It Is Time To End Race/Based/Gender Based Policies Especially In Education Here is Why:

I think the time has come to end Race/Based/Gender Based policies,especially in terms of education, governments contracts for companies may need a bit more time due to lingering cronyism and ol boy networks is still in-play in some areas of the nation.
But any kind of affirmative action should be financially based on need ie economic condition not ethnicity or gender I feel the time has come, there was a time when it was very much needed because active race based discrimination in higher education was a fact, but this in my view is not really an issue today, getting Black and Hispanic kids and females to higher learning should be be in the hands of those communities. more often than not opportunities and solutions are glossed over in favor of the tried and tested which really means obsolete and stagnant.
Africans and Caribbeans are making strides in higher education out pacing their AA counter parts and even their white counter parts and this has been quietly taking place for quite a while now,in some areas of the AA communities self generated solutions have been having some amazing results, with INNER CITY POOR KIDS!! not black middle class or rich kids, but of the type some in society like to throw away, in some previous threads I mentioned Urban Prep. that consistently graduate kids at 100% and placed in colleges.

How did they do what they did??..glad you asked, by taking a no nonsense approach and a sense of higher expectations, in families that are not dysfunctional the results can be the same or even extreme.

Meet the student accepted into all eight Ivy League schools

A Nassau County whiz kid was accepted into all eight Ivy League schools — a year after another Long Island teen hit the rare academic jackpot.

Elmont Memorial High School senior Harold Ekeh boasts a grade-point average of 100.5 percent, an SAT score of 2270 and was a semifinalist for the national Intel Science Talent Search.

“My parents’ hard work and my hard work finally paid off,” Ekeh, 17, told The Post.

Ekeh now has his pick of the nation’s elite institutions of higher learning: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania — none of which accepts more than 14 percent of applicants.

He’s leaning toward Yale, where Kwasi Enin, 18, the son of Ghanaian immigrants from Mastic Beach, LI, who achieved the Ivy sweep last year, now attends.

Ekeh moved to New York from Nigeria at age 8 and wowed admissions officers with an essay about the challenges he braved while “coming to America,” he said.

“My parents left comfortable lives in Nigeria for their kids to have opportunities. So I take advantage of every single opportunity that has been afforded to me,” said Ekeh, who hopes to become a neurosurgeon.

“It was very difficult to adjust .?.?. I spoke English but with a very heavy accent. It was like, ‘What is this kid saying?’?” he continued.

In his free time, he does what most other teens his age don’t do — toiling over biochemistry experiments. His grandma’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis — and his own inspiration to find a cure for the degenerative brain disease — fueled his passion for science, he said.
Modal Trigger


The hardworking student, a salutatorian who also plays the drums, mentors and volunteers for a social-justice campaign, credited his parents, Paul and Roselin — former clerks at a Target store in Queens — for challenging him to study and do his best, “no matter how hard times got,” he said.

“No matter how many times they would get knocked down, they were always positive,” he said.
nypost.com...

The kid is not a genius born with super powers just tenacious, typically not unlike Asian parents Caribbean and African immigrant parents don't play when it comes to education you are expected to out perform your friends and even siblings , this incidentally shows it self later in economic growth within those communities.

I have never agreed with race based policies...especially in education. All this does is cause division, confusion and anger. When people ask 'race' on a questionnaire always choose OTHER and HUMAN.

Yeah, it's about time we stop telling blacks that they are not smart enough to compete with whites.

Affirmative Action is the soft bigotry of low expectations. It sends the message that we don't expect them to be able to without some preferential treatment before they even begin to try to achieve. Then there are all the messages society sends them that they can't because everything is stacked against them before they even try, so if they decide not to, they have all the excuses laid out in front of them. It's a formula with failure all over it.

I taught inner city. Those kids are kids like any others. They're just as smart and as capable, but they have a culture that doesn't expect them to do it, so they don't.

That's what you have to change, and Affirmative Action doesn't do that.

a reply to: ketsuko

There was a time like I said when it was necessary but scrapping it is long overdue.

originally posted by: Metallicus
I have never agreed with race based policies...especially in education. All this does is cause division, confusion and anger. When people ask 'race' on a questionnaire always choose OTHER and HUMAN.

Sometimes there is no real choice as other is suspect.

originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: ketsuko

There was a time like I said when it was necessary but scrapping it is long overdue.

You won't here me disagree. There are plenty of relics in society that have outlived their usefulness and need to die or evolve that have become damaging rather than helpful. Labor unions are another thing that need to undergo a change. They were useful in their time, and I see situations under which they have their usefulness still, but today's monolithic, monopolistic political vote machines are so far from their original mission its crazy.

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
Yeah, it's about time we stop telling blacks that they are not smart enough to compete with whites.

The community where Iam from there was no such advice or attitude, you were expected to come in the top five in class.
This was a carry over from the Islands, where your grades and positions were posted publicly lets say there are classes from
1-A to 1-D you wanted to be in 1-A within the top 5 not 1-D at the bottom 5, and you can be dropped or rise due to performance, coming from that attitude..pretty much beat the pants off whites kids.

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
Yeah, it's about time we stop telling blacks that they are not smart enough to compete with whites.

I know some really smart AA and they could have gone places but gang mentality kept them from success they are all dead killed by rival gangs they were criminals and died before their 40's some in their 20's. they were bright very intelligent I will never understand the why of it being white middle class

originally posted by: Spider879

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
Yeah, it's about time we stop telling blacks that they are not smart enough to compete with whites.

The community where Iam from there was no such advice or attitude, you were expected to come in the top five in class.
This was a carry over from the Islands, where your grades and positions were posted publicly lets say there are classes from
1-A to 1-D you wanted to be in 1-A within the top 5 not 1-D at the bottom 5, and you can be dropped or rise due to performance, coming from that attitude..pretty much beat the pants off whites kids.

Pretty much the opposite of my high school experience which was a private school full of mostly well off white kids. It wasn't cool to be smart, being top of the class was a mark of shame. Instead the goal was to come in with a just high enough GPA to not get kicked out of the school.


Anyways, more on topic... I don't agree with AA but I do recognize that we need to address socioeconomic factors that keep people from rising up. It just so happens that those areas are predominantly minorities.
That's not to say people didn't learn, we had a unique grading scale, 90% was a D- and you needed to maintain a 2.5 or better to not get kicked out, which would be just above a 96% (96% being the A cutoff in most schools), but no one actually tried to one up each other.

a reply to: Aazadan

Some of it is low expectations,but overall there is a sense of anti-intellectualism that is now pervasive in the general culture of U.S today,Kids have way too many distractions, some may hiss at me for saying this but I think uniforms are not a bad idea, off -course without turning everyone into proper little Nazis, but it cuts down on the distractions of fashions and wealth display , kids worry more to keep-up on who have the latest Air Jordans than book work, having a communication device while in school should be kept in your lockers,too many reasons why Johnny can't read but number one is no one expects him to,and schools are just daycare for teens and teachers merely baby sitters.
In an age where everyone have their own personal library at their finger tips yet are the dumbest and clueless I have yet seen, kids like competing,but some think it's a bad idea because some will lose out and be shamed..I say tough try harder and even if you don't make top dog I'll guarantee that you will be better for it.
Sorry but American Kids are just not hungry, yes Iam painting with a broad brush, but there are 3rd and 2nd world kids who could run circles around the average American kid given the same resources.

I am generally pretty conservative, but I support affirmative action. My hope is that one day it won't be needed, but I don't think we are quite at the point. Full disclaimer, I am black and probably have benefitted from affirmative action policies to some degree which is why I support it because I have seen the benefits personally. I used to be against it, but I have seen how it has opened doors to me that probably would have been shut otherwise.

I understand why some people think AA isn't fair. However, I also think these people don't really understand affirmative action and they also are hypocritical in their opposition. The same people complaining about schools giving qualified blacks a shot at furthering their education don't have anything to say about those same schools using illiterate black athletes to play sports. It is a problem when a kid wants to further his education but not a problem as long as we dribble a basketball.

I don't have time right now, but I'll go into detail later for the reasoning behind my support.

a reply to: Edumakated

Greetings Edumakated, well I am opposite I am an unabashedly progressive or Lib, I am not sure how old you are but today especially for education there is no barrier set for admissions, so the problem lays else where ,perhaps and most likely in preparations for higher learning, and that's where community comes in, the communities have to take the lead and make this a priority they can take lessons learned from urban prep or others and multiply that across the board, and what sense does it make for a middle class kid to get affirmative action admittance , if anything it should be economic based but with the same standard admittance just that financial help is available, now I cannot say for other forms of affirmative actions like say the Ferguson police dept, in a city that's 67% Black and only 3 cops out of 54 are Black, that the government of that town only had two black members, so that tells me something is off, but it also tell me that the community wasn't involved in playing any role in that city, meaning they do not vote and were so apathetic as to allowed themselves to be steamrolled by folks who had no interest in them.
You know what happens when folks take charge of their communities they don't get pushed around as much, now as we are talking about education there is no reason institutions like churches should not take an active role preparing young folks for higher learning, and no I am no fan of religious institutions but right now they are the best placed to do that faster given the fact that most Black folks are church goers especially in the south.
Affirmative action in education did it's job and opened doors it is now the job of traditionally disadvantaged kids to walk through it.

originally posted by: ChesterJohn

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
Yeah, it's about time we stop telling blacks that they are not smart enough to compete with whites.

I know some really smart AA and they could have gone places but gang mentality kept them from success they are all dead killed by rival gangs they were criminals and died before their 40's some in their 20's. they were bright very intelligent I will never understand the why of it being white middle class

When I was teaching, it was called "acting white" to try to succeed and excel at school instead of hanging out with the guys and trying to either be a basketball star or a rapper. Of course, most of them wound up in the gangs because that's what the guys did for the most part.

a reply to: Edumakated

I don't know, but I think there are fewer illiterate blacks in sports than you think.

I was also a collegiate athlete at an NCAA Div I power five conference school, and I was the minority on the team being white. I was not aware of any illiterates. Were there kids who came out of tough situations? Yep, but all of them were also at least minimally academically capable, too. That's because the genuinely talented are usually pulled out of the most low-functioning schools by the top preps and given scholarships in high school.

Those preps are often doing the heavy lifting. And then, if the kid still has issues, there are the JUCOs who also do a lot of catching kids up, but the JUCOs are the places where a lot of academically deficient kids go before attempting university, not just athletes.

And as far as hand-holding in the athletic programs ... yep, but I was an academic scholarship student too, and I got my hand held, same as anyone else. The school makes a heavy investment in an athlete, so they take care of you.

I actually agree with this thread. I think the education system is the least bigoted of all the other institutions in the country and could be one of the first to abandon affirmative action laws. I wouldn't suggest getting rid of them all at once, because that would be too chaotic, but slowly phasing them out one at a time could work.

They key to AA laws is to root out institutionalized racism and if anything this has been most successful in education than anywhere else.

originally posted by: Spider879
Some of it is low expectations,but overall there is a sense of anti-intellectualism that is now pervasive in the general culture of U.S today,Kids have way too many distractions, some may hiss at me for saying this but I think uniforms are not a bad idea, off -course without turning everyone into proper little Nazis, but it cuts down on the distractions of fashions and wealth display , kids worry more to keep-up on who have the latest Air Jordans than book work, having a communication device while in school should be kept in your lockers,too many reasons why Johnny can't read but number one is no one expects him to,and schools are just daycare for teens and teachers merely baby sitters.

I'm a fan of uniforms. I had to wear them in high school, want to know what the worst side effect of them was? To this day, more than a decade later I still wear polo shirts and khaki pants like I had to for my uniform. Such a shame...

Sorry but American Kids are just not hungry, yes Iam painting with a broad brush, but there are 3rd and 2nd world kids who could run circles around the average American kid given the same resources.

This is probably true. American kids don't really have any drive. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, look at the Finland system for example it has excellent results with a low pressure environment. But the US has tried to take more of an Asian approach without the high pressure behind it and as a result we're failing academically.

originally posted by: ketsuko
I was also a collegiate athlete at an NCAA Div I power five conference school, and I was the minority on the team being white. I was not aware of any illiterates. Were there kids who came out of tough situations? Yep, but all of them were also at least minimally academically capable, too. That's because the genuinely talented are usually pulled out of the most low-functioning schools by the top preps and given scholarships in high school.

College athletes have been shown time and again to be given easier majors and in the bigger grossing sports classes that are easy A's to boost GPA.

originally posted by: ketsuko
When I was teaching, it was called "acting white" to try to succeed and excel at school instead of hanging out with the guys and trying to either be a basketball star or a rapper. Of course, most of them wound up in the gangs because that's what the guys did for the most part.

It isn't only whites telling blacks that they are not smart enough, a lot of it comes from blacks.
I used to work with a black engineer. He told me that he had to move his family out of where he grew up. Too many people telling him that he was getting too white or that he had sold out his race.

originally posted by: JIMC5499

originally posted by: ketsuko
When I was teaching, it was called "acting white" to try to succeed and excel at school instead of hanging out with the guys and trying to either be a basketball star or a rapper. Of course, most of them wound up in the gangs because that's what the guys did for the most part.

It isn't only whites telling blacks that they are not smart enough, a lot of it comes from blacks.
I used to work with a black engineer. He told me that he had to move his family out of where he grew up. Too many people telling him that he was getting too white or that he had sold out his race.

Yes but that's the most insipid part of racism getting people to believe and accepting racist stereotype against themselves.

Below is something to ponder.
Black America Is Less Homogenous Than You Think

In recent years, the dynamic between native and foreign-born blacks has been thrust to the surface of America’s cultural and policy conversations. A 2004 Princeton study found that immigrants accounted for more than a quarter of black students at America’s Ivy League schools. That led some to question the relevance of affirmative action policies, which were originally intended to help bring talented members of historically marginalized groups into many institutions of American society. In 2007, Lani Guinier, a professor at Harvard Law School, famously theorized about why in The Washington Post: “It has to do with coming from a country, especially those educated in Caribbean and African countries, where blacks were in the majority and did not experience the stigma that black children did in the United States.” What Guinier and other black Harvard professors later argued was that affirmative action policies were not helping America’s most disadvantaged blacks—those who were the direct descendants of American slaves—access the country’s most prestigious colleges.
news.yahoo.com...
www.pewsocialtrends.org...

The highlighted part call it confirmation bias but it definitely reflect my experience and out look.