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> The first describes a quasi-religious ritual in which all participants ritually affirm that they are unworthy sinners, racists. Why would being racist make s

> The first describes a quasi-religious ritual in which all participants ritually affirm that they are unworthy sinners, racists. Why would being racist make someone an unworthy sinner? Racism is just treating others differently based on their race. It’s not weird or evil. In fact, it’s perfectly normal and even understandable. Humans have probably always separated themselves into groups. Even chimpanzees do it. I think that’s what the trainings try to get at. > The second is the destruction of an institution. A school for the gifted and talented with no mechanism to keep out those who are neither rapidly becomes just another school. Once the City University of New York was one of the major public research universities of the USA. Then it moved to open admissions. Now it’s nothing special. In contrast Berkeley instituted affirmative action which allows for different standards for different ethnic groups. It’s probably the top public university. Meanwhile, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and UVA all have affirmative action and are doing fine. Decades of supposedly different standards haven’t hurt their standing. They continue to graduate a diverse class of high achievers that are well-represented in just about every field imaginable. How does that square with your claims? Are you sure you’re not the extremist? You seem to have an axe to grind.

barry-cotter 6y ago
> Meanwhile, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and UVA all have affirmative action and are doing fine. Decades of supposedly different standards haven’t hurt their standing. They continue to graduate a diverse class of high achievers that are well-represented in just about every field imaginable. How does that square with your claims? That’s the entire point of comparing CUNY and Berkeley. You can maintain prestige while having different standards for different ethnic groups. You can’t while having no standards. Eliminating entrance exams is how CUNY did it. Different standards is how Berkeley and Harvard etc. do it. That’s not what is being proposed for the gifted school in question. It’s the elimination of standards.
- charlesu 6y ago
  Fine, the University of Chicago, Wake Forest, and almost all of the elite liberal arts colleges (Williams College, Swarthmore College, Bowdoin College, etc) are test optional or test free and no worse for it. Standardized tests are one measure of academic merit and not even the best one. There are plenty of 1500s reporting to 1250s.
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    Elite colleges relying on high school grades and letters of recommendation instead of objective blindly marked tests open to all is replacing one test with others. The others allow much more room for picking the right sort of person. That was the entire point of instituting holistic admission at prestige US universities, to keep out Jews. The modern drive to eliminate tests is in large part to keep out Asians. Nothing ever changes. Those in power change the standards to stay in power.
    - charlesu 6y ago
      Standardized tests could also be considered a way for picking the right kind of person: namely, people who know that standardized tests are something to prepare for. I’ve tutored students at both elite and underperforming high schools. Students at elite schools, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, are highly aware of the importance of standardized tests. Some of the underperforming high schools don’t even administer the PSAT. Many, if not most students at the low-income schools think the SAT is an IQ test where the results are predetermined. I’ve had kids go from the low 30th percentile to the mid 80th percentile with just a few months of tutoring. After I’ve taught them how to practice the test, they improve dramatically. I’m not making them smarter, just passing along some cultural and educational capital they literally would not get otherwise. Their parents and teachers do not know this stuff. As for affirmative action being an effort to keep out Asians...have you been to Harvard’s campus? There are many, many Asian students there. In fact, nearly one in five students at Harvard are of Asian descent. The idea that elite schools are purposely excluding Asians is absurd on its face. The people pushing the idea have an axe to grind and it usually isn’t actually in the interest of Asian-Americans.
      - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
        > "As for affirmative action being an effort to keep out Asians...have you been to Harvard’s campus? There are many, many Asian students there. In fact, nearly one in five students at Harvard are of Asian descent. The idea that elite schools are purposely excluding Asians is absurd on its face. The people pushing the idea have an axe to grind and it usually isn’t actually in the interest of Asian-Americans." If you're Asian and you're reading this, never forget that the above is what progressives believe about how society treats Asians: transgressions against you get simply waved away. Think twice about supporting them. For the record, I am Asian and a liberal but definitely not progressive.
jjk166 6y ago
> Why would being racist make someone an unworthy sinner? Racism is just treating others differently based on their race. It’s not weird or evil. In fact, it’s perfectly normal and even understandable. Humans have probably always separated themselves into groups. Even chimpanzees do it. I think that’s what the trainings try to get at. Chimpanzees murder. Just because primates have been doing something for millions of years doesn't make it acceptable. We have the capability to rise above our instincts and make rational decisions about who we want to be. Treating others differently based on their race is fundamentally unethical. You're not an irredeemably broken person just because you've done something unethical in the past, but saying "well everyone does it" or "it's just natural" is just refusing personal responsibility. Maybe some people honestly can't accept the idea that they have done something wrong, and would cling to a belief that deep down they knew was wrong if they didn't have such an "out" to preserve their view of themselves. They'ed rather double down on racism than admit they've knowingly treated people incorrectly. For most people though, acknowledging a problem is the first step to solving it. Everyone alive today has spent the vast majority if not the entirety of their lives in a world where the idea of racial superiority has been thoroughly discredited. The emphasis on certain features like skin color over others like hair color in segregating people is an entirely learned behavior. For racism to endure to the degree it does today, enormous numbers of people must have actively chosen to learn this behavior and refused to change. It hardly seems unreasonable to conclude that for many, telling them that something is normal and natural robs them of their imperative to change.
refurb 6y ago
Why would being racist make someone an unworthy sinner? Because those who were enlightened before you now hold the power. They removed the scales from your eyes, so now the power structure has been set. All you need to do is obey.
monoideism 6y ago
> Are you sure you’re not the extremist? You seem to have an axe to grind. I'm sure once you're downvoted to invisibility, you're takeaway will be that "HN is a bunch of extremists", instead of the more reasonable "why are a bunch of mild-mannered software developers whose culture has always been open to different types of people strongly disagreeing with what I say?". Could it be that we see a danger in this that you do not? It's seems fairly obvious to me that our country is starting to crumble around us. Perhaps you're living in a situation where that's not apparant.
908B64B197 6y ago
> Meanwhile, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and UVA all have affirmative action and are doing fine. Decades of supposedly different standards haven’t hurt their standing. They continue to graduate a diverse class of high achievers that are well-represented in just about every field imaginable. How does that square with your claims? The issue is these institutions cast a way wider net for their admission pool compared to a high school. Really, MIT gets applicants from everywhere in the world and kids will gladly relocate to Boston to attend. A high school, especially a public one, can only expect applicants from its county.

barry-cotter 6y ago

> Meanwhile, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and UVA all have affirmative action and are doing fine. Decades of supposedly different standards haven’t hurt their standing. They continue to graduate a diverse class of high achievers that are well-represented in just about every field imaginable. How does that square with your claims? That’s the entire point of comparing CUNY and Berkeley. You can maintain prestige while having different standards for different ethnic groups. You can’t while having no standards. Eliminating entrance exams is how CUNY did it. Different standards is how Berkeley and Harvard etc. do it. That’s not what is being proposed for the gifted school in question. It’s the elimination of standards.

charlesu 6y ago
Fine, the University of Chicago, Wake Forest, and almost all of the elite liberal arts colleges (Williams College, Swarthmore College, Bowdoin College, etc) are test optional or test free and no worse for it. Standardized tests are one measure of academic merit and not even the best one. There are plenty of 1500s reporting to 1250s.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  Elite colleges relying on high school grades and letters of recommendation instead of objective blindly marked tests open to all is replacing one test with others. The others allow much more room for picking the right sort of person. That was the entire point of instituting holistic admission at prestige US universities, to keep out Jews. The modern drive to eliminate tests is in large part to keep out Asians. Nothing ever changes. Those in power change the standards to stay in power.
  - charlesu 6y ago
    Standardized tests could also be considered a way for picking the right kind of person: namely, people who know that standardized tests are something to prepare for. I’ve tutored students at both elite and underperforming high schools. Students at elite schools, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, are highly aware of the importance of standardized tests. Some of the underperforming high schools don’t even administer the PSAT. Many, if not most students at the low-income schools think the SAT is an IQ test where the results are predetermined. I’ve had kids go from the low 30th percentile to the mid 80th percentile with just a few months of tutoring. After I’ve taught them how to practice the test, they improve dramatically. I’m not making them smarter, just passing along some cultural and educational capital they literally would not get otherwise. Their parents and teachers do not know this stuff. As for affirmative action being an effort to keep out Asians...have you been to Harvard’s campus? There are many, many Asian students there. In fact, nearly one in five students at Harvard are of Asian descent. The idea that elite schools are purposely excluding Asians is absurd on its face. The people pushing the idea have an axe to grind and it usually isn’t actually in the interest of Asian-Americans.
    - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      > "As for affirmative action being an effort to keep out Asians...have you been to Harvard’s campus? There are many, many Asian students there. In fact, nearly one in five students at Harvard are of Asian descent. The idea that elite schools are purposely excluding Asians is absurd on its face. The people pushing the idea have an axe to grind and it usually isn’t actually in the interest of Asian-Americans." If you're Asian and you're reading this, never forget that the above is what progressives believe about how society treats Asians: transgressions against you get simply waved away. Think twice about supporting them. For the record, I am Asian and a liberal but definitely not progressive.

jjk166 6y ago

> Why would being racist make someone an unworthy sinner? Racism is just treating others differently based on their race. It’s not weird or evil. In fact, it’s perfectly normal and even understandable. Humans have probably always separated themselves into groups. Even chimpanzees do it. I think that’s what the trainings try to get at. Chimpanzees murder. Just because primates have been doing something for millions of years doesn't make it acceptable. We have the capability to rise above our instincts and make rational decisions about who we want to be. Treating others differently based on their race is fundamentally unethical. You're not an irredeemably broken person just because you've done something unethical in the past, but saying "well everyone does it" or "it's just natural" is just refusing personal responsibility. Maybe some people honestly can't accept the idea that they have done something wrong, and would cling to a belief that deep down they knew was wrong if they didn't have such an "out" to preserve their view of themselves. They'ed rather double down on racism than admit they've knowingly treated people incorrectly. For most people though, acknowledging a problem is the first step to solving it. Everyone alive today has spent the vast majority if not the entirety of their lives in a world where the idea of racial superiority has been thoroughly discredited. The emphasis on certain features like skin color over others like hair color in segregating people is an entirely learned behavior. For racism to endure to the degree it does today, enormous numbers of people must have actively chosen to learn this behavior and refused to change. It hardly seems unreasonable to conclude that for many, telling them that something is normal and natural robs them of their imperative to change.

refurb 6y ago

Why would being racist make someone an unworthy sinner? Because those who were enlightened before you now hold the power. They removed the scales from your eyes, so now the power structure has been set. All you need to do is obey.

monoideism 6y ago

> Are you sure you’re not the extremist? You seem to have an axe to grind. I'm sure once you're downvoted to invisibility, you're takeaway will be that "HN is a bunch of extremists", instead of the more reasonable "why are a bunch of mild-mannered software developers whose culture has always been open to different types of people strongly disagreeing with what I say?". Could it be that we see a danger in this that you do not? It's seems fairly obvious to me that our country is starting to crumble around us. Perhaps you're living in a situation where that's not apparant.

908B64B197 6y ago

> Meanwhile, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and UVA all have affirmative action and are doing fine. Decades of supposedly different standards haven’t hurt their standing. They continue to graduate a diverse class of high achievers that are well-represented in just about every field imaginable. How does that square with your claims? The issue is these institutions cast a way wider net for their admission pool compared to a high school. Really, MIT gets applicants from everywhere in the world and kids will gladly relocate to Boston to attend. A high school, especially a public one, can only expect applicants from its county.