That seems very important! Let's read:
When affirmative action was put into practice around a half-century ago, with legalized segregation so recent, it was reasonable to think of being Black as a shorthand for being disadvantaged, whatever a Black person’s socioeconomic status was.... I think a mature America is now in a position to extend the moral sophistication of affirmative action to disadvantaged people of all races or ethnicities, especially since, as a whole, Black America would still benefit substantially....
Whether we're mature or not, the legal basis for upholding affirmative action in the higher education admissions process has been "diversity." And McWhorter attacks this concept. For one thing, his own children have led an upper-middle-class, privileged life.
And I will never forget a line from a guidebook that Black students at Harvard wrote two decades ago: “We are not here to provide diversity training for Kate and Timmy.”...
“Diversity” has become one of those terms (and ideas) that makes us feel cozy inside, like freshly baked blueberry muffins and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” But how would you feel about looking a Black undergraduate in the eye and saying, “A lot of the reason we wanted you here, on our campus, is your differences from most of the other students and the life lessons they can learn from them”?
Someone says, “I want my kids to interact with Black students before they go out into the world.” I ask, “Just what was it about Black people that you were hoping your kids would learn?”
Yes, it's quite clear — if you look straight at it — that the diversity rationale for affirmative action is about the benefit to the whole student body, that is, to the mostly white students who are admitted. The black students are used as a means to an end, and the end is something quite vague and — as McWhorter demonstrates — actually embarrassing to say clearly.
He ends with this question:
How would you feel about your kids being admitted to a university because of their “diverseness” from other kids rather than, well, their selves?
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61 comments:
Don't say it out loud. It's embarrassing.
Anyway, carry on.
McWhorter has caught up to where Clarence Thomas has already been for decades.
Yeah. A remedy is supposed to fix something. It’s inherently finite.
And while you’re at it, consider reading Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele (use the Althouse Amazon portal) and find a way to watch “What Killed Michael Brown” written and narrated by his twin brother Shelby.
When they look back on this time, John McWhorter will come out looking very very good.
You don't have to be a preacher to be doing God's work. Like so many other things, affirmative action is subject to Stein's Law. I'll be eagerly awaiting his discussion of all this with Glenn Loury soon enough.
RE: "How would you feel about your kids being admitted to a university because of their “diverseness” from other kids rather than, well, their selves?"
I'd guess plenty of LAX parents, to pick a demographic nearly at random, would paraphrase the late, great Al Davis and say "Just get in, baby!".
Based on the recent admissions scandals, I'd say there are plenty of parents out there focusing on the end without vexing themselves about the means.
“Just what was it about Black people that you were hoping your kids would learn?”
Don't be alone in a place with a group of blacks that you do not know
How would you feel about your kids being admitted to a university because of their “diverseness” from other kids rather than, well, their selves?
Imagine how your kids will feel when EVERY Person they meet at their uni outperforms them
Well, Not EVERY Person... There will be other blacks there too.
Other blacks that will teach them Hatred both towards whites and towards themselves
Good Deal!!
Oh, AND your child will either flunk out, or drop out... With a HUGE student loan debt
It's about time.
How would you feel about your kids being admitted to a university because of their “diverseness” from other kids rather than, well, their selves
He didn’t stick the landing. Every university admissions office believes in the goal of a diverse student body to create a richer learning environment, doesn’t it? Nothing wrong with that IMO but stop using race as a factor of diversity…
Related: Indians want to be able to have Indian sports mascots, er, "culturally appropriate Native American names, logos, and imagery [which] serve to honor Native Americans".
10th Circuit Denies Native American Request To Halt Colorado “Mascot” Ban Pending Appeal
A crack in the wall? Guess we'll find out soon enough.
I think it is quite clear that being black is an advantage now in society. There was a time when if you were a light skinned mix race person, you would try to “pass” as white because it benefitted you. Now, if you are a light skinned mix race person you publicly identify as black because it benefits you. We’ve had 3 generation of affirmative action and if it hasn’t fixed a perceived problem yet, either the problem does not exist or it’s the wrong tool.
Why would McWhorter's questions be a surprise now? Weren't they perfectly obvious half a century ago?
McWhorter and Loury don't yet buy that dignity comes from what you do for others. They're worried it's still not being shown to blacks, and are finding several ways that blacks are being pandered to, which views are not politically correct (good for them!); but still the dignity for blacks they seek comes from what blacks do for others, and does so regardless how others treat blacks.
My feelings are hurt, is not an adult winner.
Heretic! Burn him! Seriously, it is a welcome statement. Unfortunately, McWhorter stopped short of the final reason to oppose affirmative action - it actually hurts many of its beneficiaries. AA admits dropout at higher rates than similarly qualified students who attend less rigorous programs. For example, a black student who is academically similar to the typical student at Penn State but who is admitted to an ivy based on AA is much more likely to drop out of the ivy than if he went to Penn State. I believe this phenomenon has been termed "the mismatch problem."
Looking at it this way one can see that AA serves the purposes McWhorter points out (alleviating white guilt) at the expense of the black students.
Consider too that what Harvard is actually doing is restricting its Asian population so as to leave room for more white students. What's "diverse" about that?
As James Baldwin famously said, "I want to be an honest man and a good writer." Honesty takes John McWhorter into a a place of danger--but it always does, doesn't it?
What cultural benefits are derived from sitting next to Malia or Sasha Obama at college? UC Lab School? Sidley Friends School? Daddy is POTUS? Hmmm...maybe some social climbing for Kate and Timmy.
White guilt wasn't worth much until some people found a way to heat their house with it. When that happened, it became much more useful to drill. To cut a labored metaphor short, we have been fracking the guilt out now for some period of time (CRT being the fracking mechanism), and the shale is going dry with alarming rapidity.
Then what? When will BLM petition for their depletion allowance? Asians are showing that achievement burns longer and stronger than another group's guilt. Harvard is doing what it can to hold the wall up against the tide of reason.
Can this last forever?
"There could be something wrong with me because I see Negroes neither better nor worse than any other race. Race pride is a luxury I cannot afford. There are too many implications behind the term. Now, suppose a Negro does something really magnificent, and I glory, not in the benefit to mankind, but the fact that the doer was a Negro. Must I not also go hang my head in shame when a member of my race does something execrable? If I glory, then the obligation is laid upon me to blush also. I do glory when a Negro does something fine, I gloat because he or she has done a fine thing, but not because he was a Negro. That is incidental and accidental. It is the human achievement which I honor. I execrate a foul act of a Negro but again not on the grounds that the doer was a Negro, but because it was foul. A member of my race just happened to be the fouler of humanity. In other words, I know that I cannot accept responsibility for thirteen million people. Every tub must sit on its own bottom regardless. So 'Race Pride' in me had to go. And anyway, why should I be proud to be Negro? Why should anyone be proud to be white? Or yellow? Or red? After all, the word 'race' is a loose classification of physical characteristics. I tells nothing about the insides of people. Pointing at achievements tells nothing either. Races have never done anything. What seems race achievement is the work of individuals. The white race did not go into a laboratory and invent incandescent light. That was Edison. The Jews did not work out Relativity. That was Einstein. The Negros did not find out the inner secrets of peanuts and sweet potatoes, nor the secret of the development of the egg. That was Carver and Just. If you are under the impression that every white man is Edison, just look around a bit. If you have the idea that every Negro is a Carver, you had better take off plenty of time to do your searching."
Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road
Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review wrote recently that Affirmative Action should be shut down for statutory reasons vs. constitutional vs. it being bad policy (what McWhorter is arguing). That is, the 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly bans the consideration of race. I'm genuinely curious how previous Scotus reasonings got around this. Take as given there is a big social benefit to racial diversity in universities. But then so what? Congress would have then made a bad policy decision by banning it, but they nevertheless banned it. What am I getting wrong?
I remember seeing a banner on a Maryland middle school that said, "Diversity is our greatest strength." I'm still trying to grasp what that's supposed to mean.
True, the "diverse" are there to benefit the universe and affirmative action at Harvard doesn't benefit the mass of African-Americans, but the top universities are becoming more international and focused on building a global elite, so maybe Kate and Timmy are a little too much of a stereotype.
I hope John McWhorter isn't on Spotify.
I say forget affirmative action and diversity and all the rest of it. A college education isn't worth what it was 50 years ago. It costs a whole lot more and it delivers a whole lot less. And a lot of people are going to college who aren't going to get anywhere close to value out of it because they shouldn't be in college.
Maybe that's the bigger ripoff, creating so-called opportunities for minorities but does it really pay off for them? Is a college education still the best way to get on a path to success in this country? It doesn't seem like it.
“Just what was it about Black people that you were hoping your kids would learn?”
Oh, so now it’s our fault? We weren’t making this decision/taking this approach. The school administrations were. Blame them not the non-diverse students who just wanted to go to college. Many of us have been railing against it for years (and have been pilloried as deplorables and worse because of it).
Black folks helping whites to understand was only the natural step from the misguided reasoning used in Brown v. Board of Education as argued by Thurgood Marshall.
Not content with simply stating that race consciousness by government was inherently unequal, he and the Court's opinion basically said that Black kids could not obtain a good and equal education unless they were surrounded by more white kids. That to be in a room full of other Blacks created in them a sense of inferiority.
That argument was offensive racism in its own right, but that's what Marshall, NAACP and the Court built as the foundation to what was to follow.
I remember seeing a banner on a Maryland middle school that said, "Diversity is our greatest strength." I'm still trying to grasp what that's supposed to mean.
It means that its value-added is a relative weakness. Gotta respect the honesty, at least.
McWhorter has made himself the Black face of White Supremacy.
rhhardin said, "The dignity for blacks they seek comes from what blacks do for others."
Nikole Hannah-Jones said, "1619- ."
Fernandinande said...
Related: Indians want to be able to have Indian sports mascots, er, "culturally appropriate Native American names, logos, and imagery [which] serve to honor Native Americans".
10th Circuit Denies Native American Request To Halt Colorado “Mascot” Ban Pending Appeal
This is a much deeper and more sinister issue than most people realize. They just follow the liberal narrative of "that's racist" without any real thought. Honoring and respecting the American Indian by removing all traces of their culture and heritage from the American psyche seems reasonable.
A little skit entered my head of the first week at Harvard, with the newly arrived diversity admissions being constantly asked, "You ain't from around her 'er ya?" Or "Would you be my black friend so I can say I have black friends when accused of racism?"
Harsh Pencil said...
Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review wrote recently that Affirmative Action should be shut down for statutory reasons vs. constitutional vs. it being bad policy (what McWhorter is arguing). That is, the 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly bans the consideration of race. I'm genuinely curious how previous Scotus reasonings got around this. Take as given there is a big social benefit to racial diversity in universities. But then so what? Congress would have then made a bad policy decision by banning it, but they nevertheless banned it. What am I getting wrong?
You're assuming that leftists care about the rule of law. They want you to follow the laws that they are able to pass, but they don't think laws apply to themselves if it would restrict the good that they want to accomplish.
McWhorter is smart, calm, and persistent in his pursuit of a rational society. The NY Times is lucky to have his voice. All Americans are lucky to have his voice. I hope people are listening to him.
There was an piece in the New Yorker (yesterday?) discussing that "integration" for its own sake was a good thing that's being threatened by the cases going to the Supreme Court. The article mentioned a statistic that, if race were not used as a factor at all in college (or just Harvard?) admissions, the freshman class would lose 72% of its black students. This made me think: The biggest victims of affirmative action are the 28% of blacks who would have gotten in anyway.
The article talked about how blacks score lower on the SATs due to persistent educational inequities. In other words, the authors admits that the 72% of blacks who only get into Harvard because of AA aren't as well educated as the rest of the class. So the "integration" she is seeking to defend is, by and large, the integration of less-well-educated blacks with whites and Asians who are even more brilliant and accomplished than they would be, as a group, in the absence of using race as a consideration. How does this kind of "integration" helping society? Is it assumed that the whites and Asians won't notice that, by a factor of 72 to 28, their black classmates aren't as brilliant and accomplished as they are??
“Diversity” has become one of those terms (and ideas) that makes us feel cozy inside, like freshly baked blueberry muffins and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
I like this quote so much. And I wonder if the people who work at universities in Diversity (etc) feel this way as they strive to make things diverse. I hope they read McWhorter and ponder the implications.
The arguments against monoculture tree farms include an accurate understanding of biodiversity, in that invading pests or diseases will be more successful in homogeneous timber plots with all trees having the same genomic profile, and because they are usually of similar age. This makes them vulnerable, similar to the way purebred dogs or farmed salmon can have genetic weaknesses that will render them biologically defenseless against certain threats.
In human societies, this principle must be extended to include viewpoint diversity. Historically, this was a notable strength of American culture (see WW2, the Cold War that ended without a nuclear exchange, and the development of Silicon Valley: 1950-2000). The superficial dogma of skin color diversity now being sold as the highest priority for a healthy society, depends on ignoring the far more important value of viewpoint diversity, and guarantees a harsh reckoning with reality at some future date.
Nature rewards those organisms, from flatworms to humans to societies, that have the best understanding of their environment as it exists and evolves. This requires a perceptual and cognitive integration that benefits from broad and deep reservoirs of human experience — the raw material for viewpoint diversity.
By cutting ourselves off from the past and ignoring the hard-won lessons of our predecessors — committing our resources to ideological priorities that are untethered from the real world — our culture, and the prosperity that has enabled so much creativity & innovation, are now at risk. Our only saving grace may be that our adversaries are now codependent, and need our engine to keep running — at least for a little while — before they can thrive independently. They also have their own version of enforced cultural homogeneity, in some cases much worse than ours, so Nature might afford us the opportunity to get our shit together. But the hour is late and the children have become the battleground where the future is being forged. Thus, brave academics like McWhorter merit our support as he pushes back against the cultural vandals now running wild in the Academy.
Yes, John McWhorter is absolutely right. Give disadvantaged people of ALL races who are qualified a leg up. The poor white kid from Appalachia has always been left behind. It’s time we take race, as the deciding factor, out of the selection process and instal socio-economic status instead. I remember arguing this point back in the 80’s with my three nephews who were all in Ivy colleges. Unfortunately, they did not seem to take into account that the generation before them would fall into the category of the disadvantaged group. In my family of three children (two older brothers and myself) only the first son went to college. My parents could not afford to send myself or my younger brother to college. My brain-washed nephews could not agree with my opinion because it HAD to be a minority who benefited from AA. Now, my opinion has become that of a Black, Columbia U. Prof. I feel vindicated.
affirmative action at Harvard doesn't benefit the mass of African-Americans
It definitely benefits the well-educated children of Nigerian tribal chieftains and Ghanaian government functionaries, many of whom are descendants of the 18th and 19th century Big Men who sold their tribe's enemies and criminals to the slave traders.
Hawkeyedjb -
Laugh out Loud best comment of the day!
If schools can say that diversity is a goal they wish to pursue because it benefits the student body as a whole, and thus take race into account in admissions, couldn't another school look at the disruptions caused buy racial friction and conclude that uniformity was a goal worth pursuing? (Of course they would never use quotas to keep blacks out, it would just be one factor in a multi-factor assessment that just happens to result in the same percentage (0%) of blacks being admitted, year after year.)
Yes, 'racial mismatch' is real. I saw and worked with it all the time, and not only in regard to students.
OTOH, as Sally observes, college ain't what it used to be. And how many majors in Fashion Merchandising or Interpretive Dance do we really need anyway?
Used to be, in the Southland, a B/black person sometimes needed a W/white patron, somebody to testify to his or her good character and even intercede in petty brushes with The Man.
Now the situation has reversed, and a W/white (male, straight) in academia is suspected of Badism unless he or she has a B/black (female, gay) patron.
"Engaged scholarship" and DIE are institutionalizations of the phenomenon. I got out just in time.
Skookum John said...
"'affirmative action at Harvard doesn't benefit the mass of African-Americans'
It definitely benefits the well-educated children of Nigerian tribal chieftains and Ghanaian government functionaries, many of whom are descendants of the 18th and 19th century Big Men who sold their tribe's enemies and criminals to the slave traders."
I teach at the college level. In 2021 as a result of the pandemic I had a few students who had to take the course from their home countries. The exams were completed online while the students were logged into Zoom so we could observe them while they completed the exam.
One black South African student had a Zoom background that looked like a room in Versailles. Huge room, ornate gilded trim. I commented on how beautiful the background was and asked about it (assuming it was a photo of Versailles or similar). She was sitting in "one of the bedrooms in one of her father's houses."
This is exactly the scam colleges are pulling. She counts as "diversity" while she pays full freight for tuition and (being among the cognitive elite of Africa) doesn't pull down SAT and GPA statistics. Her brother was a student at Harvard.
Yes, it's quite clear — if you look straight at it — that the diversity rationale for affirmative action is about the benefit to the whole student body, that is, to the mostly white students who are admitted. The black students are used as a means to an end, and the end is something quite vague and — as McWhorter demonstrates — actually embarrassing to say clearly.
He ends with this question:
<< How would you feel about your kids being admitted to a university because of their “diverseness” from other kids rather than, well, their selves? >>
The end result of affirmative action is to always make sure white people are surrounded by black people that have lower intelligence and qualifications than they do so that white people will always be able to win.
Harsh Pencil said...
Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review wrote recently that Affirmative Action should be shut down for statutory reasons vs. constitutional vs. it being bad policy (what McWhorter is arguing). That is, the 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly bans the consideration of race.
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The same way the Pharisees accomplished their reasoning.
They just aren't judges at all.
Marbury vs. Madison was an amazingly destructive and destabilizing seizure of power.
Narr said...
And how many majors in Fashion Merchandising or Interpretive Dance do we really need anyway?
Don't dis Fashion Merchandising! Many people do, because many people have NO CLUE what it is
I'm betting that Narr doesn't. Hint: Think of it like an MBA. Want to manage a Brandy Melville store? Fashion Merchandising is a good choice.
Is gilbar sensitive about Fashion Merchandising because his only published photos were in a Fash Merch textbook? That's One of the reasons; yes
He ain't black.
--Joe Biden
Marbury vs. Madison was an amazingly destructive and destabilizing seizure of power.
And stunningly illegitimate. I am entirely convinced the whole thing was a con job from the start. At the very least Marshall should have recused himself.
What really pisses me off is that Constitutional law professors never tell you the real facts behind the case because they all love the outcome so much, something Marshall himself was counting on.
"The black students are used as a means to an end, and the end is something quite vague and — as McWhorter demonstrates — actually embarrassing to say clearly."
I don't know about the "embarrassing" part, but there's nothing vague about it. The lawyers for the Universities have made it abundantly clear that the less-prepared and less-capable Black children are there for the same reason there are animals in the zoo. Only don't try to pet them. Especially, don't try to touch their hair.
Why qualify with "race based" ?
Do they want some other 'based'
Yes, it's quite clear — if you look straight at it — that the diversity rationale for affirmative action is about the benefit to the whole student body, that is, to the mostly white students who are admitted.
But let’s not forget the benefit to the white students who are not admitted as a consequence of AA—they learn an important lesson on how American society works today, and what they can expect from it going forward.
Diversity, inequity, and exclusion, including affirmative discrimination. Forward... to the past.
John Rosenberg, who blogs at discriminations.us, has been making this point for decades. The reason Black students get a boost in college admissions is not for their own good, but for the good of the other students, mainly white. The Black students' own education doesn't even enter into it, b/c the only acceptable reason for affirmative action is "diversity." You exist because your presence enhances your neighbor students' educations.
Do I need to point out how vile this is?
The reason Black students get a boost in college admissions is not for their own good, but for the good of the other students, mainly white.
The reason Black students get a boost in college admissions is not for their own good, but for the good of college administrators, mainly white, who get to pat themselves on the backs as White Saviors.
My goodness gracious, the beef between the Jews and Germany didn't last this long.
Wait, is that embarrassing and uncool to say?
Diversity was supposed to give us more interesting places to dine.
But I haven't seen any good african restaurants opening up around here.
"How would you feel about your kids being admitted to a university because of their “diverseness” from other kids rather than, well, their selves?"
I would feel they were admitted to a university.
Everyone uses the reasons they can get. Then, once admitted, I'd encourage my kids to do their very best in making the most of an opportunity so many now and in history never had.
The reasons why an administrator wants certain people doesn't have to be the reason of the people admitted to be there. Once in they should pursue their own goals.
The problem with Affirmative Action as a policy is that it never really set out objective standards about the things it was meant to overcome. Said objective standards probably can't even be defined, TBH--Which ought to be taken as a huge clue that the policy was doomed to be both ineffectual and a source of continued problems.
Not to mention, there's the minor little problem of the reality that what you're actually doing with AA is disincentivizing minorities from the pursuit of excellence, offering them an automatic cop-out for failure, and screwing over deserving non-minorities who had nothing at all to do with the creation of the inequities AA is meant to overcome. How's that going to work, reducing racial animosity? Hmmm?
There's also another problem: Where's the end point? Do any AA policies contain a structual answer for when they're finally going to have worked, and we can go back to true merit, or are we just going to keep right on pushing through unqualified minorities into positions of responsibility and power because of their pantone skin color? How's it working, when a woman like Kamala Harris, who has zero actual black American heritage, gets the same set-asides as a descendent of actual slaves? How is is justified to tell a white guy whose parents emigrated from Eastern Europe in the 1950s that he has to go to the back of the bus, 'cos we need to compensate a black person who was born in Africa for something done to other black people by people over a hundred years ago? What's the cutoff date for any of this BS? Why are people who had literally nothing to do with the creation of this situation being made to pay the price for it?
The whole thing is a mass of false premises stacked on upon another such that when the entire shaky-ass edifice finally comes down, it's going to create a huge mess. Too many unsupportable contradictions.
And, objectively: Has any of it worked?
It's been what, a solid fifty years of AA, and where are we? Are blacks better off? Is it reducing racial tension? Hell, from practical experience, I'd say "NO!" to both. It creates doubt in the mind of everyone encountering a black in a position of authority, even other blacks, because you can never tell how they got where they are. On merit, or because someone needed to fill a quota for HR?
What they should be doing in this area is instead of saying that "Hey, Philadelphia has only a 15% pass rate for black firefighter tests...", and then saying "Well, the test must be too hard, we need to pass the ones who failed..."? What we ought to be doing is going back and examining specifically why those firefighters failed the test in the first damn place. If it's genuinely because the test was poorly administered, rewrite the test. If it's because the black applicants did poorly due to poor education? Fix the damn schools they went to. Whatever you do, do not just play Santa Claus and do the "gimme dat" game. You're not fixing anything, and you're putting unqualified people into jobs they shouldn't have. Which is only going to serve to reinforce racial prejudice that you're supposedly trying to fight...
Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review wrote recently that Affirmative Action should be shut down for statutory reasons vs. constitutional vs. it being bad policy (what McWhorter is arguing). That is, the 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly bans the consideration of race.
Is a private university considered a "public accommodation" under the law? I believe it was only relatively recently that some private men-only clubs were forced to admit women as members, and I don't recall the legal (as opposed to ideological) reasoning. And yes, I know Harvard gets federal funding for grants. I think their admissions policies are terrible, but what is the legal basis for arguing they can't admit whomever they choose for whatever stupid reason they want?
I think it's instructive to be familiar with the origins of Affirmative Action so that its pernicious nature is manifest.
The concept of Affirmative Action was initiated by high-achieving African-Americans in the 1950s who had climbed the ladder of success in America despite the obstacle of racial prejudice. These people, including many who sat on the board of the NAACP in the 1950s and 1960s, are to be commended for their personal achievements in the face of racism.
For whatever reason, many of their children did not possess the same intellect, drive, or motivation for success, and so were not able to gain entrance to the elite universities, or hired by the top-flight law, medical, or consulting firms, that graduated and employed their parents. And so was born Affirmative Action.
Affirmative Action, at its outset, was NEVER an effort to promote opportunities for OVERACHIEVING minorities from middle- and lower-class families who might have otherwise been overlooked.
It was instead a movement to provide unearned opportunities for the UNDERACHIEVING sons and daughters of high-income black families; a way for their children to gain acceptance to first-rate schools and have an unmerited advantage when applying for first-rate jobs.
Affirmative Action was a scam FROM DAY ONE, and it continues to be a scam today. The fact that its "principles" are embraced by most universities, many large corporations, and most city, county, and state governments as well as the Feds does not make it any less despicable, unethical, and blatantly racist.
It is long past time to dispense with this terrible practice.
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