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I have white cousins who are second generation drug dealer’s children. I have black cousins who are members of the local golf country club. Which one deserves a

by jmpman 4y ago

I have white cousins who are second generation drug dealer’s children. I have black cousins who are members of the local golf country club. Which one deserves affirmative action to get into college? By every measure, my white cousins are worse off. Sure, neither are Harvard bound. A reliable car, and an apartment in a city with strong job prospects are what my white cousins need, and I try to provide. My black cousin’s need help with their golf short game… so do I.

hackyhacky 4y ago
You are using anecdotes to disprove data. You know very well that statistically speaking, the argument for affirmative action is in one direction, your own personal acquaintances notwithstanding.
- aetherane 4y ago
  That is essentially the core difference in viewpoint, though. Whether to treat people as individuals or broad statistical classes.
- spiderice 4y ago
  Wrong. You’re using data to ignore people’s problems because their skin isn’t the right color. Get rid of affirmative action and replace it with income/poverty level. Basing it off of race will always be racist, and never be fair, as highlighted by GP’s example.
- doubleunplussed 4y ago
  That really depends what metrics you think are relevant. On the one hand, the average black person in the US is more disadvantaged than the average white person. That much is true. If you meet a random person, and they are black, statistically they are more disadvantaged than if they were white. On the other hand, I'm fairly sure it's the case that for almost any given threshold of disadvantage, there are numerically more whites below it than blacks, simply because there are more white people in the US than black people. So if you are a university with hypothetical applicants drawn randomly from the population, the majority of the disadvantaged applicants in the pool are white, for most thresholds of disadvantage. A system that treats disadvantaged whites, who are quite numerous, as if they are advantaged, based in the colour of their skin, is incredibly unjust, and creates deserved resentment. Frankly, even if disadvantaged whites were less numerous it is still incredibly unfair. AA based on poverty and socio-economics directly, rather than the colour of one's skin, would be more just (and is more how things are done where I'm from).
- mancerayder 4y ago
  He's using an ethical argument, not a numerical one. You're using the latter. Person 1 says, don't generalize ideas of privilege since it isn't fair to certain individuals that stand out as edge cases. Person 2 says, the statistics say the majority of the cases the generalizations are consistent. This conversation is a category error.
- int_19h 4y ago
  The fundamental problem with this "statistical justice" approach is that it results in lots of small personal injustices, but the latter is what people are going to notice - especially when, like OP, it comes from their lived experience. And they will judge the whole system based on that lived experience. A just and fair society is like a fractal - it can't be fair "overall", it has to be fair at every level as you zoom in. There are no shortcuts here; with them, at best, you can create a society that pretends to be fair.
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Given that there is a single counter-example, best throw the whole program out. Unless it works with 100% efficiency and effectiveness, then it isn't worth doing.
- atdrummond 4y ago
  That’s not a fair assessment of what the comment you replied to said.
- hackyhacky 4y ago
  I'm guessing (hoping) that your comment is sarcasm, but in any case, it's worth being explicit about that choice, since we all know that implicit sarcasm is not communicated well in this medium.
nerdponx 4y ago
Hard to say who deserves it in general, but I really do think that universities should deliberately seek out as wide a range of backgrounds as possible, given that there is no shortage of motivated high-achieving applicants from across the range. How to grant them the freedom to do so, without allowing their decision-makers to descend into capricious bigotry, is a major institutional challenge for the 21st century.
stop50 4y ago
From what i read about the processes, both are helped by aa, because currently the group with the biggest disadvantages currently are asians(to a varying degree).
heavyset_go 4y ago
You're aware that there are admissions policies in place that seek to bring poorer people into universities, correct?

by jmpman 4y ago

hackyhacky 4y ago

You are using anecdotes to disprove data. You know very well that statistically speaking, the argument for affirmative action is in one direction, your own personal acquaintances notwithstanding.

aetherane 4y ago
That is essentially the core difference in viewpoint, though. Whether to treat people as individuals or broad statistical classes.
spiderice 4y ago
Wrong. You’re using data to ignore people’s problems because their skin isn’t the right color. Get rid of affirmative action and replace it with income/poverty level. Basing it off of race will always be racist, and never be fair, as highlighted by GP’s example.
doubleunplussed 4y ago
That really depends what metrics you think are relevant. On the one hand, the average black person in the US is more disadvantaged than the average white person. That much is true. If you meet a random person, and they are black, statistically they are more disadvantaged than if they were white. On the other hand, I'm fairly sure it's the case that for almost any given threshold of disadvantage, there are numerically more whites below it than blacks, simply because there are more white people in the US than black people. So if you are a university with hypothetical applicants drawn randomly from the population, the majority of the disadvantaged applicants in the pool are white, for most thresholds of disadvantage. A system that treats disadvantaged whites, who are quite numerous, as if they are advantaged, based in the colour of their skin, is incredibly unjust, and creates deserved resentment. Frankly, even if disadvantaged whites were less numerous it is still incredibly unfair. AA based on poverty and socio-economics directly, rather than the colour of one's skin, would be more just (and is more how things are done where I'm from).
mancerayder 4y ago
He's using an ethical argument, not a numerical one. You're using the latter. Person 1 says, don't generalize ideas of privilege since it isn't fair to certain individuals that stand out as edge cases. Person 2 says, the statistics say the majority of the cases the generalizations are consistent. This conversation is a category error.
int_19h 4y ago
The fundamental problem with this "statistical justice" approach is that it results in lots of small personal injustices, but the latter is what people are going to notice - especially when, like OP, it comes from their lived experience. And they will judge the whole system based on that lived experience. A just and fair society is like a fractal - it can't be fair "overall", it has to be fair at every level as you zoom in. There are no shortcuts here; with them, at best, you can create a society that pretends to be fair.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

Given that there is a single counter-example, best throw the whole program out. Unless it works with 100% efficiency and effectiveness, then it isn't worth doing.

atdrummond 4y ago
That’s not a fair assessment of what the comment you replied to said.
hackyhacky 4y ago
I'm guessing (hoping) that your comment is sarcasm, but in any case, it's worth being explicit about that choice, since we all know that implicit sarcasm is not communicated well in this medium.

nerdponx 4y ago

Hard to say who deserves it in general, but I really do think that universities should deliberately seek out as wide a range of backgrounds as possible, given that there is no shortage of motivated high-achieving applicants from across the range. How to grant them the freedom to do so, without allowing their decision-makers to descend into capricious bigotry, is a major institutional challenge for the 21st century.

stop50 4y ago

From what i read about the processes, both are helped by aa, because currently the group with the biggest disadvantages currently are asians(to a varying degree).

heavyset_go 4y ago

You're aware that there are admissions policies in place that seek to bring poorer people into universities, correct?