[FEDERALIST] If We’re Going To Have A Racial Double Standard It Should Be About Black Americans Only

You just liked the post quoting my post as being "pretty much it" on affirmative action. Same post you are criticizing. So, while it is always possible that I am ignorant, I don't understand your response. I promise I'm not trying to be willfully ignorant.

I am asking a (I hope) legitimate question, not attacking you or your opinion. I can see if you interpret "dominant" as being an indictment of entire community that it could be racist. But, I thought poster (who I know you don't agree with on his ultimate conclusion) was making a legitimate point that there are forces in some neighborhoods (socioeconomic may be more accurate than race based) that serve as a barrier to advancement. Hence, the need for affirmative action. I really didn't read his post as racist.

 

I also understand that BTG does not support affirmative action. But, one of his points in here is whether Harvard is actually engaged in affirmative action or simply denying it while doing it. So, one argument (leaving legality aside) is whether Harvard is actively engaged in AA. Another one is whether it is justified given the barriers some communities have just to compete on an equal basis for real "equal opportunity."

I understand the need for affirmative action. I think how far it goes, how long it should last are tough issues.

None of that seems to inform the issue of whether BTG's post was racist. I didn't read it as racist. I read it as a potentially inadvertent justification for AA.

 

I'm not sure who you are responding to since I probably have them blocked, but I just wanted to chime in to point out that while I am against AA, because I am against using race, sex, ethnicity, religion or any other similar class as a basis for employment or enrollment, but in this case my opposition has nothing to do with AA since white people benefit the most from discrimination against Asians when it comes to college admissions. I don't believe in racial discrimination in any instance, be it AA or a situation like at Harvard where there is evidence of racial discrimination against Asian students.

 

Understood. Maybe I'm conflating affirmative action with anything that gives an advantage to one race over another.

On another note, I don't have anyone blocked and read this entire string. Some personal attacks aside, I thought the major contributors on both sides of the issue on this thread provided some high quality debate on a sensitive issue. My assumption is that y'all don't see it that way because of the apparent level of your disagreement.

However, all bs aside, I was entertained and challenged by many of the points made on both sides. Much better than the usual arguments find elsewhere over sensitive issues these days.

 

To me it highlights why it is so difficult for the left to make any grounds on issues today. And why the 2016 election backfired on liberals. They will get aggressive and attack anyone who doesn't suit their narrative, alienate large groups of people as hateful, racist, white supremacists, instead of calmly talking about fact based issues. They don't have the poise to engage in rational discussions, and it hurts them.

 

You've never lived in a conservative right wing bubble have you?

It speaks volumes that you tout such a overplayed trope based off of one poster.

I could literally copy and paste your paragraph and replace "hateful, racist, white supremacists, instead of calmly talking about fact based issues" with "unAmerican, terrorist sympathzers, open border lovers, communists instead of calmly talking about fact based issues".

The "I was called racist over the interent so I decided to elect the most unqualified shithead of all time to manage the world's largest bureaucracy and command the world's most powerful military" excuse can only be repeated so much before people see through the fake bullshit. That phrase of yours gets repeated on sites like Reddit non stop by bots. No one is buying that argument anymore.

How soon do people forget that before even "liberals" came into picture, the current shithead beat 16 signficantly more qualified individuals in their own primary. The GOP base was already radicalized from a decades' worth of Fox News, Facebook memes, and hyperpartisan sites like Breitbart along with the circle jerk of many conservative towns and rural regions where diveristy of opinion is a foreign concept.

 

Yawn... I am not a Trump fan and the GOP has needed radical modernization - that's why an outsider like Trump could blow through their candidates. My issue is with liberals letting their emotions control them instead of rational thought. IN a way, it's no different to the racists struggling economically in Hicksville Arizona who don't want outsiders that you make fun of. You'll start making death threats over illegal criminals being seperated from their kids at the border, but have no issue when meth heads are separated from their kids. Or homeless do heroin and defecate in the streets of SF. Need to clean up your own house before making a living of playing the victim.

 

Who is this "you"? And why are they doing death threats?

This whataboism of "if you care about this you should be vocal about every issue in existence" is a tired trope that has no tangible way of being executed and every red blooded human is guilty of.

Btw, liberals are the ones who are more vocal about criminal justice reform and limiting prison sentences for non violent offenses so even then I honestly don't see where your point reflects reality or has any value.

And stop moving goal posts. At first it's the "liberal" fault that Trump was elected and then I point out how Trump beat 16 Republicans and now it's "the GOP needed modernization".

Trump won because of our ability as modern humans to use technology to live in closed information bubbles that conform our preconcieved biases. People with bad preconcieved biases have their biases reinforced to an extraordinary level.

 

[QUOTE="fchowd0311, post: 11933812, member: 46089"



Trump won because of our ability as modern humans to use technology to live in closed information bubbles that conform our preconcieved biases. People with bad preconcieved biases have their biases reinforced to an extraordinary level.[/QUOTE]

I don't know if that is the only reason Trump won. But I do agree with your last point. I think it applies equally to the more radical members of each party.

 

I don't know if that is the only reason Trump won. But I do agree with your last point. I think it applies equally to the more radical members of each party.[/QUOTE]

 

I would argue that the primary reason Trump won was due to the DNC running just about the worst possible candidate against him. When you run a person who had terrible national likability numbers....and has since the mid-90's who runs a campaign where she demonizes anyone who doesn't support her as a "deplorable" person....I mean it's hard to not see why that person failed to get support. People started out not liking her, even within her own party and she did nothing at all to change that. She was merely hoping that not being Trump would be enough to get people to vote for her and her campaign led to the Democrats losing states in that presidential election that they hadn't lost since California last went Republican in a presidential election....

You don't get that merely from people living in bubbles having their biases' confirmed. You don't get blue states turning red by confirmation bias, you get it by a "blue" candidate being more repulsive than the repulsive "red" candidate.

 

actually Blue disctricts from the prevopre election that turned red didn't occur from indovidal people changing their mind but rather voter turnout out reasons and specefic groups being more motivated due to rhetoric they feed through their news bubble.

 

I want to point out that here in Texas there are good charter schools, average charter schools, and lousy charter schools. I have seen nothing to indicate charter schools have an inherently better outcome for the student than public schools. They both depend on so many factors. The budget they have to work with plays a huge part and those budgets very tremendously. The quality of the district and the school's administration has its own impact on a host of things. The area the school is in plays a very big part, for both public and charter schools, except that charter schools, as has been pointed out, can attempt to "weed out" the students that are more of a challenge to teach. They can pick the area they want to serve. Public schools cannot. I could go one, but life beckons. My significant other was in charge of a major review of both public and charter schools in Texas while with the state. I heard all about it from her.

Again, there is nothing inherently better about charter schools. I will agree with you that the quality of your parents can and does play a huge role in how well a student does. That's true if they are the parents of a poor child, or parents who are highly educated and/or better off financially (that doesn't always jive together). You can have god-awful parents who are highly educated and financially well off. You've likely seen some of those yourself.

I was lucky. My parents grew up and came of age during the Great Depression and WWII. The Depression gave them both the ambition and drive to build a better life for their kids than they experienced themselves. WWII gave my father the chance to go to college on the GI Bill, that government program that is such a great example of intelligent governance, and that today would probably be labeled "socialism," and that term used in a very negative way by those who shout, "Fake News!" (while relishing using "Fake News" themselves).

The same government program let them purchase our first house. My father became a university professor while working 3 jobs, one of them as an instructor at his college, while participating in raising 2 kids and supporting my mother as well, a genuine American housewife, a very endangered species, and thank goodness. My mother was a highly intelligent and self-educated woman who could have been anything had she gone to college instead of raising us.

Society back then, particularly White society, expected women of a certain social standing to stay home and take care of the kids, cook the meals, clean the house. As Dad rose in importance at the university, she was expected to play that role, going to faculty dances, attending and giving parties, etc., etc.. B-Bob probably knows a little about that. Perhaps not the racism that was taken for granted during the 1940's, '50's and well into the '60's at universities in Texas (since Texas is where most of us are), as well as in the public schools across the state. Racism that dictated where a student went to school, how good the school was, and it very evident in the university setting that existed during that period. My father hired one of the first 2 Black faculty members at his school the year it was allowed. Maybe "allowed" is the wrong word. A couple of people in administration had the guts to do it (like my father) and dared those above them to stop it. They didn't. So change happens. It can be incredibly, frustratingly slow, but it happens. Those who support progressive change, and not turning back the clock to an era more myth than reality, need to get and stay politically involved. In my humble opinion.

Sorry if this is a little long, but I enjoyed writing it.

 

Criminals are not equivalent. I support deporting every illegal immigrant but I'll take my chances 10 out of 10 times with an illegal immigrant over a meth head. Where do you come up with these dopey analogies? Jesus.