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[Michael Winslow Czeiszperger <michael AT czeiszperger.org>]

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