Would an Obama presidency help curb the use of racial quotas in America?

[Lugnuts]

Quotas are technically illegal, but we all know they exist.

Also, would an Obama presidency reduce the need for, or the support of affirmative action?

The argument being (and not necessarily my argument, btw), if an African American can rise to the level of POTUS....

 

[Football_Bat]

African American

It's too bad we still have to use racial designations. Until we can stop doing so, both quotas and affirmative action will exist. We've got a long way to go ... and apologies to Jerry Reed, but I don't see a short time to get there.

 

[Lugnuts]

Are you saying it wouldn't be significant if he were elected?

And it wasn't significant when Tiger Woods won the Masters?

I don't understand your point.

 

[21]

Not sure I understand the question. Are you wondering if people will think, 'Well, if we can have a black president, then blacks must have caught up in the work force...'?

Reminds me of last season's Super Bowl with the two black head coaches, and the inane discussion over whether that meant 'equality' had finally reached the NFL.

But to take a shot at your question, seems the logic would be, 'See, give people a chance, look at how far they can go.'

 

[heyabbott]

no

 

[Lugnuts]

Reminds me of last season's Super Bowl with the two black head coaches, and the inane discussion over whether that meant 'equality' had finally reached the NFL.

Like it or not, that's exactly the perception many people have. There were folks arguing the Rooney Rule was no longer necessary.

Because of perception, or for whatever reason.... I'm wondering if enthusiasm for affirmative action (or if stubborn adherence to the use of quotas) will be dampened by an Obama presidency.

Which could be a good thing, or not, depending on your point of view. I'm simply wondering about the effect.

 

[Double Down]

Here is the thing that pisses me off the most about people who are the most angry over "affirmative action" especially when it comes to things like college applications (and Lugs, I realize this is separate from your point and not directed at you):

"Legacy" admissions, like the one George Walker Bush used to get into Yale, make up something like 30 percent of the students accepted into those prestigious schools. Quotas, based on race, make up something like 10 percent.

Yet no one every ******* and ******* about all those kids who only get into Yale because dad went there.

 

[Alma]

Quotas are technically illegal, but we all know they exist.

Also, would an Obama presidency reduce the need for, or the support of affirmative action?

The argument being (and not necessarily my argument, btw), if an African American can rise to the level of POTUS....

Obama's presidency - the very existence of it - would have no effect. Maybe his policies might.

 

[Pastor]

Racist employers are not going to suddenly say “Hey a black guy can be president. I never thought black people were smart enough for that. I guess I should hire some.”

 

[heyabbott]

Here is the thing that pisses me off the most about people who are the most angry over "affirmative action" especially when it comes to things like college applications (and Lugs, I realize this is separate from your point and not directed at you):

"Legacy" admissions, like the one George Walker Bush used to get into Yale, make up something like 30 percent of the students accepted into those prestigious schools. Quotas, based on race, make up something like 10 percent.

Yet no one every ******* and ******* about all those kids who only get into Yale because dad went there.

The difference is that most people believe that the Constitution says:

"...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Equal protection isn't that we are all treated equal, it's that you cannot deny equal protection because of certain characteristics, like race, national origin or religion.

As to legacy, the argument is that being a legacy admission has nothing to do with race. Not really true since it's only been 40 years since women, blacks and jews have been regularly admitted. But barrack Obama's children will get preferential treatment at Columbia because he's a legacy. And these days, African American children of middle class backgrounds whose parents are college educated may receive preference over children, regardless of race, whose parents never went to college.

One reason those of us of the Jewish faith so object to Affirmative Action and quotas, is 40 years ago, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, had quotas for Jews, they only let in, for example, 5 Jews per class, even when Jewish applicants were more qualified than white admittees. With Affirmative Action, Jewish applicants can be more than qualified again, yet be denied admission. Ask the Asian American kids being excluded from Stanford and Cal. because they don't want 30-40% of the entering class to be Asian what they think of Affirmative Action.

 

[21]

they only let in, for example, 5 Jews per class, even when Jewish applicants were more qualified than white admittees.

Not arguing with your general meaning here, but I think you'll agree that most Jews are white.

 

[zeke12]

they only let in, for example, 5 Jews per class, even when Jewish applicants were more qualified than white admittees.

Not arguing with your general meaning here, but I think you'll agree that most Jews are white.

O.J. Simpson...

Not a Jew!

 

[heyabbott]

they only let in, for example, 5 Jews per class, even when Jewish applicants were more qualified than white admittees.

Not arguing with your general meaning here, but I think you'll agree that most Jews are white.

If you asked Ted Kennedy's father in 1940 whether Jews were white, I don't think he'd respond affirmatively. If you asked the admissions committees of the Ivy Leagues as late as 1958 whether Jews were white, I don't think you'd get an affirmative response.

Sorry, I still believe that many people in this country believe that Jews are Jews, neither white nor black.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Gee, this is a fight I've been dying to have again.
Where's the abortion thread?
'yab, I don't believe for a minute that your opposition to affirmative action -- which does not mean "quotas," per se, which are merely one method of achieving the goals of affirmative action, and a method invented by Richard Nixon, I might add -- is based on the historical wrongs done to Jewish students at Harvard. You just don't like policies much that help black folks. Please stop, OK. Your record's clear on that.
Affirmative action is meant to help victims of current discrimination. (Saying that it is a remedy for past discrimination is a self-defeating argument.) In that, it is every bit the parallel with legacy admits. And the people who oppose it know that, which is why some of them give the game away when they clamor about "unfairness" and still argue for "class-based" affirmative action. Class-based affirmative action wouldn't be any more "fair" than race-based affirmative action, but it would include some white people, which is the raison d'etre for the original resistence to affirmative action.

 

[heyabbott]

Gee, this is a fight I've been dying to have again.
Where's the abortion thread?
'yab, I don't believe for a minute that your opposition to affirmative action -- which does not mean "quotas," per se, which are merely one method of achieving the goals of affirmative action, and a method invented by Richard Nixon, I might add -- is based on the historical wrongs done to Jewish students at Harvard. You just don't like policies much that help black folks. Please stop, OK. Your record's clear on that.
Affirmative action is meant to help victims of current discrimination. (Saying that it is a remedy for past discrimination is a self-defeating argument.) In that, it is every bit the parallel with legacy admits. And the people who oppose it know that, which is why some of them give the game away when they clamor about "unfairness" and still argue for "class-based" affirmative action. Class-based affirmative action wouldn't be any more "fair" than race-based affirmative action, but it would include some white people, which is the raison d'etre for the original resistence to affirmative action.

Sorry, but I don't need you to tell me what I truly believe. I just need to talk to living family members who were both harmed by Jewish QUOTAS and benefited from their being lifted.

If any person can prove that they were denied anything because of race, they should be entitled to immediate Affirmative Action as a remedy. Aside from that, Affirmative Action is discrimination.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

"If any person can prove that they were denied anything because of race, they should be entitled to immediate Affirmative Action as a remedy. Aside from that, Affirmative Action is discrimination. "

Priceless. This is an argument straight out of Jim Crow, when trying to prove that got you killed. Unless you can prove that University X organized its admissions policy to keep you specifically out because of your race, there is no remedy for you at law that doesn't diminish 'yab's rights -- and that's assuming there'd ever be proof that he'd unreservedly accept, which I doubt.

I tell this story all the time because it sums up my attitude to this stupid argument.
My grandfather left Ireland because his family wanted him to join the priesthood and he didn't want to. In 1916, while there were still NINA signs hanging in certain places, he walked off the boat and right into a job on the police force in an Eastern city. He had no experience in law enforcement. He'd been a student and a shopkeeper's kid in the old country. But he had a cousin on the force, and another on the fire department, and that's how he got the job. There was no meritocracy involved at all. And that was the first step my family had up the ladder in America.
That city did not hire its first African American patrolman until 1974, and then only under a court order mandating affirmative action. In other words, three generations of black children grew up in that city denied because of their color -- and, please, don't tell me there was any other reason -- the original opportunity for advancement that my family was handed the day my grandfather walked off the ****ing boat.

 

[heyabbott]

"If any person can prove that they were denied anything because of race, they should be entitled to immediate Affirmative Action as a remedy. Aside from that, Affirmative Action is discrimination. "

Priceless. This is an argument straight out of Jim Crow, when trying to prove that got you killed. Unless you can prove that University X organized its admissions policy to keep you specifically out because of your race, there is no remedy for you at law that doesn't diminish 'yab's rights -- and that's assuming there'd ever be proof that he'd unreservedly accept, which I doubt.

I tell this story all the time because it sums up my attitude to this stupid argument.
My grandfather left Ireland because his family wanted him to join the priesthood and he didn't want to. In 1916, while there were still NINA signs hanging in certain places, he walked off the boat and right into a job on the police force in an Eastern city. He had no experience in law enforcement. He'd been a student and a shopkeeper's kid in the old country. But he had a cousin on the force, and another on the fire department, and that's how he got the job. There was no meritocracy involved at all. And that was the first step my family had up the ladder in America.
That city did not hire its first African American patrolman until 1974, and then only under a court order mandating affirmative action. In other words, three generations of black children grew up in that city denied because of their color -- and, please, don't tell me there was any other reason -- the original opportunity for advancement that my family was handed the day my grandfather walked off the ****ing boat.

I tell this story too, my grandfather applied to New York University (NYU) before WWII and was told, in no uncertain terms, that NYU was No Yids University. That he should apply to the City College of New York (CCNY) aka Circumcised Citizens of New York.

Also another family member applied for Admissions to a famous graduate program at Johns Hopkins University only to be told that he was too late, they already admitted the class Jew.
So I'll excuse the fact that you don't give a **** about my family if you'll excuse the fact that I don't give a **** about yours.
That in the cause of Affirmative Action, it is a zero sum game. For every admission made to an African American student that would not otherwise be accepted, but for race, another student will be denied admission, because of race.

You are willing to accept that because you and yours are beneficiaries of that policy, having been victims of a previously odorous policy. However, be aware, that I and mine may be the victims of your benefits, though we too were victims of a previous odorous policy. The Bushes and Kennedys will still get theirs, but the real people will be harmed.

 

[andyouare?]

'yab,

Do you honestly believe that in present-day America, they discriminate against Jews on the same level of blacks?

Fifty years ago, your argument might have made sense.

Oh, and to answer the question, no I don't think Obama winning will change anything.

 

[Beaker]

Well this is fun.

 

[heyabbott]

'yab,

Do you honestly believe that in present-day America, they discriminate against Jews on the same level of blacks?

Fifty years ago, your argument might have made sense.

Oh, and to answer the question, no I don't think Obama winning will change anything.

No, I think Jews are accepted more than blacks in today's society, and that rests mostly on the fact and belief that, in spite of discrimination and antisemitism, Jews have achieved an enormous amount in this country. I also think there is resentment of those accomplishments, and the memory of 1,950 years of Christian oppression doesn't go away in 50 years.
But Affirmative Action is not a victim-less remedy, real people are harmed and those people are disproportionately Jewish and Asian, since they are disproportionately represented in higher education.