We are all equal again, right?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-30-2023, 02:56 PM)hollodero Wrote: Sure, I get that point, it is well taken. A somewhat countering argument might be that said white (plus maybe asian, I leave them out for I don't know) students in general stem from wealthier backgrounds, which allows them to actually study and not worry about much else to achieve said credentials, while the black student also has to work to make ends meet, can't afford tutoring as easily, and so on. And of course that this initial situation, the white ones in general being wealthier, in the overall perspective stems from past and present racial injustice that a society wants to correct or compensate for. For sure, in this case by creating a counter-inequality, hoping that as a whole the inequalities equal out, which is tricky. Especially for the white individual that understandably feels treated unfairly if a black student takes his/her place solely because of skin color. I don't know how to weigh these aspects against each other really.

My position is you can't solve inequality with more inequality.  Lower income students includes more white people than any other ethnicity.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/poverty-rates-for-blacks-and-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019.html

The percentage is lower but the overall numbers are greater.  A dirt poor white kid will still take a back seat to a wealthy black or Hispanic kid.  Now, if you want to start a certain percentage of admittants need to be under a certain income level, I'd be for that, as long as you eliminated any possible means of discerning the person's ethnicity.

The problem though, is this isn't an income only issue.  Why do dirt poor whites score on par with the wealthiest black students?

https://johnmjennings.com/race-income-and-college-admission-testing/



You'll note that white students whose families make less than $20k a year score 478 math and 480 verbal.  Contrast that with a black student whose family makes more than $100k, 490 math and 495 verbal.  That's shocking, is it not?  So the real question is why this disparity?  A black student from a wealthy family has far more opportunity than a dirt poor white kid.  So why are their test scores nearly identical?  Before some bad faith actor (not you, you're not like that) tries to claim I'm making some eugenics based argument, I most certainly am not.  I am asking why this discrepancy exists, because the answer will likely contain a sold solution.

Quote:For what happens now that affirmative action is disallowed - it might very well lead to black communities falling further behind again, which creates tensions and is a bad starting point for creating a truely equal society. If it were up to me, I might consider an approach that allows for race ratios in the colleges that reflect the ratio in the overall regions' populace, which is not ideal, but might be the best compromise to be had. For me, anyways, even though it indeed comes with actual discrimination.

But again, you can't address inequality by creating more inequality.  A ratio that reflects the local populace would run into the same issues if the root causes are not addressed.  As we can determine from the above, income does not seem to be a prime factor.

Quote:Are scholarships a good workaround, I don't know, especially when given out to black/hispanic students only. One could interpret this approach as reestablishing affirmative action through the back door.

They wouldn't affect the opportunity of anyone, they'd only give an economic head start to those who tend to come from economically depressed families.  Which is far from insignificant IMO.