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  • From: Michael Winslow Czeiszperger <michael AT czeiszperger.org>
  • To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Trent Lott, segregationist
  • Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 23:49:41 -0500

On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 07:07 PM, Diana Duncan wrote:

Where did you get the idea that the labelling was "simply because it doesn't
embrace the practice of
prejudicial handouts to minorities."?

And what a loaded comment that is! Instead, of course, we have seen ample
examples of their embrace of prejudicial handouts to cronies, almost all of
whom are white males who espouse some form of Christianity Can anyone say
"Enron"?

The subject of racial equality is an extremely difficult one, pitting the ideal of racial equality against the reality of racial discrimination. Its one of the subjects I follow regularly, and there have been some recent news on the subject.

There was an interesting NY Times on the subject of racial aspects of college admission criteria this past Sunday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/08/weekinreview/08LIPT.html

To my mind the best solution to structure aid of all sorts would be to base it on class, not race, and that any attempt to resolve both past and current inequalities is to start as early as possible with the schools. The only problem is, even after adjusting for income and other non-racial factors some minorities still come out behind. This is apparently the case even with those minorities attend the very same schools, and even in the much praised Chapel Hill school system:

http://www.chccs.k12.nc.us/boardroomdetails.asp?offset=10&PD_ID=22

Note that the study the CH school system is reacting to was simply a breakdown of grades by race, and didn't bother to take into account family incomes, so its impossible to separate those factors. That's one problem I have with race-based performance reporting is that, as in this case, it doesn't bother to look for other ways of interpreting the data, even in obvious ones such as relating grades to family income.

The only sources on the subject that I know of remains the controversial book The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, and Intelligence, Genes, and Success.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684824299/qid=1039580826/sr=2- 1/ref=sr_2_1/102-9173133-8390565

As with any heated issue, some of what is discussed is true, or true in some ways, and some is not. There was an interview on NPR yesterday with an American comedian of Korean descent who complained that Europeans didn't always have to answer questions about their heritage as she did, and attributed the interest in her asian heritage as racism. Well, I have to answer questions about my heritage almost every day, and I look as white as you get :-) The fact is people with unusual names get singled out, and as far as I can tell its not centered on Asians or any other race for that matter. That isn't to say that Asians aren't discriminated against; I have no way of knowing that. But I do know her examples are also currently experienced by people of Eastern European heritage, namely me :-)

http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=872319

___________________________________________________________________
Ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to be ashamed of.
-- michael at czeiszperger dot org, Chapel Hill, NC






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