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Posted by: hyperbola 1 year, 2 months ago
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hyperbola1 year, 2 months ago
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That's the point: privilege is the flipside of discrimination. If people of color face discrimination, in housing, employment and elsewhere, then the rest of us are receiving a de facto subsidy, a privilege, an advantage in those realms of daily life. There can be no down without an up, in other words.
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None of this means that white folks don't face challenges. Of course we do, and some of them (based on class, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, or other factors) are systemic and institutionalized. But on balance, we can take for granted that we will receive a leg-up on those persons of color with whom we share a nation.
And no, affirmative action doesn't change any of this.... Despite white fears to the contrary, even with affirmative action in place...
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/10/08/explaini...-
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rimbaud1 year, 2 months ago
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For those who complain that it was affirmative action that kept them out of a college or a job, look at the numbers. The likelihood that YOU were the ONE that was displaced by the very small numbers of those who were given preference is minute. It is more likely, but maybe not certain, that there were other reasons you were not among the very much larger group of whites admitted. Just think of it as you were competing against the very large group of whites not against the very small group given preference.
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Another way of saying it: White people with good grades are a dime a dozen, but a minority with chances of success is a rare gem. Even if all the preferences were eliminated, only a very few additional white folks would be admitted, and you might STILL not be among them: the pool of available places for whites is huge, in comparison with places lost to preferences. For a college, or an employer, the value that the few preferences provides to the whole population, is as great as the value provided by unique characteristics of applicants, like excellence in leadership, or sports or creative arts.-
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mesodude1 year, 2 months ago
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rimbaud, these people don't care anything about affirmative action. They live in perpetual victim mode. When I point out to cons that by selecting a disproportionately high number of graduates from his buddy Pat Robertson's low ranked law school for his administration's jobs, Bush discriminated against Republican and Democrats alike, most scratch their heads or stare blankly as if in a trance. They have no reaction to this. Read the comments from right wingers here and you can see they have no real interest in a dialog. They come here with the mindset that those on the left are the enemy and their job is to ignore reason and logic and simply concentrate on defeating the other guy.
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