I can understand poverty. It is often assumed that those that live in poverty are not as smart as those that are rich. Not to mention the rich can often have "connections" which may help a school or company.
But prejudice? Sorry but don't buy it. At least not completely. I'm not trying to say that there isn't prejudice. Just that it's not near as much of a factor as people keep trying to say. And you have to remember that prejudice comes from both directions. Not just whites.
By no means is race a perfect proxy for these things, but it's not a terrible one either. I would like to see an AA system based more on class and background, but race is still an important component.
Yes it is a terrible one. For the simple fact that it creates more racism. I've talked to a few whites that turned racist because they were denied one too many jobs just because someone of color was hired, even though they had better resume's than the person of color.
Basing it off of class can be just as detrimental as it can cause hard feelings between the poor and the rich. And I think that there is enough hard feelings between those two right now without having to add more too it.
Which doesn't change the fact that many black patients feel more comfortable with black doctors, like individuals of all races do. Having an increased supply of black doctors increases health outcomes among that group.
Why exactly do they feel more comfortable? Do you know?
AA does. Or at least the way people use AA. If a black person applies for a school or company that happens to be totally white what happens if they are denied? A charge of racism. Even if their race had absolutely nothing to do with the reason for them being denied a position. That costs the company or school money. Even if they are found innocent it still costs them money. Name me one school or company that doesn't mind loosing money for no real reason.
Are you under the assumption that schools use AA because the government is forcing them to?
Yes, and no. Yes because AA is a government law. No because of what I just explained in my last paragraph.
Trust me, they're boring.
The point is that any homogenous group is relatively limited in its perspectives.
Says who? Each and everyone of those people can have very different lives. Different perspectives. Different thoughts. You are trying to make it sound as if they would all have the same perspective. They wouldn't. Unless you are trying to say that just because your black you will have a different perspective than someone that is white.
If that is the case then lets examine this scenario. Got two people. One white. One black. They both grow up in the same neighborhood. Same schooling giving by not only schools but also from parents. Parents make same amount of money. They both have reletively the same experiances and same opportunities.
How does race play a factor here?
In either case you are not getting the point. Everyone has a difference of opinion on what is interesting and what is not.
Again, nobody forces these schools to do anything. This is a pretty important point.
Again yes somebody does. Look above to the appropriate paragraph where I already explained this.
I don't know what you're trying to say. You're right that people will learn their whole life, but it's important to start early.
And people do learn early. It's kind of hard to not hear about racial issues through out your childhood. Particularly in k-12 grades. The great thing about public school is that it is already diverse because a public school has to accept anyone in their district. And I don't know of a single district that doesn't have diversity in their school system. But we are talking about college admissions. Not grades k-12. By the time they get into college they already have had diverse dealings for much of their lives.
Again, you're operating from the assumption that people benefitting from AA are not working hard already and are just having things handed to them.
No actually I'm not. The difference here is that one is based on a persons acedemics. The other is based on a persons skin color. They could both have worked just as hard as the other. But due to differing grades one is accepted while the other is not. In the case of the AA student he was accepted because of his skin color. Despite his grades not being as good as the white persons. Despite them both working just as hard as the other. Can you honestly tell me that someone with a 3.5 GPA should be accepted over someone with a 4.0 GPA? Because that is exactly what happens with AA.
This may come as a surprise, but AA is not as huge of a boost as one might think. The average black student getting into Harvard Med School with an AA boost is not a moron. They busted their ass and would have gotten into a good med school (if not Harvard) even without the boost.
Without AA the black person would have gotten into a good med school yes. But if his GPA was not up to Harvards standards then why should AA get him into Harvard over someone who had a better GPA? Again even if they worked just as hard (or even harder) as the person with the better GPA.
That is the problem with AA. It gets people into positions that they normally would not have gotten. All because of their skin color. It doesn't really matter how often it happens. It does matter that it happens at all.
It's not an assumption, it's a
reality.
The authors took the content of 500 real resumes off online job boards and then evaluated them, as objectively as possible, for quality, using such factors as education and experience. Then they replaced the names with made-up names picked to "sound white" or "sound black" and responded to 1,300 job ads in The Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune last year.
Previous studies have examined how employers responded to similarly qualified applicants they meet in person, but this experiment attempted to isolate the response to the name itself.
White names got about one callback per 10 resumes; black names got one per 15. Carries and Kristens had call-back rates of more than 13 percent, but Aisha, Keisha and Tamika got 2.2 percent, 3.8 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. And having a higher quality resume, featuring more skills and experience, made a white-sounding name 30 percent more likely to elicit a callback, but only 9 percent more likely for black-sounding names.
Sorry but I'm going to have to reject this study. They said that they had 500 applications yet sent those applications to 1300 different jobs. Because of this you have no idea how or who they sent those applications to. Did they send all applications to each of the 1300 jobs? You have no idea if they only sent applications to the appropriate job that those particular skills applied to. You have no idea if someone else was already hired for the job by the time said application was sent in. You have no idea if there was a better application sent in. You have no idea if the employer was just waiting to review said application. You have no idea how long they waited before the people doing this study waited before they decided that the employer wasn't going to call.
In essence there are too many variables to accurately tell if this study is accurate or not. Now if you had the original study then we might beable to decern some of the answers.
