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I was a white guy who was (mildly) negatively affected by affirmative action in high school, and only by luck wasn't more strongly affected. Way back when, I'd

by wtbob 12y ago

I was a white guy who was (mildly) negatively affected by affirmative action in high school, and only by luck wasn't more strongly affected. Way back when, I'd applied for a position at a local university's geek-kids summer programme (I'm keeping this as non-specific as possible). I never heard back from them with an acceptance or rejection, until days before the programme started. 'You're in,' they said, and so my folks had to scramble to readjust our summer plans, arrange their finances to cover the program and so forth. Not really a big deal, but a bit of a nuisance. What's the affirmative-action angle? Well, it turns out that I'd been on the alternates list because I'm a white guy, and the programme wanted more girls and non-whites. One of the accepted folks had cancelled, and so I got a spot after all. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that this programme changed my life. It opened my eyes to what eventually became my career. It exposed me to other high-schoolers like me. It made me friends I still have today. It still stands as one of my most formative experiences. Now, in this programme there were some students who clearly didn't belong. They were fundamentally unprepared (i.e., they had never been taught the fundamentals of the material). They didn't understand the material. They cried because they were failing what was for everyone else and easy pass (literally, as in not even bothering to worry). They held the entire class back because the professors had to spend so much time trying—and, mostly, failing—to explain basic concepts to them. The programme was a waste of their time: they learned little, if anything, and had an utterly miserable experience. They were, of course, uniformly non-white, non-Asian girls. I'll pause here to note that none of this is an attack on those students qua people. I'm sure that they were perfectly good people, but they had no business at a university geek-kid programme. I'll also note that there were plenty of young women in the programme who were quite capable and intelligent and did just as well as the young men. The poor students weren't poor students because they were female, or because they were non-white, but because they were unintelligent and/or uneducated. Now, each spot once of those poor students occupied was a spot which could have been occupied by an excellent student. Each of those spots represented a young life which wasn't changed like mine was. Which of those students, unaccepted because of their gender or colour, dropped out of high school, never applied to college, committed suicide or majored in some non-technical field? How dare anyone think that's right? So no, I don't think 'we dudes will be just fine.'

Total_Meltdown 12y ago
> They were, of course, uniformly non-white, non-Asian girls. > The poor students weren't poor students because they were female, or because they were non-white, but because they were unintelligent and/or uneducated. And why is that? If you reject the absurd notion that there's some causative relationship between technical ability/intellect and gender/race, what's the explanation, other than the possibility that those people didn't have the same exposure to the subjects that you did? And that's not even including the confidence factor: Of course a white dude can do this stuff, they do it all the time. Your story seems to suggest we should actually be doing this long before university. I would agree with that. This part will probably be unpopular, but I'll say it anyway: What makes you so special, that your life is the one that gets to be changed? If we were all on equal footing, who says you're even good enough for your university geek-kid program anyway? Or me, for that matter - I was part of a similar program in high school[1]. What if we could be fifty years ahead of where we are now, if only we had an environment that was actually competitive across the whole breadth of our society, rather than jokers like you and me running the ship? [1] http://www.usfirst.org/ http://www.usfirst.org/
- wtbob 12y ago
  > If you reject the absurd notion that there's some causative relationship between technical ability/intellect and gender/race, what's the explanation, other than the possibility that those people didn't have the same exposure to the subjects that you did? For purposes of admitting students to special programmes, who cares? The only thing the admissions staff should have considered was admitting the most qualified applicants to the programme. And anyway, you're ignoring the fact that intelligence is in part hereditary. It's not those students' fault that they had poor intelligence any more than it's my fault that I make a poor athlete; admitting them to a competitive academic programme was as foolish as admitting me to the Olympics. > What makes you so special, that your life is the one that gets to be changed? I was better-suited to that program that the ill-suited students admitted ahead of me were. > If we were all on equal footing, who says you're even good enough for your university geek-kid program anyway? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Maybe some of those ill-suited students were more innately intelligent than those who were unfairly rejected, and had simply had poor upbringings, but that doesn't matter: they were, at the point of admission, profoundly less-qualified than the rejectees. And what was the point of admitting them in the first place? They were not helped by it: they had a horrible experience of unmitigated humiliation and failure. They didn't benefit, and others suffered. All you can do is take everyone on his own merits, as he is. It doesn't matter what sex or colour someone is: if he's the best candidate, take him for the job or the codeathon or whatever; if not, don't. > What if we could be fifty years ahead of where we are now, if only we had an environment that was actually competitive across the whole breadth of our society, rather than jokers like you and me running the ship?

by wtbob 12y ago

Total_Meltdown 12y ago

> They were, of course, uniformly non-white, non-Asian girls. > The poor students weren't poor students because they were female, or because they were non-white, but because they were unintelligent and/or uneducated. And why is that? If you reject the absurd notion that there's some causative relationship between technical ability/intellect and gender/race, what's the explanation, other than the possibility that those people didn't have the same exposure to the subjects that you did? And that's not even including the confidence factor: Of course a white dude can do this stuff, they do it all the time. Your story seems to suggest we should actually be doing this long before university. I would agree with that. This part will probably be unpopular, but I'll say it anyway: What makes you so special, that your life is the one that gets to be changed? If we were all on equal footing, who says you're even good enough for your university geek-kid program anyway? Or me, for that matter - I was part of a similar program in high school[1]. What if we could be fifty years ahead of where we are now, if only we had an environment that was actually competitive across the whole breadth of our society, rather than jokers like you and me running the ship? [1] http://www.usfirst.org/ http://www.usfirst.org/

wtbob 12y ago
> If you reject the absurd notion that there's some causative relationship between technical ability/intellect and gender/race, what's the explanation, other than the possibility that those people didn't have the same exposure to the subjects that you did? For purposes of admitting students to special programmes, who cares? The only thing the admissions staff should have considered was admitting the most qualified applicants to the programme. And anyway, you're ignoring the fact that intelligence is in part hereditary. It's not those students' fault that they had poor intelligence any more than it's my fault that I make a poor athlete; admitting them to a competitive academic programme was as foolish as admitting me to the Olympics. > What makes you so special, that your life is the one that gets to be changed? I was better-suited to that program that the ill-suited students admitted ahead of me were. > If we were all on equal footing, who says you're even good enough for your university geek-kid program anyway? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Maybe some of those ill-suited students were more innately intelligent than those who were unfairly rejected, and had simply had poor upbringings, but that doesn't matter: they were, at the point of admission, profoundly less-qualified than the rejectees. And what was the point of admitting them in the first place? They were not helped by it: they had a horrible experience of unmitigated humiliation and failure. They didn't benefit, and others suffered. All you can do is take everyone on his own merits, as he is. It doesn't matter what sex or colour someone is: if he's the best candidate, take him for the job or the codeathon or whatever; if not, don't. > What if we could be fifty years ahead of where we are now, if only we had an environment that was actually competitive across the whole breadth of our society, rather than jokers like you and me running the ship?