My bitterness spills over

I just read very briefly an article on the Supreme Court up-coming case on race-based admissions policies. I think there may be about four people in the U.S. who, like John McWhorter, would like to see race-based testing changed to means-testing, but all the other people just don’t like seeing a lot of minorities on campus. It brings to mind the teacher at my school who asked in a faculty meeting what we can do about the problem of minorities on campus. My daughter was a student there at the time, so she was a problem to him. The only way to deal with these people is to cram things down their throats. No dialogue is possible b/c they simply don’t want minorities unless they play sports for the school and bring in lots of money.
In a way I hope the conservative racists win this case b/c then it might make Blacks go to Black colleges and support those colleges instead of parading around waving their degree from the White school, as if that conferred some special status on them.
State schools, one of which my son graduated from, are supposed to educate people from all the social groups in the state. The racists want to restrict admissions b/c they know many fewer African-Americans and Hispanics go to schools that can prepare them to pass admissions tests, thus keeping the student body as White as possible just letting the athletes in. Whether it is the police force, schools, health care services, or state boards, power has remained in the hands of Whites, as we saw in Ferguson. Just how many White people found it a problem that Ferguson was funding its operations by ticketing and fining Blacks under a corrupt court system? Show of hands? OK. Four. Now a show of hands of those willing to do something about it. Hmmm.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Addendum 12/9/15
from a column in The Nation by June Jennings:

“To recap: Fisher applied to the University of Texas Austin twice, once through its fall 2008 cycle and again through a provisional summer program. According to court documents, 49 students with lower scores and grades than Fisher were offered provisional admission to UT through the summer program. Only five of those arguably under-qualified students were black or Hispanic; the other 42 were white.

The original suit makes no mention of the 42 admitted and arguably under-qualified white students. Conversely, according to court documents, 168 applicants of color who had higher scores than Fisher were not admitted to UT.

What has intrigued me most about Fisher’s case is her earnest sense of self-righteousness even in the face of these damning facts. “There were people in my class with lower grades and who weren’t in all of the activities I was in who were being accepted into UT,” Fisher remarks in a promo video for the case. “And the only difference between us was the color of our skin.”

If we take Fisher’s claim to be more than a cynical ploy in the decades-long campaign to erode affirmative action, then it forces the question, How can she truly feel like a victim of racism?”

Make note of Jenning’s phrase self-righteousness. It summarizes the feelings of so many people in this country who ernestly believe this country was founded by White people for White people and set up by a god. One religion in this country actually teaches that and a lot of other denominations offer sermons in that vein despite no support in scriptures or theological teachings. When Jesus walked, there was no U.S. He talked about his kingdom [His kingdom for my Christian friends] and not about a specific nation. Israel I’m not sure about, Jesus may have said something about that but I don’t think he mentioned settlements.

OK, I’m going off here but this whole anti-affirmative action thing with the self-righteous tone echoing the words of Black civil rights leaders makes me puke. Again, an argument for maintaining current HBCUs and founding new ones.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *