.utexas.edu/explore/freshman-profile

You'll notice that when comparing Harvard and UT's student bodies to the US and Texas' demographics, respectively, Harvard's system was closer to the mark in terms of black and white representation. https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

Most interesting is UT's 40/60 M/F gender ratio. Remember: that 40% of males is almost certainly being boosted by the 25% of admits UT has any real control over. Once AA is overturned, that's it—hands off the scale. I think half the population suddenly realizing they were beneficiaries of affirmative action this whole time—and subsequently understanding the nuances of discrimination in this country—will ultimately be a good thing.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#262

Post by genedan »

geoduck14 wrote: post #204
coyotespike wrote: post #187

Here in Texas, any student from the top 10% of their high school is guaranteed a place at the flagship University of Texas at Austin. This is widely understood to be a form of affirmative action. Naturally, high schools in underprivileged areas - rural or urban - will produce students who are nowhere nearly as prepared as students from elite or wealthy schools. We ignore that difference as a policy matter. Top 10% is…

The top 10% of the good high schools don't go to University of Texas

Yes they do.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#263

Post by [deleted] »

coyotespike wrote: post #187

Here in Texas, any student from the top 10% of their high school is guaranteed a place at the flagship University of Texas at Austin. This is widely understood to be a form of affirmative action. Naturally, high schools in underprivileged areas - rural or urban - will produce students who are nowhere nearly as prepared as students from elite or wealthy schools. We ignore that difference as a policy matter. Top 10% is…

[deleted]

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#264

Post by Frost1x »

nemothekid wrote: post #247
coyotespike wrote: post #187

Here in Texas, any student from the top 10% of their high school is guaranteed a place at the flagship University of Texas at Austin. This is widely understood to be a form of affirmative action. Naturally, high schools in underprivileged areas - rural or urban - will produce students who are nowhere nearly as prepared as students from elite or wealthy schools. We ignore that difference as a policy matter. Top 10% is…

> Maybe the Ivies will move to a similar system in the wake of the current SCOTUS case. AFAICT, the ivies don't have a problem with filling their graduating class. I believe a place like Harvard even considering the top 10% of students would increase the applicant pool. I'm reciting these numbers from memory, but apparently the size of the incoming class at Harvard is roughly 2,000 students, but there are ~5,000 appl…

>While I believe there is belief that Harvard is accepting C-students over asians A+ students I think the reality is much closer; they are rejecting students with perfect scores and accepting students who scored in the 98th percentile.

While I'm all for objective nd fair opportunity, I don't think the SAT is an example of this, so admitting people who didn't do as perfectly but still spectacularly on some test metric probably isn't a terrible idea. The question is what other weights they apply to the decision and how objectively fair or not those are.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#265

Post by googlryas »

throwaheyy wrote: post #143
googlryas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of whom? Please don't vaguely hand wave about the .1%. Who specifically with means has had this goal? Because without any kind of evidence or idea of who is doing it, it just sounds like a conspiracy theory. I ask because whenever I see instances of the ultra rich trying to control the narrative, it always comes off as obvious and ham fisted. The obvious rebuttal is "well you don't see when they succeed", bu…

Rupert Murdoch, for one?

Possibly I guess, but from my perspective, as someone who reads a wide range of viewpoints, it appears that it's the central and left leaning papers that are the ones pushing the importance of race in America, not the conservative ones like the ones that murdoch owns. The perspective I get from his papers seems more of just generally disliking any black complaint about the society's treatment of them, with the implication that anything wrong with black people is their own fault.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#266

Post by gausswho »

steveBK123 wrote: post #74
kenjackson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why the term "white privilege" sells so poorly to whites. And why CRT is attacked so vigorously. Everyone likes to think they made it on their own. The guy who inherited a multi-million dollar business thinks he has had no more real advantage than then guy who was raised in an orphanage in Uganda. While I firmly believe that this privilege exists, you just can't legislate based on it, because you'll get n…

This is an argument I have with some of my more lefty friends. There are problems that have no legislative solution. I saw this as someone who has voted blue no matter who.. Sometimes the current left wing of the Dems work at cross purposes to themselves. On the one hand we need to legislate laws for everything, and on the other hand enforcing laws is discriminatory & abusive and whats a little broken windows here &…

What the DA said on the subject:

"Two days after being sworn in, Alvin Bragg shared a memo with staff Monday noting that his office will not prosecute low-level offenses like marijuana misdemeanors, refusal to pay for public transportation fare, prostitution and resisting arrest, unless given alongside a felony charge. Instead, they would be offered a community-based diversion program."

Does that sound unreasonable? When about 1 in 150 Americans are currently incarcerated?

The heavy use of the crude tool of locking people up as a solution for crime is a peculiarity of the American judicial approach, in contrast to other Western nations. Certainly there are crimes that warrant it, but possession of something that hasn't caused harm may not meet the bar for this approach, when you look at how counterproductive 'corrections' like this measurably are, and the larger history of its use as a tool of prejudice, poor police work, and the profit motive of privately owned prisons.

John Oliver recently put out an explanation of how bail reform is desperately needed in this country, if you're interested in learning that way. An alarming takeaway I had from it is that half a million Americans are currently in jail awaiting their case to be heard, unable to post bail. They are not convicted, only charged. Some non-zero number of them are innocent, their lives completely upended and in indefinite limbo.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#267

Post by slondr »

ETH_start wrote: post #255
cocacola1 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cold comfort to the near-penniless and penniless.

Real life is filled with disappointments and limitations, even with the best social structures in place. The false promise of a social revolution that provides instant wealth and salvation for all is used by populists to gain power, but any attempt to realize this promise leads to worse outcomes for the public.

On the flipside, it's unclear to me why the penniless should care what the best outcome is for "the public," as nebulous of a concept that is.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#268

Post by HarryHirsch »

Loocid wrote: post #157
HarryHirsch wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's white privilege in Pensiltucky? Elon Musk knows he wouldn't have made it big without family connections, but the white guy from Western Pennsylvania knows that he was up against a whole lot and made it anyway, against all odds. That's why "white privilege" sells so poorly.

You don't think a minority in Pensiltucky might have been against even more odds on average?

A Pensiltuckian will be keenly aware of the fact, no matter where on the political spectrum they are. The distinction is really between traditional left/right and the "woke left", for want of any better term.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#269

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

feet wrote: post #184
Alupis wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complete nonsense. You literally make your own opportunities - although not all opportunities are obvious when present and some do not reveal themselves unless other opportunities are taken first. How do you think the "right place, right time" people get to the right place and right time? It's not an accident - it's years in the making for most people. Some never even realize they're in the right place or at the righ…

What is the biological cause for the behavior of seeking any particular opportunity?

Having both a mother and father at home while growing up is one of the premier biological indicators of future success. Wealth helps, sure, but it's very easily lost if you grow up without perspective.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#270

Post by [deleted] »

whydat_whodat wrote: post #251
geoduck14 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top 10% of the good high schools don't go to University of Texas

UT Austin is considered one of the "public ivies" -- a public university offering an educational experience competitive with ivy league universities. Other examples are UC Berkeley, University of Washington at Seattle, and Penn State. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy

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