Once again, I find myself paralysed by being able to see both sides of the issue.
First, my gripe with affirmative action: I was the dux (Americans read: valedictorian) of my high school, and I was kind of hoping for a scholarship at uni (They're pretty rare here, and usually only offered academically; there's no such thing as a sporting scholarship). There were 19 scholarships available to undergrads in my course. 5 of them are gone because none of my family have ever fought in a war. Those I can deal with not getting; these guys fought to defend my country (in theory), so they deserve it. Another 3 go to 'rural' students, those who live outside the city (and believe me, outside Perth gets pretty damned rural in some places). Those I can also deal with not having. They need the help living alone in the big smoke.
But then, of those 11 scholarships, I lose 3 because I am not Aboriginal and 7 because, in Engineering, I am not female. Leaves me with one scholarship out of 19 that I'm even eligible for. Needless to say, I'm not happy that a less qualified chick took a scholarship I could really have used.
There is also a big shitstorm in Australia at the moment over students getting into uni on grounds other than academic merit, but I'll leave that for another time.
The other side of the story: The Aboriginal population over here is widely viewed as very uneducated, and unless we can get some real role models running around being smart, sophisticated, successful Aboriginals, we're going to have a lot of trouble getting rid of those stereotypes. It's a shame that talented kids have to lose their places at uni because of it, but we really, really need to improve the lot of Aboriginals around here, and for a few years, that'll mean giving them a leg-up to a better education. Once they get some kind of equality, then we can get rid of affirmative action. But as long as Aboriginal kids aren't getting into uni, often more because of their home lives and inadequate schooling than any lack of talent, we need to try and even things up.
But again, on the flip side of that, I'm not sure I want the reputation of my uni being dragged down by a few substandard students who are ushered through the system, and affirmative action doesn't exactly breed goodwill.
But then again...anyone heard of Pauline Hanson? That's what happens when you speak out against AA in Australia.
Oh, before I go, I'd like to check something in filtherton's quote:
Quote:
Originally posted by filtherton
despite the fact that minneapolis police were more likely to find contraband during discretionary searches of white drives than any other race/ethnicity.
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Lies, Damn Lies, and...
The rest of the report seems to draw its conclusions through reasonable processes, and even acknowledges the fact that there are a thousand and one hidden factors in every such survey. But I can't accept this claim. If officers are conducting searches on a basis of racial profiling, then let's say they are searching 50% of the Black drivers they pull over, and only 15% of the white ones. We agree that they're mainly searching the black drivers because they are black. So they need some other motivation to search the white drivers; they're only searching the drivers they really think have contraband in the car (on basis, presumably, of glazed eyes, Hendrix music, and empty coke bottles on the floor), so of course they're more likely to find contraband in those cars.
Either the officers are racially profiling,
or white drivers carry more contraband. You can't draw both conclusions from the same statistic.