Race as a Factor in College Admissions/AA and MLK - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

retsuki03 · 03-09-2005, 02:32 AM

I was thinking to myself: Would MLK support Race as a Factor in College Admissions given he said, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." He also said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'"

I don't think AA squares with these ideas. Also, as many of you probably could guess, I think preferential treatment based on race is wrong. I think treating others differently based on the pigment of their skin creates a society with people "more equal" than others.

Your thoughts?

EDIT: grammar!

Seaver · 03-09-2005, 07:52 AM

You're not going to be finding any argument with me.

It's funny that people use racism today and verify it with racism of the past like that flies in most people's eyes.

Manx · 03-09-2005, 07:55 AM

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=81873

That is where you will find detailed opinions on the topic of AA. The discussion is only 3 weeks old.

ScottKuma · 03-09-2005, 07:55 AM

I think that MLK would spin in his grave were he to see what's going on today in the name of racial "equality".

NCB · 03-09-2005, 08:03 AM

I think he would disapprove of it now in the 21st century. However, AA and race based considerations for college were a necessity 40 years ago.

roachboy · 03-09-2005, 10:05 AM

now *this* is a topic on which my patience with the inverted world of conservative ideology is simply nil....the positions were laid out in the thread anx posted above, so i'll simply refer folk there as well.

sob · 03-09-2005, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by retsuki03

Your thoughts?

See if you can figure out my position from my signature.

matthew330 · 03-09-2005, 08:51 PM

..and this: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.", my friends, is the "inverted world of conservative ideology."

smooth · 03-09-2005, 09:34 PM

It wasn't too hard for me to type "Martin luther king" and "affirmative action" into google.

Quote:

Recasting MLK as an Affirmative Action Opponent

Paul Rockwell
Paul Rockwell, The Right Has a Dream: Martin Luther King as an Opponent of Affirmative Action, (May/June 1995)

In the last years of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life, many mainstream journalists and conservative politicians treated him with fear and derision. In 1967, Life magazine (4/21/67) dubbed King's prophetic anti";war address "demagogic slander" and "a script for Radio Hanoi." Even years later, Ronald Reagan described King as a near";Communist.

Today, however, a miracle is taking place: Suddenly, King is a conservative. By virtue of a snippit from one 1963 address"a single phrase about "the content of our character""King is the most oft";quoted opponent of affirmative action in America today.

"Martin Luther King, in my view, was a conservative," right";wing media critic David Horowitz declared on Crossfire (9/5/94), "because he stood up for, you know, belief in the content of your character"the value that conservatives defend today."

In the Washington Post (4/26/91), Charles Krauthammer pitted King against diversity. Progressives, he writes, "have traded King's dream for something called diversity.... It is the opponents of race";conscious public policy who today speak in the name of values that King championed."

The National Review (3/20/95) trashed affirmative action with a cover story depicting a black kid, a kid with a Mexican sombrero, and a white girl happily climbing ladders, while two white boys fall down "the slippery slope of quotas." The lead of the article: "The civil";rights movement has strayed far from the color";blind principles of Martin Luther King, Jr."

Politicians have been picking up on this rhetoric to justify rolling back civil rights legislation. When Gov. Mike Foster of Lousiana signed an executive order on Jan. 11 to abolish affirmative action, he presented the act as a fulfillment of King's dream. "I can't find anywhere in King's writings," Foster was quoted in the New York Times (1/12/96), "that King wanted reverse discrimination. He just wanted to end all discrimination based on color."

In To Renew America, Newt Gingrich praised King as an individualist who opposed "group rights." And in promoting the "California Civil Rights Initiative," a ballot measure that would ban all state affirmative action, Gov. Pete Wilson invokes King's name more than preachers quote the Bible. Backers of the initiative show no fear of media accountability as they claim King as one of their own.
Setting the record straight

The exploitation of King's name, the distortion of his teachings for political gain, is an ugly development. The term "affirmative action" did not come into currency until after King's death "but it was King himself, as chair of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who initiated the first successful national affirmative action campaign: "Operation Breadbasket."

In Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago and other cities, King staffers gathered data on the hiring patterns of corporations doing business in black communities, and called on companies to rectify disparities. "At present, SCLC has Operation Breadbasket functioning in some 12 cities, and the results have been remarkable," King wrote (quoted in Testament of Hope, James Washington, ed.), boasting of "800 new and upgraded jobs [and] several covenants with major industries."

King was well aware of the arguments used against affirmative action policies. As far back as 1964, he was writing in Why We Can't Wait: "Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic."

King supported affirmative action";type programs because he never confused the dream with American reality. As he put it, "A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro" to compete on a just and equal basis (quoted in Let the Trumpet Sound, by Stephen Oates).

In a 1965 Playboy interview, King compared affirmative action";style policies to the GI Bill: "Within common law we have ample precedents for special compensatory programs.... And you will remember that America adopted a policy of special treatment for her millions of veterans after the war."

In King's teachings, affirmative action approaches were not "reverse discrimination" or "racial preference." King promoted affirmative action not as preference for race over race (or gender over gender), but as a preference for inclusion, for equal oportunity, for real democracy. Nor was King's integration punitive: For him, integration benefited all Americans, male and female, white and non";white alike. And contrary to Gingrich, King insisted that, along with individual efforts, collective problems require collective solutions.

Like Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, King viewed affirmative action as a means to achieving a truly egalitarian and color";blind society. To destroy the means, the gradual process by which equality is achieved, destroys the dream itself. And the use of King's name in this enterprise only adds derision to destruction.

Paul Rockwell is a librarian, media activist and writer living in Oakland.

---http://academic.udayton.edu/race/04needs/affirm25.htm

retsuki03 · 03-10-2005, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smooth

It wasn't too hard for me to type "Martin luther king" and "affirmative action" into google.

Thank you for finding Paul Rockwell's thoughts. Perhaps I should clarify what I am after here. I am not asking whether or not MLK would be a proponent of AA, just whether or not the ideas of the speech are agreeable to AA. Can you explain how AA squares with the ideas in MLK's speech? Your thoughts please.

Also, a general question to all:
If you would say that AA was more justifiable then than now, when is it time for AA to end?

And a special thanks to sob (son of a bitch?). Way to work out those frustrations. Please, tell me how you really feel.

martinguerre · 03-10-2005, 12:17 AM

the words of the speech? they indicated that there needed to be a hell of a lot of changes...if AA fits the bill, that i'll leave open. but as smooth posted, taking those words to the exclusion of the broader message is pissing on a great man's grave.

03-09-2005, 02:32 AM	#1 (permalink)
retsuki03 Crazy Location: Austin, TX	Race as a Factor in College Admissions/AA and MLK I was thinking to myself: Would MLK support Race as a Factor in College Admissions given he said, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." He also said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'" I don't think AA squares with these ideas. Also, as many of you probably could guess, I think preferential treatment based on race is wrong. I think treating others differently based on the pigment of their skin creates a society with people "more equal" than others. Your thoughts? EDIT: grammar! Last edited by retsuki03; 03-10-2005 at 12:04 AM..

03-09-2005, 07:55 AM	#3 (permalink)
Manx Loser	http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=81873 That is where you will find detailed opinions on the topic of AA. The discussion is only 3 weeks old. Last edited by Manx; 03-09-2005 at 07:59 AM..

03-09-2005, 07:55 AM	#4 (permalink)
ScottKuma Insane Location: Maineville, OH	I think that MLK would spin in his grave were he to see what's going on today in the name of racial "equality". __________________ A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take from you everything you have. -Gerald R. Ford GoogleMap Me

03-09-2005, 10:05 AM	#6 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	now this is a topic on which my patience with the inverted world of conservative ideology is simply nil....the positions were laid out in the thread anx posted above, so i'll simply refer folk there as well. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-10-2005, 12:17 AM	#11 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	the words of the speech? they indicated that there needed to be a hell of a lot of changes...if AA fits the bill, that i'll leave open. but as smooth posted, taking those words to the exclusion of the broader message is pissing on a great man's grave. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16 Last edited by martinguerre; 03-10-2005 at 12:27 AM..

03-09-2005, 07:52 AM	#2 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	You're not going to be finding any argument with me. It's funny that people use racism today and verify it with racism of the past like that flies in most people's eyes.

03-09-2005, 08:03 AM	#5 (permalink)
NCB Junkie Location: Tobacco Road	I think he would disapprove of it now in the 21st century. However, AA and race based considerations for college were a necessity 40 years ago.

03-09-2005, 08:51 PM	#8 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	..and this: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.", my friends, is the "inverted world of conservative ideology."