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Supreme Court race ruling

edited June 2007 in Politics
Okay, let's do this.

I am relieved that the SC decided that racism is bad, with its ruling yesterday that race can't be the deciding factor in where kids are mandated to attend public schools.

We still think racism is bad, right?
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Comments

  • Do you have some sort of link to an article?
  • This is the most neutral coverage I can find.
  • I'm OK with the idea of encouraging diversity in schools, but you cannot accomplish this by enforcing diversity, by changing school assignments based on race. You cannot leave that kind of a decision up to people. Besides . . . there are better ways of doing this.

    I was listening to NPR this morning and they were talking about how may schools try to ensure that there is an even balance of children who get the free lunch program in all their schools. This not only effectually balances a big portion of a schools budget each day, but also inherently creates diversity.

    Perhaps our resources would be better spent teaching teachers how to teach diversity to their students and encourage it in their classes.
  • Perhaps our resources would be better spent teaching teachers how to teach diversity to their students and encourage it in their classes.
    This makes no sense. I think you misunderstand the issue; the issue isn't tolerance, it's physical quotas of multi-racial students per school building. Democratic Party leaders want to ensure that there is a representative mix of races in schools, despite geographic and demographic realities. That means a child might not be able to attend the school down the block because he or she is the wrong color; they would have to be bused to a school where the racial quota fits.
  • Affirmative Action is racist.
  • Obama supports it, and so does his party. Only a plurality of Americans believe it stigmatizes minorities.
  • I understand the issue just fine thank you. I'm saying the issue should not be physical quotas and should be teaching tolerance and diversity. Not just racial diversity, but diversity in general.

    Spending resources (time, money, laws) to enforce physical quotas is silly because being in the room with a bunch of races doesn't teach you about diversity in races. I think our resources would be better spent teaching teachers how to teach diversity to their students and encourage it in their classes.
  • Affirmative Action is racist.
    Yep.
  • I understand the issue just fine thank you. I'm saying the issueshould notbe physical quotas andshouldbe teaching tolerance and diversity. Not just racial diversity, but diversity in general.

    Spending resources (time, money, laws) to enforce physical quotas is silly because being in the room with a bunch of races doesn't teach you about diversity in races. I think our resources would be better spent teaching teachers how to teach diversity to their students and encourage it in their classes.
    How does one "teach" diversity? Diversity is not a verb.
  • Teach Diversity

    Diversity isn't a verb . . . teaching is.
  • edited June 2007
    Diversity isn't a verb . . . teaching is.Ok, then how does one practice diversity? I mean, diversity is a noun. How do you teach a noun?
    Post edited by Andrew on
  • The reality is that "teaching diversity" is like trying to put a band-aid on a hatchet wound.

    The attitudes that kids have are going to be well formed by the time they get to school.
  • If you cannot teach nouns, how to you teach Geography, Geometry, Chemistry . . . would you like me to continue?

    You can teach tolerance. You can teach children to embrace differences (not just race) and recognize diversity. If you couldn't teach children to recognize diversity, there's be no racism. It sounds like your argument is that you can't influence a child's philosophies on life?

    0.17 seconds on Google can find thousands of articles on How to Teach Diversity.

    Note: Strangest semantics argument ever.
  • The attitudes that kids have are going to be well formed by the time they get to school.
    Of course the views people have when they are five stay constant through their entire lifetime. No one would argue that.

    I went to college in the middle of nowhere Midwest. It was a large school however so we had a wildly diverse population including many students from out of state (such as myself) or foreign countries. Many students who had literally never seen a black person in real life, having come from their graduating class of 16, were now living next to people who's native language was not their own.

    I had the opportunity to watch some unintentionally racist people learn to embrace cultures that were as foreign to them as the Internet is to many people you meet every day. This is diversity. These are people embracing diversity who had 18 years of their life worth of experience and prejudice to un-do, and they did it beautifully.

    My argument is merely that you can teach this kind of tolerance in a classroom.
  • edited June 2007
    image
    Sorry for the red herring, but this happened in a whisper.
    Post edited by Jason on
  • What would the internet be without red herrings . . . heh.
  • I'm glad the did this. I believe in equal opportunity NOT equal outcomes.

    When I hire an artist (I have hired many in the past for odd jobs) I look at the quality of their work and the suitability of their style to the project in question. I don't care what the color of the skin is. I only care about the quality of their artwork.

    Further, why should a student with an excellent academic record be kept out of a school because they are the wrong race? I'm more interested in promoting a meritocracy than a diversitocracy (yeah, I made that word up).
  • Further, why should a student with an excellent academic record be kept out of a school because they are the wrong race?
    I think the fallacy here is that this statement assumes that the child has the opportunity to get an excellent academic record. Not all schools are created equal. Unfortunately our education system (like many other systems in our culture) are designed to keep the poor uneducated . . . thus poor.

    I'm not saying that affirmative action is the solution, but this gap in the education process is one of the issues it's trying to solve.
  • our education system (like many other systems in our culture) are designed to keep the poor uneducated . . . thus poor.
    Can you back this up? Or at least explain it? I am interested.
  • edited June 2007
    Sure thing! A simple example is if the school is not a good school (poor areas, violence, no funding) then even a 4.0 student may not learn enough to get a good grade on ACT/SAT to get into college. Especially if they have to work full time to provide for their family. There are certainly heartwarming stories of children overcoming these obstacles to go to a good school, but that isn't the norm. I challenge you to spend a day at one of these schools and talk to these children and tell me it's their fault they can't get into college.

    I just had a conversation with a friend of mine from work about this today. This example is more pertinent to many of our lives. She was forced out of her job and had to take a job (with my group) getting paid a lot less. A single mom of two she's been trying to complete her bachelors degree at night but had to stop working on that when she lost her last job so she could get a second part-time job to make up for the lost income. So now she's working two jobs, still making less then she did before, and is going into debt anyway.

    Last week she started getting calls from the student loan people because it's time to start paying them (six months after stopping school). She doesn't have the money to pay for the bills she currently has so she can't certainly pay them. Her credit is going down the drain.

    Now . . . even if she gets a good promotion, can quit her part-time job, and start going back to school, she still won't be able to go back because she has crappy credit and won't be able to get additional student loans. The only way she could go back to school is to get a job that would pay enough to live, pay her debt, and pay her school off . . . which seems unlikely without a bachelors degree.

    The poor stay poor, and the rich stay rich. We don't all have the same opportunities handed to us and even if there are a few Naruto's out there that never loose hope and succeed at conquering the social oppression against them, the majority of these people stay right where they are. Class mobility is still an issue in our country. We aren't India mind you . . . but it still exists. Unfortunately in our country class mobility very often ties itself to race issues.

    Edit: I wanted to include a few research and opinion articles on the subject if you're truly interested:
    Rich-Poor Gap: Remarks by Alan Greenspan
    EPRP: What Research Says About Unequal Funding for Schools in America [This one is my personal favorite. You have to download the pdf.]
    An Economic Perspective on Urban Education
    Post edited by cosmicenema on
  • Class mobility statistics.

    @cosmicenema. While your anecdote is just that, an anecdote, I do want to point one thing out. Why is a woman who is unable to afford an education, and has bad credit, having two children? It was her choice to have those two children. If she had chosen to not have those children, she would probably already have a degree and a higher paying job. I'm not making a general statement about class mobility here. I'll let the New York Times with their sciencey numbers take care of that. I just want to say that many people of all classes are blaming outside forces such as the government, video games, and schools for the consequences of their own poor decisions. If you have two kids you can't afford, you have nobody to blame but yourself for your situation.
  • While your assertions are true, you said the system was "designed" to perpetuate castes. Was that a poor choice of words, or do you think there is an element of intent?
  • While your assertions are true, you said the system was "designed" to perpetuate castes. Was that a poor choice of words, or do you think there is an element of intent?
    Good point. I won't go into the conspiracy theories behind designing economic classes so we'll change that. Let's say the system has some 'design flaws' instead.
    Why is a woman who is unable to afford an education, and has bad credit, having two children?
    I agree with you in this situation. Her choices were not always focused towards education, but just like I mentioned that people can change their views on diversity, peoples priorities in life can change. The mere fact that she had children was enough to help her choose to go back to school. Is it too late for her to move classes? I offered two examples to show that this doesn't just affect children, but also adults.

    Hypothetically, let's say we give every person the opportunity to go to college once they graduate from highschool . . . for free. Regardless of the other consequences this may have for society (college is the new highschool), what about the person who chose not to go to school at that time? The system for adults trying to change their life around also has design flaws. Just fixing primary schooling doesn't mean the solution is complete. I don't think most people would argue that your average 18 year old person is the wisest of people.

    You'll notice I'm not trying to offer solutions here, I'm not sure there is one beyond a great shift in a specific meme of our culture: the myth of social mobility. The "American Dream" is not just white picket fences and 2.5 children . . . it's the rag-to-riches story. This isn't uniquely American, but it is specifically American. This meme is so ingrained in our culture that any time you bring up conversations like this, the responses you get are knee-jerk: "if he/she had not chosen xyz, then he/she wouldn't be in this situation". While this statement is often times true, it doesn't have to imply that he/she is stuck with their path in life at this point. This meme places blame on the individual. It is just as dangerous to place sole blame on the individual as it is solely on the system. As with all case studies, you need context.

    I'm no idealist who thinks I know the perfect system; I'm not trying to say the system can't evolve; I do think we can educate our population to break a meme or archetype that is unhealthy, and to see problems that are often times invisible when seen through the lens of these archetypes. I think affirmative action and laws like the ones mentioned in the first post are logical evolutions of laws that segregate blacks from whites, but they're no longer appropriate.
  • Do you believe in the conspiracy theories?
  • Do you believe in the conspiracy theories?
    No. I am knowledgeable of them though so if you'd like to start a flame war I can pretend. ;op

    My best friend is a sociologist and researches classes a bit but he also researches the conspiracy theory's so we rant about the subject in our 'crew' a lot. We're working on a name for our crew by the way . . . something as cool as front row crew hopefully.
  • You nearly stepped on a land mine, there, friend.
  • edited June 2007
    So, because this woman "chose" to have two kids without a husband/father in her/their lives and then "chose" to attend a school she could not afford this is somehow societies fault? I hate to sound like an old 'hungryjoe' from the fifties but... being a mother is a full-time job. Once you make the choice to have children your life is no longer your own, your responsibilities change.

    I would not want to be a single parent and I know quite a few. How did she become a single mom with two kids? Was she walking around outside and some guy just sort of "slipped and fell" into her?

    Why did she "choose" to go to a school she could not afford?

    The rich stay rich because they understand economics and the value of money. The poor stay poor because they do not. Too many "poor" people are materialistic and believe that having stuff will bring them comfort and self-worth. To become rich you must first understand the difference between a need and a want.

    Automobile, need or want? For those who do not live in big metro areas it is a need. Even though it is a need a cheap car can satisfy that need, you don't "need" to buy some $40K monstrosity, that is a want.

    Food, need or want? Food is clearly a need. You need food to live. Eating out all the time and buying fancy cuts of meat is a want. Billions of people in China get by just fine with rice as a staple of their diet, you can do it in this country too.

    The list goes on and on.
    Post edited by HMTKSteve on
  • I think what you are basically saying is that the system does not offer very many easy second chances. Once people go down a road, it is very difficult to change to go to a different road. This is mostly true. However, I'm not so sure I want a system that always offers people a way out of whatever situation they've gotten themselves into. Obviously you would not want a system which fucks people over from the get-go. Someone who makes good choices from the get go should turn out just fine, but one wrong move can easily toss you in the poor house.

    Ideally you want equal opportunity for all people no matter where or how they were born. However, if someone squanders their opportunity and learns their lesson after it's too late to easily escape, I'm not so sure if the society should bail them out somehow. It is very sad, and it seems unfair, that people who get into these situations are unable to escape despite their best efforts. Though, I do fear what kind of irresponsible people we will become if our government goes around alleviating the consequences of our personal choices, even when those consequences would be otherwise inescapable.

    I think we need to decide on how many chances we want to offer people in life and under what circumstances. Currently we offer just one chance at minimum. This often ends in tragedy as people who make one mistake are never given the opportunity to take advantage of the lessons they have learned. However, if we remove the consequences even once, the lesson might not be learned.

    I now understand the title of the comic "A Lesson is Learned, but the Damage is Irreversible".
  • So, because this woman "chose" to have two kids without a husband/father in her/their lives and then "chose" to attend a school she could not afford this is somehow societies fault? I hate to sound like an old 'hungryjoe' from the fifties but... being a mother is a full-time job. Once you make the choice to have children your life is no longer your own, your responsibilities change.
    I'm a product of a single mom and I agree with you that people shouldn't choose to have children when they're not ready but it happens and we as a society have to deal with it, not abandon these people and their children. What if her husband died . . . do you still disagree with my actual point? Then it wasn't a choice to raise children alone, but an unfortunate fact of life. Maybe they chose not to have sufficient life insurance at a young age? Does this woman and her children deserve to have limited opportunities for success?

    Arguing the specifics of the anecdote won't work in this case. We're talking about a population in aggregate. If you're trying to say that American's, in aggregate, make poor choices about cars, babies, food, television . . . then yes. I would agree with you. My solution to that is still the same . . . create opportunities not through physical quotas, but through true education.
  • edited June 2007
    I'll tell you what I struggle with...
    Historically, the disadvantage that African-Americans had in our society was attributable to the legacy of slavery and ongoing racism.
    At what point, though, do you draw the line and say that the causation is too far removed from the problem? In other words, at what point do you start pointing the finger at the African-American community?
    To be frank, I don't know the answer. I do know, however, that certain segments of the African-American community need to change if the community as a whole wants to succeed. Every community has its undesirable elements, but why is it that African-Americans seem to be lagging so far behind? The simple truth is that the last 20 years or so has brought an incredible amount of opportunity for African-Americans. I know many good schools and companies that were desperate for qualified African-Americans. Yet why do we still see so many African-Americans afflicted with the same problems? When do you start looking at the individual and blame them for not taking advantage of opportunities?

    Have African-Americans had countless injustices thrust upon them? Absolutely. Nonetheless, this does not absolve a culture from pulling themselves up to overcome those injustices. The opportunities are out there now...

    My belief is that the only intervention that's going to make a difference is early intervention. What good is fixing up a high school to a girl who dropped out of school at age 13 because she got pregnant? Even then, the intervention should come from the African-American community itself. What good will a bunch of rich, suburban, liberal white kids going to do in the ghetto? Why should African-American kids be expected to relate to those people? What we need is a movement of African-Americans who are willing to put history behind them and are willing to lead by example. Show the kid in the ghetto that it's possible to get out.

    Now as one final point... I've had a lot of experience working in the field of poverty. One fundamental rule of poverty is that those who are afflicted by it often have a completely different value structure. There is some very interesting research in this field that shows us that our traditional methods of combating poverty may be way off base.
    Post edited by Kilarney on
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