(no subject)
finally something worth thinking about and really reading.
this was posted in anti_racism and i thought you kids should take a look and tell me what you think.
Who's Racist Now?
In the current debate over affirmative action, it's not so easy to tell>
For the last 30 years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered summer math and science programs to incoming freshmen and high school students. Sounds like a smart way to get kids ready for the rigors of college, right? There was just one problem: White students were ineligible. Not until a complaint was filed with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights last year did MIT reluctantly open the program to all students.
Now a far bigger battle over racial preferences is underway, a suit before the U.S. Supreme Court against the University of Michigan. It turns out that the school's admission policy allows just 12 points for a perfect SAT score, but a hefty 20 points if you happen to be black, Hispanic, or Native American. If you're white--or Asian, for that matter--tough luck: You were born with the wrong skin tone.
President Bush thinks this is clearly unfair, and said so at a televised news conference earlier this year. His position is not a particularly new one--racial discrimination has been unacceptable for decades. In saner times, the President would have been hailed as a progressive liberal. But in today's culture--where victim politics rules--equal opportunity doesn't cut it.
So when the President made the case for de-emphasizing race in American life, he was denounced...as a racist. How does that work?
By the subversion of Language.
40 years ago, just about everyone understood what it meant to be a racist. A racist was someone who judged others by the color of their skin, rather than, as Martin Luther King. Jr., famously put it, the content of their character. A racist was more interested in a person's ethnic background than in his achievements or ability.
40 years later, the word "racist" has acquired precisely the opposite meaning. In 1963, you were a racist if you thought that people should be hired, promoted or accepted into schools at least partly on the basis of their skin color. In 2003, that same view qualifies you as "progressive." A racist is no longer someone who makes significant judgments based on another person's race, but rather someone who refuses to.
Ordinary people don't buy this, of course. A poll conducted by Harvard University two years ago showed that 86 percent of black Americans still believe that hiring and college admissions should be "based strictly on merit," and that race or ethnicity should play no role at all in the decision.
These numbers aren't surprising. Not only are racial preferences unfair, they insult those they purport to help. As Ebony Sandusky, then a freshman at the University of Michigan, put it several years ago: "It makes me angry that students were rejected even though they were qualified. If I had known that my grades had been raised half a point just because I am black, one of my application essays would have been why I didn't want my grade point to be raised. It implies that minorities are not as smart."
Ward Connerly has never stopped believing this. Connerly, a middle-aged academic from California, came of age during the civil rights movement, when creating a color-blind society was assumed to be a worthy goal. Connerly hasn't changed. He still believes that deeds are more important than genes. But many of his colleagues have come full circle, embracing the ideology they once despised.
Last year, Connerly began a campaign to prevent the state of California from classifying its citizens based on race or ethnicity. The language of Connerly's initiative, which drew close to a million signatures of support before it even made the ballot, closely resembled that of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So did its spirit. "The state should be blind to color," Connerly said.
To some, this constituted a racist statement. For his efforts to stop government from collecting data on race, Connerly was compared to the inventors of racial bean-counting, the Nazis.
Connerly might have predicted this reaction. At least five times in recent years, he has been shouted down during speeches he attempted to give on college campuses. (Those who prevented Connerly from speaking are undoubtedly strident advocates of "free speech.") He has been called a racist. He has been threatened with violence. He has been repeatedly denounced as an "Uncle Tom." The last slur may be most painful of all, since Connerly is black.
Committing racism n the name of ending it. Preventing speech in the name of protecting it. Sowing division in the name of unity. It's a confusing country. The words are the same. Only the meanings have changed. - Tucker Carlson
<3
mig
this was posted in anti_racism and i thought you kids should take a look and tell me what you think.
Who's Racist Now?
In the current debate over affirmative action, it's not so easy to tell>
For the last 30 years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered summer math and science programs to incoming freshmen and high school students. Sounds like a smart way to get kids ready for the rigors of college, right? There was just one problem: White students were ineligible. Not until a complaint was filed with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights last year did MIT reluctantly open the program to all students.
Now a far bigger battle over racial preferences is underway, a suit before the U.S. Supreme Court against the University of Michigan. It turns out that the school's admission policy allows just 12 points for a perfect SAT score, but a hefty 20 points if you happen to be black, Hispanic, or Native American. If you're white--or Asian, for that matter--tough luck: You were born with the wrong skin tone.
President Bush thinks this is clearly unfair, and said so at a televised news conference earlier this year. His position is not a particularly new one--racial discrimination has been unacceptable for decades. In saner times, the President would have been hailed as a progressive liberal. But in today's culture--where victim politics rules--equal opportunity doesn't cut it.
So when the President made the case for de-emphasizing race in American life, he was denounced...as a racist. How does that work?
By the subversion of Language.
40 years ago, just about everyone understood what it meant to be a racist. A racist was someone who judged others by the color of their skin, rather than, as Martin Luther King. Jr., famously put it, the content of their character. A racist was more interested in a person's ethnic background than in his achievements or ability.
40 years later, the word "racist" has acquired precisely the opposite meaning. In 1963, you were a racist if you thought that people should be hired, promoted or accepted into schools at least partly on the basis of their skin color. In 2003, that same view qualifies you as "progressive." A racist is no longer someone who makes significant judgments based on another person's race, but rather someone who refuses to.
Ordinary people don't buy this, of course. A poll conducted by Harvard University two years ago showed that 86 percent of black Americans still believe that hiring and college admissions should be "based strictly on merit," and that race or ethnicity should play no role at all in the decision.
These numbers aren't surprising. Not only are racial preferences unfair, they insult those they purport to help. As Ebony Sandusky, then a freshman at the University of Michigan, put it several years ago: "It makes me angry that students were rejected even though they were qualified. If I had known that my grades had been raised half a point just because I am black, one of my application essays would have been why I didn't want my grade point to be raised. It implies that minorities are not as smart."
Ward Connerly has never stopped believing this. Connerly, a middle-aged academic from California, came of age during the civil rights movement, when creating a color-blind society was assumed to be a worthy goal. Connerly hasn't changed. He still believes that deeds are more important than genes. But many of his colleagues have come full circle, embracing the ideology they once despised.
Last year, Connerly began a campaign to prevent the state of California from classifying its citizens based on race or ethnicity. The language of Connerly's initiative, which drew close to a million signatures of support before it even made the ballot, closely resembled that of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So did its spirit. "The state should be blind to color," Connerly said.
To some, this constituted a racist statement. For his efforts to stop government from collecting data on race, Connerly was compared to the inventors of racial bean-counting, the Nazis.
Connerly might have predicted this reaction. At least five times in recent years, he has been shouted down during speeches he attempted to give on college campuses. (Those who prevented Connerly from speaking are undoubtedly strident advocates of "free speech.") He has been called a racist. He has been threatened with violence. He has been repeatedly denounced as an "Uncle Tom." The last slur may be most painful of all, since Connerly is black.
Committing racism n the name of ending it. Preventing speech in the name of protecting it. Sowing division in the name of unity. It's a confusing country. The words are the same. Only the meanings have changed. - Tucker Carlson
<3
mig