tagged w/ Affirmative Action
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Michael Collins Piper, veteran JFK researcher and author of "The Final Judgement," exposes the storyline and official government version of a potential assassinate plot of President Obama, or a future president in the book "In the President's Secret Service" by New York Times best selling author Ronald Kessler.
Kessler goes on to blame a future assassination plot on affirmitive action, the Secret Service's hiring of too many unqualified African-American agents, and also the Obama administration for their lapses in security.
Kessler is in effect creating a kind of plausible deniability on behalf of the government along with a possible "official government version" of the event.Michael Collins Piper, veteran JFK researcher and author of "The Final... more
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Looking at the state of the world today we are at a transitional phase. On one hand you have the old guard that wouldn’t give up power without a fight and on the other hand you have a new generation who is telling the old guard that their time is over. The era of struggle is just beginning.Looking at the state of the world today we are at a transitional phase. On one hand... more
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Lets us know what you think?
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Sally Kern, the Republican state representative from Oklahoma who compared LGBT people to terrorists and cancer, has turned her attacks toward African Americans as her state debates whether to end affirmative action.
Both houses of the state legislature have approved a constitutional amendment that would eliminate affirmative action in state government. The proposal is headed to the voters for consideration in 2012.
According to Tulsa World, Kern said minorities “earn less than white people because they don’t work as hard and have less initiative.”
She said, “We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”
A self-styled martyr, Kern authored a new book, The Stoning of Sally Kern, and suggested that LGBT activists were to blame for disappointing sales.Sally Kern, the Republican state representative from Oklahoma who compared LGBT people... more
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It has become an art form to call a person racist; to be more specific to call a white person a racist.It has become an art form to call a person racist; to be more specific to call a white... more
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race-based medical school admissions
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The Politics of Scapegoating Latinos and Other Racialized Minorities
By Ron Schmidt (August 2, 2010) from NiLP: guest commentary:
The pundits' mantra for the 2010 mid-term elections is that American voters are angry as hell and they're intent on taking out their anger on those in power - and for most writers this means the Democrats who control the White House and Congress. Since they are perceived as a core part of the Democratic Party's coalition, this party-in-power-about-to-take-its-lumps presumably includes the country's racialized minorities, especially Blacks and Latinos.
Catching this current, Gregory Rodriguez in his August 2, 2010 Los Angeles Times column predicts that "white racial anxiety, not immigration, will be the most significant and potentially dangerous socio-demographic trend of the coming decade." He, therefore, advises President Obama to seize his "Nixon moment" and offer up Affirmative Action to slake the dragon's thirst for blood. Rodriguez thinks that this sacrifice is necessary "to avoid a destructive white backlash."
On the same day, the lead front-page Los Angeles Times article described the aftermath of the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision as a rush by business (led by the Chamber of Commerce) and conservative political activists (led by Karl Rove's "American Crossroads") to mount the most expensive mid-term campaign in U.S. history to return power to those who will do their bidding more consistently and faithfully. Also on the same day, Paul Krugman's New York Times column decried the trending of the country's top leaders toward "normalizing" double-digit unemployment rates as a "structural" necessity of the new U.S. economy.
Are these three stories related? I think so.
This recession is different; it is not like previous recessions that led to relatively quick recoveries and we are likely to face long-term unemployment at levels not previously seen. Meanwhile, the recession has led state and local governments drowning in red ink to decimate their public sectors, including large-scale cuts in public workforces and benefits, with dire consequences for the public. Neither Congressional leaders nor the White House even discuss the possibility of raising the level of fiscal support to the public sector necessary to halt the blood-letting. Instead, national leaders wring their hands about the growing deficit and seriously entertain the possibility of restructuring the social security system toward greater privatization.
In this context, there are good reasons for all Americans to be feeling high levels of individual anxiety, and it is not surprising that the anxiety is translated into political anger. Our jobs are increasingly insecure, and the destruction of private-sector pensions and benefits has led not to a fight for their recovery but instead to a concerted attack on public sector pensions and benefits. In this environment, it is not surprising that the public is casting about for someone to blame. And in a country with our history of racial bigotry, violence, and oppression, Latino immigrants and the beneficiaries of Affirmative Action programs make ready-made targets for politicians (such as Senator James Webb, among Democrats) and other political opportunists seeking scapegoats on whose backs to improve their positions.
The campaign to target immigrants and racialized minorities should not be understood as a result of Barack Obama's becoming the country's first "non-White" president. This campaign should be understood as part of a large-scale effort by corporations and conservatives to further destroy the country's public sector, aiming to throw all Americans into the loving arms of "the market" without public sector supports. Latinos and Blacks have been among the groups hardest-hit by the recession, and the further destruction of the public sector means that those in the least advantaged positions in American society will find it harder than ever before to climb a "ladder" to success that is missing more than a few of its previous rungs.
Rather than tossing a small chunk of "meat" such as Affirmative Action to the dragon (and can anyone truly believe that this would slake its thirst for blood?), President Obama should be encouraged to step up his campaign (already begun) to show the American people how the corporations, a conservative-dominated Supreme Court and the right-wing mind-fogging machines of the media are undermining public understanding of our true situation. And the rest of us should use our considerable verbal and intellectual skills to help the public better understand from whence their anxiety comes. A concerted campaign to improve public understanding of the anxiety-producing, insecurity-magnifying consequences of an unfettered market would yield better results for everyone than the jettisoning of Affirmative Action.
Ron Schmidt, Sr., is professor of political science at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of Language Policy and Identity Politics in the United States(Temple University Press, 2000), lead co-author of Newcomers, Outsiders, and Insiders: Immigrants and American Racial Politics in the Early Twenty-first Century (University of Michigan Press, 2010), and author of numerous journal articles and book chapters. He may be reached at rschmidt@csulb.edu.The Politics of Scapegoating Latinos and Other Racialized Minorities
By Ron Schmidt... more
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Affirmative Action-A Detriment to Minorities
Affirmative Action is defined as “A reverse discrimination law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of individuals who are socially or economically disadvantaged.” During slavery, whites obviously had control over the black slaves and forced them to do whatever labor intensive jobs they needed done. This system of slavery lasted for almost two and a half centuries before it was brought to a halt in the 1860’s. Although slavery as an institution was ended, forms of slavery disguised as otherwise such as sharecropping, continued to flourish in the south up into the early 20th century.
Because of the White slave owner’s ignorant mentality, it was thought for centuries that blacks and people of any race other than white, held less of a mental capacity than that of their white peers. Because of this, Jim Crow laws were enacted through out the south that relegated minorities to holding menial jobs for low pay that generally either relied on a heavy amount of labor or were simply looked upon as unbecoming for a white person to carry out. As for the South’s northern counterpart, the industrial revolution was under way and cheap, low paying factory jobs were abundant for blacks looking for jobs. Unfortunately blacks, no matter where they lived, were always paid less and treated differently than their white counterparts and the ability to be promoted or hold higher level positions within a company was unheard of for minorities. This system of workplace double standards for blacks continued unabated until the first part of the 1960’s when President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925 in 1961, which mandated "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."
Executive Order 10925 was the American government’s first whole hearted attempt at leveling the playing field for minorities in the workforce and was soon followed by executive orders from subsequent presidential administrations that bolstered this initial attempt at eradicating racism in the workforce. Following in Kennedy’s footsteps, President Johnson, in 1965 issued Executive Order 11375, which prohibited federal contractors and employees from discriminating against employees based on race, gender, religion, and national origin. This secondary order was furthermore reinforced in 1971 by President Nixon, who issued Executive Order 11625, which granted the Secretary of Commerce the authority to implement federal policies geared towards making it easier for minorities to start business enterprises. All in all, nearly every president from Kennedy onward has in some way issued proclamations that prohibit the discrimination of minorities in the workplace. Now, I personally feel as if Affirmative Action is an unfortunately justified necessary evil in America for one simple reason-if its conception had not of occurred, minorities would have continued to have faced discrimination in the workplace and if its current existence were eradicated, the current somewhat integrated workplace environment would revert back to its initial state due to lack of government regulation and its impending penalties pursuant to compliance with the policy itself. I wish we lived in a perfect society where discrimination didn’t exist because although the policy of Affirmative Action was implemented to help minorities succeed in life, it has served a dual purpose of detriment to minorities as well.
Because racial quotas have to be met at businesses, some corporations will hire minorities not based on their levels of experience or qualifications for the job but simply because of the fact that they are minorities. Although this does allow a lot of minorities, myself included, who wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work where they do because of their race, in the long run it will have a negative impact on the minority community because they will realize that they don’t have to try their hardest to succeed in life because they will be given jobs regardless. I’m not saying that minorities are lazy, just that no matter what race you put into this situation, that race as a whole will become complacent and lazy over time because of their knowledge of quotas and the fact that even if they aren’t as qualified as the other applicants, they will still get the job because of their race.
Through out life I came to realize that race plays a big factor in everything we do, whether we are aware of it or not. Although we may not consciously factor race into things that we do on a daily basis, subconsciously our minds add that seemingly innocuous trait into most everything we are involved in. Whether it be out in public, at home, or at the workplace, race plays a pivotal role in everything we are involved in day in and day out. The workplace is and always has been one of the areas in life in which race becomes a big factor. Before I delve into my personal experiences with “affirmative Action” and racism in the workplace, I would like to offer some background information on Affirmative Action as a definition, concept, and applied policy in America.Affirmative Action-A Detriment to Minorities
Affirmative Action is defined as... more
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After years of treating their dogs better than their neighbours, these people, need to look inward when asking why is this happening to me? I am sure nobody enjoys seeing humans suffering, but while the white 10% minority had little regard for their fellow countrymen during the bounty years of separation, their businesses thrived, houses got larger, walls higher and pools deeper, all on the backs of black workers who lived and the majority still do in shacks that westerners would refuse to keep chickens in.
I had the displeasure of seeing their racism first hand while living there some years ago. Now the boot is on the other foot, I take no pleasure from their suffering. It does leave me wondering what the hell they thought would happen?
There are many lessons to be learned here, i fear the white South Africans will not see the error of their ways, and continue to blame the indigenous people of this beautiful country for their troubles.
Affirmative Action is the method chosen by the majority to redress the balance of the Apatheid Era, the irony is it is democracy they are unhappy with.After years of treating their dogs better than their neighbours, these people, need to... more
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In this case, White was right, I guess.
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A new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in three years is raising fears among Asian-Americans that it will reduce their numbers on campus, where they account for 40 percent of all undergraduates.
~sfgate.comA new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in... more
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"Tuesday’s election was a stunning triumph for the early 1960s notion of colorblindness: don’t discriminate against people of color—or in favor of them. The election of America’s first black president was a moving and long overdue affirmation of the civil rights movement’s enduring struggle for equal treatment. At the same time, the candidate never asked Americans to vote for him because he is black, saying instead that race is irrelevant. The election also saw the passage of an anti-affirmative action initiative in Nebraska, and the tight—and still contested—vote on a similar initiative in Colorado. Proponents of the two initiatives argue that they are consistent with the original colorblind vision of the civil rights movement. The resonance of the nondiscrimination principle at this time should serve as an important caution for Barack Obama as he ponders the minefields of race he will face as president.
In the coming months, Americans will watch closely to see how America’s first black president governs on issues of race. His supporters are divided. As a recent Washington Post article noted, some black supporters see Obama’s election as “advancing the black community,” while some white volunteers are thrilled by the notion of “post-racial” politics. In liberal academic circles, where Obama has strong multiracial support, the notion of colorblind policies is considered naive, even reactionary. But the Obama crowds in South Carolina memorably chanted “race doesn’t matter” after his victory there in the Democratic primary.
Obama himself has sent mixed signals on the defining issue of affirmative action. On the one hand, he castigated John McCain for supporting an anti-affirmative action initiative during the campaign. On the other hand, when George Stephanopoulos asked Obama whether his own daughters deserve a preference in college admissions, Obama said no, because they “have had a pretty good deal,” and went on to say that special consideration should be provided to low-income students of all races."
What do you think? Do we still need affirmative action?"Tuesday’s election was a stunning triumph for the early 1960s notion of... more
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University of Colorado freshman Darian Salehy loves college life so far — except for one thing.
"It's all white people," Salehy mused on the Boulder campus lawn recently, looking at fellow students headed to class.
Salehy, of Iranian descent, fears the state's flagship university, currently about 9% non-white, might become less diverse if Colorado passes a ballot measure banning government consideration of race or gender in university admissions, contracts and state spending.
The measure is similar to ones approved by voters in California, Michigan and Washington state, as well as one on the Nebraska ballot this year. It's part of a state-by-state push by former California regent Ward Connerly, who tried but failed to get the question on ballots in Arizona and Oklahoma this year.
Affirmative action isn't dominating national political headlines — or even getting a lot of talk in Colorado, where it's just one of 14 ballot measures facing voters and has been overshadowed by the presidential race and financial crisis.
The Colorado Board of Regents has not taken a position on the amendment, though Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter opposes it, saying it would undercut state education efforts. In Nebraska, the State College Board of Trustees and the University of Nebraska both oppose it.
Proponents are unswayed by the fact that the numbers of students of color have declined at flagship schools in states that have passed similar measures. In California, where an affirmative action ban passed 12 years ago, student enrollment among some minorities has dropped despite state efforts to target the poor and non-racial measures to attract a diverse student body.
"For a variety of reasons, people of color lag behind whites — and Asians, to some degree — on standardized tests," said Vikram Amar, a law professor at the University of California-Davis who has studied the effects of California's affirmative action ban.
"The sad reality is, there's no easy way to achieve racial equality without focusing on race."
The University of Colorado does not award "points" toward admission for underrepresented groups. But officials do consider race and gender as factors when they have more applicants who meet academic criteria than they have room for.
CU law professor Melissa Hartis working to defeat the amendment. She said she's struggling to fight a misperception that the university uses quotas or accepts students of color who shouldn't be there.
"Some mornings, I wake up and think, 'It's a hard battle.' Some days I wake up and think, 'Most people in Colorado do not want this,"' Hart said. "So I don't know. I think it could go either way."University of Colorado freshman Darian Salehy loves college life so far — except... more
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Citizen journalist Tamara Briggman was raised in the projects in South Carolina and made her way out on her own. Together with her co-citizen journalist Elizabeth Gotsdiner, a white college student, Tamara travels to Michigan, site of landmark anti-affirmative action rulings, to investigate the current state of affirmative action and race relations in America. Purple States is a mini-documentary series about a group of five randomly-selected American citizens following the campaign trail for the Washington Post. The citizens’ blogs and daily show can be found at www.purplestates.tv. Citizen journalist Tamara Briggman was raised in the projects in South Carolina and... more
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"In his 19 years as a law professor at UCLA, Richard Sander has pondered a nagging question: Does affirmative action help or hinder African Americans who want to become lawyers?
Two years ago, he published research suggesting that racial preferences at law firms might be responsible for black lawyers' high rate of attrition and difficulty making partner. He hypothesized that in the interest of promoting diversity, law firms sometimes hired black lawyers who were underqualified, and that when there was a "credentials gap" between black and white lawyers at a firm, black lawyers often were less likely to advance and more likely to leave the firm.
The research stirred debate throughout the legal community, and Sander said he was surprised at the vehemence with which people attacked his motives. A former Volunteers in Service to America participant, fair-housing activist and campaigner for Chicago's first black mayor, Sander, who is white, insisted he was simply trying to examine an important question.
Now the professor has waded into another controversy. Sander says his goal this time is to examine whether law schools set up many affirmative action beneficiaries for failure by admitting them into rigorous academic environments in which they are ill-prepared to compete. He proposes to study almost 30 years of data on State Bar of California exam-takers. In the end, he hopes to explain why, as reported in a Law School Admissions Council study in the 1990s, blacks are four times as likely as whites to fail the bar exam on the first try.
The state bar has refused to facilitate his probe. Citing privacy concerns, the bar has denied him access to detailed demographic data collected from exam-takers since 1972.
Many lawyers, scholars and diversity advocates have applauded the bar's action."
Rest of article at link..."In his 19 years as a law professor at UCLA, Richard Sander has pondered a... more
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How are people saying Obama isan affirmative action case when McCain only got into school and the navy because of his dad?How are people saying Obama isan affirmative action case when McCain only got into... more
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WASHINGTON - Presidential challenger John McCain said Sunday that he supports a proposed ballot initiative in his home state that would prohibit affirmative action policies from state and local governments. A decade ago, he called a similar effort "divisive."
Over the years, McCain has consistently voiced his opposition to hiring quotas based on race. He has supported affirmative action in limited cases. For example, he voted to maintain a program that encourages the awarding of 10 percent of spending on highway construction to women and minorities.
McCain was asked specifically Sunday whether he supported an effort to get a referendum on the ballot in Arizona that would "do away with affirmative action."
"Yes, I do," said McCain in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
The Republican senator quickly added that he had not seen the details of the proposal. "But I've always opposed quotas."
In 1998, a resolution pending in the state Legislature would ask Arizona voters to eliminate most preferences based on race, gender, color or ethnic origin. McCain warned against using ballot proposals to outlaw quotas or racial preferences.
"Rather than engage in divisive ballot initiatives, we must have a dialogue and cooperation and mutual efforts together to provide for every child in America to fulfill their expectations," McCain said.
The 1998 story by the Associated Press said McCain was speaking to a handful of Hispanic leaders in Washington. In his comments, he stopped short of directly criticizing the resolution pending in Arizona.
A spokesman for the McCain campaign said in a statement that the senator has always opposed hiring quotes based on race.
He believes that regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, the law should be equally applied," the spokesman, Tucker Bounds, said. "He has long stood for the protection of civil rights and equal opportunity for all Americans."
For the current effort in Arizona, supporters of the state constitutional amendment banning affirmative action programs have met the filing deadline to get the measure on the November ballot.
The Arizona Civil Rights Initiative filed 334,658 signatures with the Secretary of State's office Thursday, surpassing the necessary number by more than 100,000. State officials are trying to verify that enough signatures are valid to get the initiative on the ballot.
The application for the referendum petition said the proposal would amend the state constitution to prohibit preferential treatment or discrimination by state government, state universities, school districts, counties and local governments to any individual based on race, sex, ethnicity or national origin.
Democratic challenger Barack Obama said he is a "strong supporter of affirmative action when properly structured so that it is not just a quota."
He said he believes a university or college should be able to take into account race as well as economic class and hardship when making assessments about admissions.
Obama said McCain flipped on the issue of putting affirmative action bans on the ballot.
"These are not designed to solve a big problem, but they're all too often designed to drive a wedge between people," Obama said.
On that point, McCain's spokesman did not directly answer whether McCain had changed his views about the wisdom of putting bans on affirmative action policies to the voters.
Bounds said that Obama himself Sunday said that affirmative action is not a long-term solution, but has also said he's a firm believer in affirmative action.
WASHINGTON - Presidential challenger John McCain said Sunday that he supports a... more
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If girls were once excluded because they somehow weren't good enough, they now are rejected because they're too good. Or at least they are so good, compared with boys, that admissions committees at some private colleges have problems managing a balanced freshman class.
Roughly 58% of undergraduates nationally are female, and the girl-boy ratio will probably tip past 60-40 in a few years. The divide is even worse for black males, who are outnumbered on campus by black females 2 to 1.
While educators debate whether there is a "boy crisis" that warrants a wholesale change in how to teach, colleges are quietly stripping the pastels from brochures and launching Xbox tournaments to try to close the gap in the quality and quantity of boys applying.If girls were once excluded because they somehow weren't good enough, they now... more
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The complex diversity of human ethnicity is a testament to human adaptability and resilience. Our libraries and schools are now filled with volumes written about unique and independent social systems that have coexisted for millennia throughout the planet. There are countless examples to choose from that run the gamut of human kin group possibilities?some egalitarian, some totalitarian. There is not one set standard, from an anthropological or sociological point of view that is constant with regard to marriage, or what constitutes a kin group. There are many complex individual psychological processes at work that cause people to bond and form into groups and the most commonly recognized and studied unit is the family. However, for many people at different times in human history, family has meant different things. What most anthropologists and sociologists do agree on is that in every society each individual has a role to play in the social construction of reality. However the situation that the public at large deals with on a daily basis is how to clearly identify individual roles and how to mediate conflicts arising from everyone?s individual pursuit of happiness; where these conflicts are most evident are in the arenas of gender, class, and ethnicity.
Quote from essay by Jon Jaramillo aka JubalThe complex diversity of human ethnicity is a testament to human adaptability and... more
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jubal
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In this article from the National Review, Roger Clegg claims that there's optimism for conservative culture warriors. He stakes a lot on victories in three fronts: Affirmative action, immigration, and illegitimate child birth.
Did I miss something? Did Leftists suddenly become pro-illegitimate child? What is this guy smoking?
And where does he pull this stat: "1 in 4 non-Hispanic white children are born from parents out of wedlock"? Is that true?In this article from the National Review, Roger Clegg claims that there's... more
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