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And just how do you think the school ratings are calculated? Graduation rates. Job acceptance rate into industry. Oh, wait, that sounds like a self-reinforcing

And just how do you think the school ratings are calculated? Graduation rates. Job acceptance rate into industry. Oh, wait, that sounds like a self-reinforcing cycle. Structural racism runs deep.

rjkennedy98 6y ago
> Job acceptance rate into industry. Can you provide evidence of this. > Structural racism runs deep. What makes you think Duke is some all-white club. I went to Duke and there were lots of African-American students. My guess is that Duke has among the most Affirmative Action of any school.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  Totally agree as another Duke grad. Duke gets painted as some rich white college by people who have never set foot on campus.
thinkingemote 6y ago
It's safer and easier to blame structural racism than to look at multi factor reasons. Partly because to deny structural racism is itself racist therefore strengthening ones case innately, but mainly because as it does really exist so there would always be some influence and something that's in the news right now so it's a fashionable concept to attach any blame on. Also it gives good social credit to mention it in case people with power over ones career or future question one. It really is a no brainer, we should use it more often. I'm not being sarcastic here, the benefits of blaming structural racism for complex causes far exceeds any costs of not doing so.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  It’s also safe and easy to say “no racism here no sir” when confronted with difficult problems and decisions about justice. I’ve experienced a small example of this. In elementary school the majority minority school in the district sent basically no kids to the gifted magnet school. Like zero. For years, people just said what you said. My parents actually dug into it and found that grade distributions were similar and the problem was that administrators at the white schools knew how to write glowing recommendations and the admin at the other school didn’t exaggerate as much. A little bit of coordination and adjusting the recommendation letter form structure and bam suddenly way more kids from the majority minority school. But for years people just said “well that’s a worse school, what do you expect”.
  - ghufran_syed 6y ago
    It sounds like you’re arguing that there was racism, whereas your example suggests there wasn’t racism, just differences in application process - it certainly doesn’t sound like there was any resistance to improving the process in a way that resulted in dramatically increased success of minority students. Or am I misinterpreting something?
    - scott_s 6y ago
      Structural racism often means there is no one person to blame - there's not going to be a person we can hold up and say, "Here's the racist!" This was a racist outcome because the students, staff and parents in the minority school weren't in-the-know. Why weren't they in-the-know? Probably for racist reasons going back decades.
    - kyawzazaw 6y ago
      it's the emphasis on the system. no one person is to be blamed in this example.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      A system that structurally disadvantages minorities based on race is racism. Why do you think that this one school had more black students? Legacies of housing discrimination. There was resistance. My mother was hated by other parents for this and two other pieces of local activism. People in church told her that she was hurting their children straight to her face.
logicchop 6y ago
Could be, but almost every company I have encountered is desperate to hire good people and none of them cared at all about where I or anyone else I knew went to school.

And just how do you think the school ratings are calculated? Graduation rates. Job acceptance rate into industry. Oh, wait, that sounds like a self-reinforcing cycle. Structural racism runs deep.

rjkennedy98 6y ago

> Job acceptance rate into industry. Can you provide evidence of this. > Structural racism runs deep. What makes you think Duke is some all-white club. I went to Duke and there were lots of African-American students. My guess is that Duke has among the most Affirmative Action of any school.

bluedevil2k 6y ago
Totally agree as another Duke grad. Duke gets painted as some rich white college by people who have never set foot on campus.

thinkingemote 6y ago

It's safer and easier to blame structural racism than to look at multi factor reasons. Partly because to deny structural racism is itself racist therefore strengthening ones case innately, but mainly because as it does really exist so there would always be some influence and something that's in the news right now so it's a fashionable concept to attach any blame on. Also it gives good social credit to mention it in case people with power over ones career or future question one. It really is a no brainer, we should use it more often. I'm not being sarcastic here, the benefits of blaming structural racism for complex causes far exceeds any costs of not doing so.

UncleMeat 6y ago
It’s also safe and easy to say “no racism here no sir” when confronted with difficult problems and decisions about justice. I’ve experienced a small example of this. In elementary school the majority minority school in the district sent basically no kids to the gifted magnet school. Like zero. For years, people just said what you said. My parents actually dug into it and found that grade distributions were similar and the problem was that administrators at the white schools knew how to write glowing recommendations and the admin at the other school didn’t exaggerate as much. A little bit of coordination and adjusting the recommendation letter form structure and bam suddenly way more kids from the majority minority school. But for years people just said “well that’s a worse school, what do you expect”.
- ghufran_syed 6y ago
  It sounds like you’re arguing that there was racism, whereas your example suggests there wasn’t racism, just differences in application process - it certainly doesn’t sound like there was any resistance to improving the process in a way that resulted in dramatically increased success of minority students. Or am I misinterpreting something?
  - scott_s 6y ago
    Structural racism often means there is no one person to blame - there's not going to be a person we can hold up and say, "Here's the racist!" This was a racist outcome because the students, staff and parents in the minority school weren't in-the-know. Why weren't they in-the-know? Probably for racist reasons going back decades.
  - kyawzazaw 6y ago
    it's the emphasis on the system. no one person is to be blamed in this example.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    A system that structurally disadvantages minorities based on race is racism. Why do you think that this one school had more black students? Legacies of housing discrimination. There was resistance. My mother was hated by other parents for this and two other pieces of local activism. People in church told her that she was hurting their children straight to her face.

logicchop 6y ago

Could be, but almost every company I have encountered is desperate to hire good people and none of them cared at all about where I or anyone else I knew went to school.