Newsweek: Read it and weep.
There has been a good deal of buzz about Newsweek‘s over the top cover article about “Bush’s 87 Billion Dollar Mess” (a Google News search on “Newweek” and “mess” turns up 40 articles today, most about that issue).
But equally sad, if not sadder, is an article in the same issue about Bill Cosby, struggling to carry on even as he is still grieving over the murder of his son, Ennis. At one point in the interview a call comes in from one of Ennis’s college friends, with news that he had just passed the bar.
Cosby tells his caller to hold. He dashes into the foyer and stands in front of a massive bronze bust of his son, adorned with spiritual crystals placed there by his wife, Camille. “Ennis, Michael passed on his very first try,” Cosby addresses the bust. “Isn’t that something? That’s a Morehouse man for you. Nothing can stop you.” Before heading back to the phone, Cosby places a kiss on the bronze forehead.
And that’s not even the saddest thing in the article, at least to me. Cosby is described as disappointed and dismayed by the ghetto-glorifying cultural separateness that now characterizes so much of the discussion about “diversity,” especially on the part of the new generation of black comics who, Cosby believes, reinforce negative stereotypes about blacks that Cosby’s show did so much to dispel. At the same time he is equally put out with those of us who oppose racial preferences.
… Where Cosby’s routines were mostly good-natured and colorblind, he thinks comics now are foulmouthed, misogynistic and too eager to reinforce negative stereotypes of black people.
When Cosby went to collect a lifetime achievement award at this year’s Emmys, cohost Wanda Sykes asked him in all of her stereotypical finger-snapping, ghetto-girl glory how he managed to get where he did. “I spoke English,” Cosby remarked. He’s particularly irritated that the image of African-American equality he gave us on “The Cosby Show” isn’t more of a reality. Furious at the increased opposition to affirmative action, Cosby says, “There’s no admission at all at the severe lack of equality minority kids have from day one.”
….
…”I watch these talk shows and hear the people complain about affirmative action, and it just makes me angry,” Cosby says. “You’d think that all black people are doing is begging for money and for special attention when they don’t deserve it.”
Now I, of course, don’t think this last point is fair. Certainly the critics of affirmative action with whom I identify care a great deal about equality. In fact, it is one of our core beliefs that what people, all people, deserve is to be treated equally and that in order to treat people equally it is necessary to … treat people equally.
Still, it is a fact — a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless — that a large number of decent people like Bill Cosby view all critics of racial preference as uncaring racists. This is no doubt caused in part, perhaps in large part, because that charge is repeated so often that after a while many assume it must be true. We, in turn, become bitterly defensive and reply in kind that the accusers are dumb or unprincipled, or both. This is not good.
Part of the problem, I think, is that we — and here I am really thinking primarily of myself, since I am a prime example — talk mainly about principles while they emphasize people. Think about it: anyone who opposes preferential admissions is saying that a large number of the minority students at selective universities — actual, live people sitting in the audience if this argument is being presented in person on campus — don’t deserve to be there. Of course we come across as mean and uncaring.
I don’t have a solution to this problem. Since we are honestly convinced that the principle of equal treatment is of fundamental importance we are not going to abandon it, nor should we. But we should probably do more than we have to demonstrate why that principle is so important, why it is not simply an abstraction, why abandoning it has its own terrible human costs.
An impressive model of just this kind of analysis can be found in Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom’s new book, NO EXCUSES: CLOSING THE RACIAL GAP IN LEARNING. The Thernstroms are both principled and prolific critics of racial preference, but no one can come away from their new book regarding them as cold, uncaring racists. Indeed, their indictment of our society for its failure to close the racial gap in learning is both more heated and more radical than anything emanating from civil rights organizations and their leaders these days.
While thinking about the death of Bill Cosby’s son, don’t forget that the entry of his killer into this country would have been illegal in the earlier part of the century (20th). The killer was the son of an immigrant single mother. Used to be, that the USA didn’t allow the entry of anyone who might become a social or economic burden to this country. This included single mothers and unwed, pregnant women, the halt and lame, people with incurable infectious diseases, and so on. The immigration authorities were very strict. I know this not because of anything I learned in school, but because I have a book writen by a doctor who used to screen immigrants in the early 1900’s.
Times have changed. People come to this country in large numbers who are nothing but a social and/or economic burden. I was shocked to read in the New York Times a while back that we are supposed to dig deep to pay for services for our “neediest immigrants”. Why allow in “needy” immigrants? We have plenty of needy people already in this country.
We pay the price for sloppy immigration policies everyday. Innis paid the ultimate price.
Discriminating in favor of your own citizens is hardly a fault.
Joel
For the very little it is worth, I am going to take exception to John’s people/principle distinction. As someone who abhors racial preferences, I feel quite comfortable in the knowledge that I have principles AND people at heart.
The principles aspect is on ample display with most every post on this site. As for people, well, the Left is content with the belief that some are more equal than others.
John says, perhaps correctly, that it would appear mean to imply that large numbers of minority students–actual, live people–don’t deserve to be there, by reason of only being there as a result of their skin color. Well yes!
That’s precisely the implication, and it’s “mean” only to the extent that one is oblivious to those individuals–actual, live people– whose hopes, dreams, and true abilities sadly didn’t correspond to the “non-diverse” hue of their pigmentation.
Racial preferences are not only unprincipled in the abstract, but in the flesh as well. Every poor “non-diverse” kid who receives a rejection notice from the U. of Mich. because their skin color wouldn’t “contribute to a critical mass” is a victim. A real live victim, whose dreams for the future just dimmed significantly for only one damn immoral reason.
I think the problem that anti-Affirmative Action folk need to address (and I consider myself a firm fence-sitter on the issue), is that it is not enough to JUST be against affirmative action. You need an alternative.
One might say, for example, “I am against affirmative action, but I am in favor of devoting whatever resources are necessary to guarantee that every needy person has sufficient resources to succeed by increasing all education funding, social services, and EEOC enforcement budgets.” However, most politicians you find who are against affirmative action also tend to be against increased government spending.
So, if I’m an open-minded member of the NAACP and I say, “Blacks are underperforming. Affirmative action is helping to make up for that. If you want to get rid of it, what are you going to do to help black people succeed?” it is not enough to just say, “I want everyone to be treated equally.” You are essentially acknowledging the problem, but not suggesting a solution that will actually improve it.
Pathos,
So, if I’m an open-minded member of the NAACP and I say, “Blacks are underperforming. Affirmative action is helping to make up for that.
Huh? How does affirmative action “make-up” for Blacks underperforming? Are you implying that we must have a certain percentage of minorities and if we can’t get the “correct” number through merit we do it by affirmative action? If that is the case, then affirmative action has nothing to do with opportunity, but is simply a way of making the numbers come out “correct”. Just how does such a policy benefit minorities? You do know that a higher percentage of minorities do not graduate from college. That, unfortunately is the real “benefit” of affirmative action.
You are essentially acknowledging the problem, but not suggesting a solution that will actually improve it.
Actually, we have indicated a solution to the problem for a long time. However, the teachers’ unions, with the support of the Left, have prevented us from addressing the problem. The only solution to underperforming minorities is to provide them with a proper education so that they have the skills to perform. What we need to do is to get rid of the teachers’ unions that make sure that the teachers do not have to actually teach. We must hold teachers accountable for the performance of their students. We must allow choice in education so that minorities are not stuck in dead end public schools. We must allow school vouchers so that there is an alternative to the underperforming public schools.
Now explain to me again why you want affirmative action?
Pathos: I disagree with every word of your post (including the articles and conjunctions).
To paraphrase as I understand your points:
Being against racial discrimination is insufficient if one has no other means to ensure that the beneficiaries are otherwise preferentially accomodated. To this I say baloney. The government does not and can not issue a guarantee “that every needy person has sufficient resources to succeed” (whatever this might mean in practice). This nation has produced a multitude of successful individuals of all races without such resource guarantees. And how much more would you like spent on education and social services? And when this profligacy results in zero impact on “black performance,” what then? More spending?
What’s most telling though, is your query as to what I (or whomever) will do to “help black people succeed.” That’s easy, absolutely nothing. They don’t require my (or your) patronizing help to succeed. They are competent people with ambitions and abilities just like everyone else. Who, pray tell, helps Asians or Orthodox Jews succeed for that matter? Is there more gorvernment spending on these groups?
Finally, I’ll crib from one infinitely more eloquent that I. What should be done to “help” blacks? Frederick Douglas had an answer:
“Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! . . . And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot box, let him along, don’t disturb him! If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone. Your interference is doing him positive injury.”
But there =is= an alternative to affirmative action in college admissions policies — people can go to the colleges appropriate to their level.
There’s more than just Harvard and Berkeley out there; the academic standards for them are quite high — those who don’t measure up to those standards should go to colleges more their speed. The second tier universities aren’t shoddy for those of moderate achievement — after all, that’s where the average white kids without legacy or sports preferences go. If one has marginal academic achievement, community colleges can get one up to being able to transfer to a 4-year university. I’ve taught at a junior college which was getting people ready for GED tests (I taught GED math) — it would have been a real disservice to these people to let them go to a 4-year university program when they weren’t prepared for it. But many people were coming out of that program ready to go into a 4-year degree program, should they want it. Preferences for =entry= based on race do not guarantee that one will be successful once entered. This is as true of hiring as college admissions.
John, this was a mostly thoughtful post, as usual, but I cannot let slide your praise of the Thernstroms’ fatally flawed, time-wasting book.
The Thernstroms totally fail to address (or even mention) the IQ question. This vitiates their entire analysis. See this powerful critique by UPI’s Steve Sailer:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/no_excuses.htm
Look, I know this is a really sensitive topic, but the science is there, the research is there, and to ignore it like the Thernstroms, or strike moralistic poses based on false premises is, simply, wicked. Either we’re going to be honest intellectuals when we talk about race, or we’re going to be self-censored, politically correct apparatchiks. We have to choose.
Virtually every scientist who works professionally in the field of intelligence agrees that there is a black-white average intelligence gap of about one standard deviation (15 IQ points); that a lot of this difference is hereditary in origin, not environmental; and that social intervention has so far proven of little use in bridging the gap.
If the current professional consensus is right, then the Thernstroms can issue all the pleasantly righteous-sounding “indictments” they want — and government can keep using such rhetoric to shake down innocent whites for ever more money, more guilt — and it won’t matter, because none of their discussion will be based on truth. Blacks do worse in school than whites on average, because *on average* they are not as bright. Asians do better in school because on average, they are brighter than whites.
It is not a matter of “excuses,” but of discerning the facts. The facts as we know them support the IQ explanation for the racial academic gap. They do not support any of the weak explanations offered by the Thernstroms, as Sailer shows.
I’ll say it again: We’ve got to stick with the truth, or we’re just propaganda hacks.
If the Thernstroms disagree with hundreds of peer-reviewed interracial IQ studies that span several decades, cool, I’m ready to absorb their counter-arguments. But they make none. They simply ignore the IQ issue. This renders their work a nullity.
Frederick Douglas’s prescription was a good one when governmental actions were working against minorities. But now the government is moving toward “neutral”, but the gap is not shrinking.
Let us assume that the sole reason for the achievement gap is “culture,” i.e., the “black culture” does not value educational achievement. One response is to say, “Well, that’s nobodies fault but those in the culture, so they can pull themselves out, or not. It’s not a public problem.”
But ANY groups failure to move toward the mean is a public problem. Could centuries of racism — where striving rarely was allowed to lead to success — have anything to do with the “culture problem,” even if there is exactly zero actual racism today? Likely.
My comment was primarily in response to “Still, it is a fact — a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless — that a large number of decent people like Bill Cosby view all critics of racial preference as uncaring racists.”
My point is, what evidence is there that critics of racial preferences actually care? One response suggests eliminating teachers unions. While questionable, this is at least a reasonable theoretical response. “I am against affirmative action, but for privatizing schools . . .” One the other hand, there are responses like this, which, if not racist, are certainly uncaring:
“What’s most telling though, is your query as to what I (or whomever) will do to “help black people succeed.” That’s easy, absolutely nothing. They don’t require my (or your) patronizing help to succeed.
Well, apparently “They” do. For whatever reason, Asians and Jews have succeed where Blacks have not. I think that whenever we see a group that is underperforming (Blacks, Mississippians, boys, Democratic Presidential Candidates . . .) we should look and see if there is something that we, as a society, can do to help them.
I’m not saying affirmative action is necessarily the right answer, but between a flawed answer and “nothing”, I’ll take the flawed answer until something better is suggested. If “nothing” is tried, then in all likelihood there will be no improvement.
Pathos:
Affirmative action does more harm than good. If you are propped up by Afirmative Action through you life until college what is going to happen when the world hits you? Youn black males are being socialized to not learn, obey the law, support their children or respect their girlfriend’s/wife’s. If you get essentially a free pass all your life because your black you will believe that you get a free pass your whole life. What’s to be done to correct it? Relentless enforcement of standards that inist on education, behavior and ambition. The dysfunction of the black comunity is a recent trend. Gradual dependence on government (welfare, etc.) have made many blacks so dependent that the idea of ambition and striving is foreign. Thank God I am actually seeing signs that the current generation sees this for the problem it is and is at least moving in some areas to correct it. Affirmative Action sucks. The opinion of a very old (93 yrs. old) black man who, while not rich, had integrity says it all…”damn that welfare, its just like drugs….once your hooked your done for…as a person and a people.”
Addendum: Welfare and Affirmative Action have the same characteristics as drugs…once hooked how do you stand on your own two feet again? Both have the symptom of making the recipient dependent.
Pathos: You seem like a well-intentioned person, and so I hope you’ll take the following commentary in the best possible sense; though if not, I really don’t “care.”
First, I have to say that your paean to sentimentality strikes me as little more than pious posturing. (You “care” more than I, thus your prescriptions–no matter how destructive–must be more virtuous). By this definition, I’ll cede the point.
Though if we are going to entertain logic, in lieu of emotions, then you can neatly stow your accusations of “if not racist, then uncaring” back into the orifice from which they were expelled.
Here’s a few points worth lingering lovingly over:
1) “now the government is moving toward neutral.” Indeed! And quite a bit past it I might add. You may be surprised to learn that the government is explicitely “un-neutral” in myriad areas concerning race: hiring, contracting, recruiting just to start.
2) “But ANY groups failure to move toward the mean is a public problem.” Oh really? Here then is a brief list of other “public problems.” a) The lack of Asian Blues singers b) White ping-pong champions, or c) Latino venture capitalists. Though, what I believe you are truly driving at is a strict racial proportionalism ONLY to the extent that it benefits our designated victim groups (blacks/latinos/Indians).
3) “I think that whenever we see a group that is underperforming (Blacks, Mississippians, boys, Democratic Presidential Candidates . . .) we should look and see if there is something that we, as a society, can do to help them.” Normally, I would imagine this statement as a joke, though in context of your post, I am guessing not. Though it’s risible either way (you mean we MUST elect a Democrat due to their “underperformance?” sigh–If I must)
Here’s an idea. A Department of Demographics, perhaps? Wherein a robust corps of elite bureaucrats analyze American society through every possible prism (Blacks, Mississippians, boys, Democratic Presidential Candidates . . .) to discern the slightest “underperformance” so that congress may immediately implement “the flawed answer until something better is suggested.”
Flawed answers. Yes, that’s perfect. At least until something better is suggested.
John, I see why you have to reach all the way to the Thernstroms in finding critics of Affirmative Action who don’t appear to be uncaring racists. One can’t pick their own commenters can one?
The Discriminations take on AA
John Rosenberg of Discriminations discusses a crucial topic for college admissions: Are those of us who oppose affirmative action under the obligation to come up with something better? He first made this post: Still, it is a fact — a…
Uncaring? Cobb, that really hurts. Don’t you ever call me that again. You big dum-dum.
And racist? Wow, that’s a serious charge. I must have written something really bad to warrant that. When you have the time, please point it out to me.
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