Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Obama's election should bring an end to Affirmative Action

Cynthetiq · 11-30-2008, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

cyn....I am still interested in your thoughts on a meritocracy based on the questions I raised earlier:

Is the college admission system based on a meritocracy?.....when according to the preponderance of studies on the subject, standardized admission tests may have a bias against minorities?....or when legacy admissions are given to kids whose parents or grand parents attended the university? or that affluent white kids are more likely to be able to afford pre-test tutorials, with sample questions from previous tests and buy the opportunity to achieve a higher score?

Is it a meritocracy when white small business owners are more likely to get loans at better rates than minority small business owners? (see post #44).

Regarding women and AA....before Title 9 (an AA program) provided some level of equity in athletic scholarships, was it a meritocracy that boy soccer players or swimmers or tennis players or golfers had access to full athletic scholarships and girl soccer players or swimmers or golfers did not?

BTW, Larry Elder has often said he benefited from AA.
-----Added 30/11/2008 at 03 : 01 : 39-----
Here is example on another issue....disparity in prison sentencing and the criminal justice system based on race.

Generally, a state issue; this is from the Wisconsin State Sentencing Commission, but similar results can be found in many states:

While other factors (such as access to expensive, top quality legal counsel as opposed to inexperienced public defenders) may influence sentencing, should the racial factor be ignored?

No it isn't and wasn't based on meritocracy... when I didn't get into a UC school because a black student was black and had lower scores than I did.

The article I quoted states that it isn't in the current fashion.

As far as testing materials is concerned. Parents make sacrifices. How is it that immigrant parents seem to have values where education is important and their don't buy a bunch of namebrand crap?

How is it that immigrants learn how to game the system AS IT IS? They too many know know the bow of the ship, but they LEARN what the requirements are and learn how to participate within those confines. Yet, the black community continues to decry being educated as being a bad thing.

Now this article by a gentleman from Nassau writes it up better than I can. Why can't the group take care of themselves as others have?

Quote:

View: Black people and black crab syndrome
Source: Thenassauguardian
posted with the TFP thread generator

Black people and black crab syndrome
Black people and black crab syndrome
Craig F. Butler

by Craig F. Butler

We as black people are our own greatest enemy. How many times have we heard one another use references such as, boy you have good hair, or look at her with her picky head, blackus or our most popular phrase now nigger.

With this we seek to denigrate the other whilst appearing to be superior. What we fail to realize is that we do our race a disservice, by pulling everyone down just as the caged black crabs do. This is not totally our fault though, for we as a people have been indoctrinated into this. The following is taken from an address by Willie Lynch, a British slave owner delivered in 1712 on the banks of the James River. His plantation was in the West Indies but Lynch was teaching American slave owners how to control their slave population. The tragedy is how well it worked and still works today.

"Gentlemen, I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies where I have experimented with some of the newest and still the oldest methods of control of slaves. Ancient Rome would envy us if my program were implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish. I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of wood as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers you are here using the tree and the rope on occasion.

I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree a couple of miles back. You are not only losing a valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed. Gentlemen, you know what your problems are: I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I have a fool proof method for controlling your Black slaves. I guarantee everyone of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least 300 years. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it.

I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves: and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences, and think about them. On top of my list is "Age", but it there only because it starts with an "A": the second is "Color" or shade, there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, status on plantation, attitude of owners, whether the slave live in the valley, on the hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, coarse hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of

supreme vision, differences I shall give you an outline of action-but before that I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust and envy is stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration.

The Black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self refueling and self generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Don't forget you must pitch the old Black male vs. the young Black male, and the young Black male against the old Black male. You must use the dark skin slaves vs. the light skin slaves and the light skin slaves vs. the dark skin slaves. You must use the female vs. the male, and the male vs. the female. You must also have your white servants and overseers distrust all Blacks, but it is necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us. They must love, respect and trust only us. Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful. Thank you, gentlemen."

The word 'lynching' is derived from Lynch's name. Indeed he was a man with a supreme vision.

I find it amazing that we as a race are still plagued with this doctrine. And it is the whole race that suffers. The notable exception that comes to mind is the Haitians. Probably because they were able to defeat their slave owners and gain independence before any other black people. To some extent the Maroons of Jamaica also are free of the brain washing.

What is the solution? I wish I had an easy and quick answer. One thing is clear we must learn to work together. Not in the sense that we seek to promote racism, but only that we seek to help in the economic empowerment of the black people.

Former basketball great Ervin 'Magic' Johnson has understood this, and has built an empire on supplying the inner city. The Chinese who migrate here and in other countries have also clearly understood this as well, as the majority of their businesses can always be found in the inner cities. It is only us as black people who fail to develop our

own inner cities, and when some of the brave souls make an attempt their businesses are shunned or robbed far too often. The same thing with riots; remember Los Angles after the Rodney King verdict, the black people destroyed their own, not Rodeo Drive or Beverly Hills but South Central.

The other day I was speaking to some corner dwellers, the young men who hang out on the corner all day long rather than work, and I was told by them that they rather sell drugs because they will make more money that way, or rob, as there was profit in it.

The stark truth is that they are correct. Our educational system has let them graduate or at least leave school with the expectation that they could do a job when in reality they could barely read and write. The only jobs available will be of the minimum wage variety and that would not do when they have grown up with the drug dealer as their model. So that young soul who wants all the fine things in life without any of the requisite sacrifices will resort to what he knows, a life of sloth, crime, imprisonment and possibly an early death.

One solution is that we must not be afraid to disappoint the youth. In that way they will learn that nothing is easy. Schools must not be afraid to make a student repeat even if that person does not leave until 25. Positive examples must be portrayed at every opportunity, therefore the struggles of the black Bahamian, along with other Black giants such as Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to name but a few, must become a part of the core curriculum. Inappropriate behavior should be dealt with at an early age; if it is allowed to fester it will lead to an even greater problem in the future.

Most importantly the idea that we as Black people, regardless of where we come from Lyford Cay or the ghetto, are worthless or second class must end. Replaced with the notion that we can achieve anything we want if we are prepared to work for it. And of equal importance we must not teach the black youth to fear or hate White people.