8 ms·

Can someone explain to me why affirmative action is necessary? Why not just send in your GPA and let a computer check which school you can go to based on your p

Can someone explain to me why affirmative action is necessary? Why not just send in your GPA and let a computer check which school you can go to based on your preference? Why resort to low-key racism? Low-income junior high-schools of course needs more money from the government than the high-income schools to combat equality issues. Because let's face it, it's the low-income people that struggle and always will, money IS power.

throwaway286 7y ago
If you don't implement affirmative action, you'll be accused of racism (due to the uneven final result of a blind GPA filter or equivalent).
balls187 7y ago
> Why not just send in your GPA and let a computer check which school you can go to based on your preference? Why resort to low-key racism? College admissions were based that way. And it disproportionately benefited white students, and affirmative action policies were implemented to combat that. Think of Affirmative Action similar to weighted GPA's. College Admissions attempted to take a population and normalize them to a pair of datapoints (GPA/SAT/ACT). Affirmative action policies attempted to weigh lower scores higher, factoring in historical biases. A (white) friend explained it like this: Think of playing a game of monopoly and if you're white you start with 2x the money, and given 1/4 of the properties on the board. If you're black, you start with 1/2 the money, and the all prices are doubled. How likely is it for a black person to win?
- starpilot 7y ago
  Even controlled for income, achievement disparities persist between races. Also imagine: everytime you make a bad play, you go to jail, while the white player does not. Even as children, black kids receive harsher punishments (full on suspensions) than white kids (time-outs) for similar infractions. Imagine your whole life being told that you're bad and disruptive. You might start to internalize and normalize that message, and not try very hard as a result.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > Imagine your whole life being told that you're bad and disruptive. Sounds like you're talking about "the male experience". It's interesting that it's the situation of black men that is generalized as "that's what it's like for black people".
    - bsanr2 7y ago
      No, black girls are also much more likely than white girls to be disciplined, often harshly and physically, and often by people who are not their family. "School resource officer body slams female black student" is practically a YouTube genre unto itself.
- danielscrubs 7y ago
  So based on skincolor you can tell if I started with 2x the money? You can tell whether he is a millionaire or not? If he lived in a safe area or not? You judge someone based on skincolor, you can back it up with numbers sure, but you didn't judge based on who he is. Telling people that if only they had a different skincolor that maybe they would have made it. Making the focus on something you cant change is just poison. If you fix the economic divide violence goes down, substance abuse go down, happiness goes up, and the major beneficiaries are minorities and the ones that will be hit the hardest are the majority group, no racism necessary.
  - balls187 7y ago
    > So based on skincolor you can tell if I started with 2x the money? You can tell whether he is a millionaire or not? If he lived in a safe area or not? You judge someone based on skincolor, you can back it up with numbers sure, but you didn't judge based on who he is. The data on US household median income by race is well published data, and shows Black household income lags behind white household income. So yes, while I cannot tell exactly your financial situation, I can make an educated guess with some degree of certainty that if you are white, you were more likely to grew up in a household with higher income. Educational attainment is also correlated to race as well. For whites 25 and older, 65% have had some form of college, compared to 55% blacks. And is ONLY with race information. Add a zipcode, that certainty increases. People are upset with Affirmative Action, because it is picking winners based on race. However those same people fail to recognize factors in their lives that have effectively picked them as winners. That is what society is referring to when they speak of "privileged." > If you fix the economic divide violence goes down, substance abuse go down, happiness goes up, and the major beneficiaries are minorities and the ones that will be hit the hardest are the majority group, no racism necessary. I think you've made my point--the economic divide correlates with race. You cannot fix the divide without first acknowledging that racism largely is responsible for it, and continues to further it.
    - frog_squid 7y ago
      Yeah, but the system is gamed and a huge proportion of affirmative action admits don't actually fall in the wealth category that the majority of the people in that minority group would, i.e. most affirmative action admits come from very wealthy families. The data shows this if you search online. In my Ivy League college, several of the Latino students living in my Freshman house were actually bi-racial with white dads and came from upper middle class, well-educated households.
dbbljack 7y ago
GPA sorting hat blames the individual for not recognizing and overcoming institutionalized racism by the time they hit puberty. It's needed precisely we reject the idea of using money to combat equality directly, as we all know poor people would just spend it on booze.

throwaway286 7y ago

If you don't implement affirmative action, you'll be accused of racism (due to the uneven final result of a blind GPA filter or equivalent).

balls187 7y ago

> Why not just send in your GPA and let a computer check which school you can go to based on your preference? Why resort to low-key racism? College admissions were based that way. And it disproportionately benefited white students, and affirmative action policies were implemented to combat that. Think of Affirmative Action similar to weighted GPA's. College Admissions attempted to take a population and normalize them to a pair of datapoints (GPA/SAT/ACT). Affirmative action policies attempted to weigh lower scores higher, factoring in historical biases. A (white) friend explained it like this: Think of playing a game of monopoly and if you're white you start with 2x the money, and given 1/4 of the properties on the board. If you're black, you start with 1/2 the money, and the all prices are doubled. How likely is it for a black person to win?

starpilot 7y ago
Even controlled for income, achievement disparities persist between races. Also imagine: everytime you make a bad play, you go to jail, while the white player does not. Even as children, black kids receive harsher punishments (full on suspensions) than white kids (time-outs) for similar infractions. Imagine your whole life being told that you're bad and disruptive. You might start to internalize and normalize that message, and not try very hard as a result.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Imagine your whole life being told that you're bad and disruptive. Sounds like you're talking about "the male experience". It's interesting that it's the situation of black men that is generalized as "that's what it's like for black people".
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    No, black girls are also much more likely than white girls to be disciplined, often harshly and physically, and often by people who are not their family. "School resource officer body slams female black student" is practically a YouTube genre unto itself.
danielscrubs 7y ago
So based on skincolor you can tell if I started with 2x the money? You can tell whether he is a millionaire or not? If he lived in a safe area or not? You judge someone based on skincolor, you can back it up with numbers sure, but you didn't judge based on who he is. Telling people that if only they had a different skincolor that maybe they would have made it. Making the focus on something you cant change is just poison. If you fix the economic divide violence goes down, substance abuse go down, happiness goes up, and the major beneficiaries are minorities and the ones that will be hit the hardest are the majority group, no racism necessary.
- balls187 7y ago
  > So based on skincolor you can tell if I started with 2x the money? You can tell whether he is a millionaire or not? If he lived in a safe area or not? You judge someone based on skincolor, you can back it up with numbers sure, but you didn't judge based on who he is. The data on US household median income by race is well published data, and shows Black household income lags behind white household income. So yes, while I cannot tell exactly your financial situation, I can make an educated guess with some degree of certainty that if you are white, you were more likely to grew up in a household with higher income. Educational attainment is also correlated to race as well. For whites 25 and older, 65% have had some form of college, compared to 55% blacks. And is ONLY with race information. Add a zipcode, that certainty increases. People are upset with Affirmative Action, because it is picking winners based on race. However those same people fail to recognize factors in their lives that have effectively picked them as winners. That is what society is referring to when they speak of "privileged." > If you fix the economic divide violence goes down, substance abuse go down, happiness goes up, and the major beneficiaries are minorities and the ones that will be hit the hardest are the majority group, no racism necessary. I think you've made my point--the economic divide correlates with race. You cannot fix the divide without first acknowledging that racism largely is responsible for it, and continues to further it.
  - frog_squid 7y ago
    Yeah, but the system is gamed and a huge proportion of affirmative action admits don't actually fall in the wealth category that the majority of the people in that minority group would, i.e. most affirmative action admits come from very wealthy families. The data shows this if you search online. In my Ivy League college, several of the Latino students living in my Freshman house were actually bi-racial with white dads and came from upper middle class, well-educated households.

dbbljack 7y ago

GPA sorting hat blames the individual for not recognizing and overcoming institutionalized racism by the time they hit puberty. It's needed precisely we reject the idea of using money to combat equality directly, as we all know poor people would just spend it on booze.