Racial Unknowns And Yellow Arm Bands

It’s almost (but not quite) enough to make you feel sorry for college admissions officers. They thought Grutter gave them a free hand to continue discriminating only to find that they must continue to take care to disguise the weight they assign to race. And now, adding insult to injury, comes news, in the form of a report from the American Council on Education, that the racial group that has experienced the most dramatic gains in college attendance over the past decade is … the group that refuses to identify its race on application forms! From 1991 to 2001 the number of such students increased over 100%, to 938,000, making them the third largest. They now outnumber Asians (937,000).

Many students, especially student leaders, seem perplexed. At the University of Virginia, for example, Student Council President Noah Sullivan said, “It’s hard to say whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” Some think minimizing race is a Good Thing; others worry that it would erode the racial and ethnic identity that is so central to today’s student life. Often the same student thinks both things:

“Maybe just they just want to get credit for what they’ve done and not who they are,” Latino Student Union President Angie Ferrero said.

Ferrero also suggested that students may be afraid of discrimination in admissions decisions.

Ferrero’s last point emphasizes an anomaly I’ve noted here several times: defenders of racial preferences often justify them by saying that eliminating them would lead to an increase in discrimination. This amounts to saying that if college admissions officers are not allowed to continue discriminating in favor of minorities, which they dearly want to continue doing, they will all of a sudden turn around and start discriminating against them. Makes no sense at all.

But wait. Preferentialists also justify preferences by arguing that America remains a thoroughly racist society, permeated with still-rampant discrimination. If that is really the case, why would you want to make it easier to discriminate against you by identifying yourself by race?

Or how about this: wouldn’t it be reasonable to require everyone who wants to receive racial preference to prove racial identity? I mean, we wouldn’t give a veterans preference to someone without evidence that he or she really is a veteran. Requiring black arm bands may be going too far, but it does seem to be in the same race-is-central spirit.

Looked at in that light, maybe all those students who are voting against racialism by refusing to identify themselves by race are our modern equivalent of the King of Denmark: when the Nazis ordered all Jews in Denmark to wear yellow arm bands, the King wore one himself, as did vast numbers of non-Jewish Danes in protest.

Say What? (24)

  1. notherbob2 February 17, 2005 at 5:53 pm | | Reply

    I have no evidence whatsoever, but since that doesn

  2. Andrew P. Connors February 18, 2005 at 9:44 am | | Reply

    As a student at the University of Virginia, I’d just like to mention what a massive tool Noah Sullivan is. He’s a liberal at heart – not necessarily extreme in his tone, but often making conflicting statements of the “complexeness” of an issue, all the while hiding his massive love of such vile groups as The Minority Rights Coalition and, I said it, the University Democrats (which, will all due respect to normal democrats, I’ll remind you that college democrats are extraordinarily liberal.) The national equivalent of Noah Sullivan would be John Kerry.

    And here’s a nice little thing to add to the pot, while we’re on the topic of race. Remember that wonderful Daisy Lundy, the UVa student council president that won an election by playing the race card and making her opponent bow out, then pushed an extremist agenda of increased racial hires, diversity training, hate crimes legislation, and like-minded policies once in office? Well, Noah Sullivan was her chief of staff. And now that Sullivan is president, Lundy is his chief of staff.

    I’d go on more, but my head is going to explode.

  3. nobody important February 18, 2005 at 1:30 pm | | Reply

    We are all African Americans. it just depends on when your ancestors left the continent. Mine left around 40,000 years ago.

  4. Laura February 18, 2005 at 2:01 pm | | Reply

    Here’s another cool story about the King of Denmark. He rode around on his bicycle like a regular person. A Nazi asked a little Danish boy who he was, and the kid told him. The Nazi asked where his bodyguard was. The kid said, “All Denmark is his bodyguard.” Probably apocryphal, but still revealing.

  5. notherbob2 February 18, 2005 at 3:01 pm | | Reply

    [sarcasm/humor alert] Nobody Important has the solution to AA discrimination. If everyone is African American (as scientific theory would have us believe) and we all claim our racial heritage, then the AA freaks will have to either use a brown bag test (or install some other qualifications) in order to operate their racial discrimination plan. Justice O

  6. Brandon February 18, 2005 at 5:27 pm | | Reply

    I believe the King of Denmark story wearing the yellow star is a bit of an exaggeration. He and his fellow Danes, though, did save almost all the Danish Jews though.

    I think all of us checking black/Hispanic on the race category though is an interesting idea. Then we could have irate college administrators doing like apartheid South Africa and racially testing us by sticking pencils in our hair to see if it falls out and what not (that was a test to see if someone had “too much” ancestry.) How are they going to prove I didn’t have a great-great grandfather from Mexico?

    I believe anyone with at least one Cherokee ancestor can become a member of that Native American tribe. There could then be a whole lot of very light Native Americans getting those extra twenty points. Seriously, the only way the leftists administrators and professors can continue the game is because whites continue to play it. Of course, their kids are exempt from such games as they have the money to send them to expensive, white, private schools, live in rich, white areas, and have the connections to get their kids in wherever they want them to go. (There should be a site for naming such hypocrites–like certain loudmouth law professors).

  7. Cobra February 18, 2005 at 10:41 pm | | Reply

    Funny…the police who pull me over for fantasy traffic violations don’t have a problem identifying me as an African American. Neither do prospective landlords, department store security guards, car dealers or many white women riding the elevator with me as their handbag grips tighten.

    Nope, I don’t think I’ll be needing a fitting for that arm band any time too soon.

    –Cobra

  8. Sandy P February 19, 2005 at 12:41 am | | Reply

    –Ferrero also suggested that students may be afraid of discrimination in admissions decisions.–

    Unless they’re all John/Jane Doe, won’t work.

  9. Stephen February 19, 2005 at 1:21 am | | Reply

    Cobra, I’ve just got to do this:

    Don’t you see the Freudian imagery of the white girls grabbing their purses? Purses are a symbol for vaginas, see, and in fact, they are getting excited.

    I apologize, but I couldn’t help it. How ya been?

  10. Michelle Dulak Thomson February 19, 2005 at 1:50 am | | Reply

    Cobra,

    Oh, my, the White Woman With the Purse. You know, when I first came out to Cal, I never could figure this one out. On the one hand women were exhorted to feel “safe,” to avoid situations in which they felt ill at ease or threatened in any way. You didn’t have to have a reason to abandon a situation in which you felt unsafe; all that mattered was your perception of the situation.

    On the other hand, we were not to stereotype.

    So, was a woman who saw a group of black men coming up the sidewalk in her direction justified in crossing the street if the prospect of meeting them made her honestly uneasy? I never did discover which trumped which.

    Incidentally, Cobra, the Dominican, Cuban, &c. baseball players whom you don’t count as “black” look just as black to police, spooked silly white women, &c. as you do.

  11. Stephen February 19, 2005 at 9:48 am | | Reply

    And, Cobra, just to complete the Freudian analysis, a snake is a phallic symbol. I was an English major long ago, so I know about these things.

    So, you are a cobra, and the white girls are clutching their purses, stuck in the elevator. Almost makes me start to perspire.

    Interracial sex is better, isn’t it? And, you are right, the white girls always change their minds and go to the cops when their moms find out. Brings to mind one of my favorite adages among black men: “Never trust a white woman.”

    Did I just engage in racial stereotyping?

  12. Laura February 19, 2005 at 9:52 am | | Reply

    “…many white women riding the elevator with me as their handbag grips tighten.”

    Cobra, there’s another obvious thing here that I have to point out. It’s possible that those women grip their handbags tighter if they’re alone on an elevator with a white man. You wouldn’t know because you’re not there to see it. Black women take precautions too.

  13. Laura February 19, 2005 at 10:04 am | | Reply

    But, you know, poor John. He posts an interesting article, Cobra opens his mouth (so to speak), and it’s all about Cobra then. Although as pointed out in another thread, Cobra doesn’t have to open his mouth for that to happen.

    “Ferrero also suggested that students [who don’t self-identify race] may be afraid of discrimination in admissions decisions.” Well, the obvious solution for that is for admissions departments to quit asking for race. Although probably most of the kid who don’t self-identify for that reason are white kids anyway.

    Andrew P. Connors, I feel for you, but console yourself with this: when you finish school you can go out into the world and do your thing. Lundy is pretty much stuck where she is because nowhere but liberal academia could she push that agenda.

  14. Stephen February 19, 2005 at 10:18 am | | Reply

    Laura, give me credit. At least I got the post back on topic.

  15. Cobra February 19, 2005 at 2:17 pm | | Reply

    Laura writes:

    >>>But, you know, poor John. He posts an interesting article, Cobra opens his mouth (so to speak), and it’s all about Cobra then. Although as pointed out in another thread, Cobra doesn’t have to open his mouth for that to happen.”

    You’re correct, Laura. Notherbob invoked my name in the first sentence of the first comment on this thread.

    This is obviously a blog with a conservative (some would say reactionary) leaning. Anybody who challenges that leaning is going to get a spirited response. James and Actus are proof of that. When you get somebody who challenges as much and as vigorously as I do, that poster becomes a lightning rod.

    That being said, Laura, I AGREE with some of things you said. I have no way of knowing how the women who reacted to me react in a similiar situation with white men.

    John writes:

    >>>But wait. Preferentialists also justify preferences by arguing that America remains a thoroughly racist society, permeated with still-rampant discrimination. If that is really the case, why would you want to make it easier to discriminate against you by identifying yourself by race?”

    Here, John is using the old trick of tranferring the responsibility for crime to the victim, instead of the perpetrator. That’s interesting, because, John is actually telling me:

    “Cobra, if you don’t want to be discriminated against because you’re black, stop CALLING yourself black.”

    What a novel idea! Why didn’t I think of this sooner–Or my ancestors for that matter? We could’ve avoided a lot of “those problems” Trent Lott alluded to during his salute to Strom Thurmond.

    –Cobra

  16. Michelle Dulak Thomson February 19, 2005 at 6:50 pm | | Reply

    Cobra,

    This is obviously a blog with a conservative (some would say reactionary) leaning. Anybody who challenges that leaning is going to get a spirited response. James and Actus are proof of that.

    James is “proof” how, exactly? I didn’t see anything in his recent posts that was specially anti-“conservative.” Did you? (And if so, could you point it out to me?)

  17. Cobra February 19, 2005 at 8:24 pm | | Reply

    Michelle writes:

    >>>James is “proof” how, exactly? I didn’t see anything in his recent posts that was specially anti-“conservative.” Did you? (And if so, could you point it out to me?)”

    I didn’t equate challenging the conservative or reactionary leanings of this blog as being “anti-conservative”. James has often criticized the current administration, and has received a lot of opposing commentary for it, even from you here:

    http://www.discriminations.us/storage/002910.html

    In fact, in that thread, you claim you don’t know many conservatives, but read a lot of conservative commentators, so you are familiar with the ideology. In all fairness, I’m sure James can speak for himself regarding his politics. I just used his posts as an example of the reactions they evoke.

    Now, back to the THREAD topic. Michelle, do you believe that not calling yourself racial classification will innoculate you from future racial discrimination?

    –Cobra

  18. John Rosenberg February 19, 2005 at 8:53 pm | | Reply

    John is actually telling me:

    “Cobra, if you don’t want to be discriminated against because you’re black, stop CALLING yourself black.”

    Actually, Cobra, I wasn’t speaking about you. Despite the clear implications of most of your comments, the world of discrimination doesn’t revolve around you. But to answer your implicit question, if the U.S. is the pervasively racist society you believe, then yes, if you refused to identify your race on application forms, then you should indeed experience less discrimination than you think you do. And no, refusing to identify yourself racially on application forms would do nothing about the discrimination you apparently experience from dawn to dusk everyday in your actual life. Nor, of course, would it do anything to reduce the negative reactions to you that are quite possibly produced by the large chip you carry around on your shoulder.

  19. Michelle Dulak Thomson February 19, 2005 at 9:18 pm | | Reply

    Cobra,

    I didn’t equate challenging the conservative or reactionary leanings of this blog as being “anti-conservative”. James has often criticized the current administration, and has received a lot of opposing commentary for it[,]”

    I don’t see how “challenging a conservative leaning” could be construed as meaning anything other than “anti-conservative.” But if you say so.

    I re-read the thread you linked, and what I saw was James and myself having a perfectly civil disagreement. What it has to do with your argument above I don’t know at all. Is it that James said something and I disagreed with it? Hey, every time I say something, you disagree with it. Which proves what, exactly?

  20. Michelle Dulak Thomson February 19, 2005 at 9:26 pm | | Reply

    Cobra,

    Sorry, meant to reply to the other part of your post but forgot.

    Now, back to the THREAD topic. Michelle, do you believe that not calling yourself [racial classification] will inoculate you from future racial discrimination?

    Well, insofar as anyone is going purely by the work I do (whether writing or playing), without actually seeing me, concealing my race and gender would indeed make it impossible to discriminate against me on grounds of race or gender.

    I’m reminded of Ursula Le Guin’s tale of submitting a science-fiction story to Playboy, at the beginning of her writing career, under the name “U. K. Le Guin.” They published it.

  21. Cobra February 20, 2005 at 11:27 am | | Reply

    Michelle writes:

    >>>I re-read the thread you linked, and what I saw was James and myself having a perfectly civil disagreement. What it has to do with your argument above I don’t know at all. Is it that James said something and I disagreed with it? Hey, every time I say something, you disagree with it. Which proves what, exactly?”

    I never claimed you were uncivil. My exact terms were “spirited response” and “opposing commentary.” If you define those terms as “uncivil”, I don’t know what to tell you. There are also other threads currently running where accusations of anti-semitism are being thrown about.

    And, I’ve been on the record many times agreeing with you, and complimenting you for writing what I feel are excellent posts.

    >>>I’m reminded of Ursula Le Guin’s tale of submitting a science-fiction story to Playboy, at the beginning of her writing career, under the name “U. K. Le Guin.” They published it.”

    That reminds me of an interview with S.E. Hinton about her success as a novelist.

    >>>Q: Why do you use your initials instead of your full name?

    A: My publisher was afraid that the reviews would assume a girl couldn’t write a book like “The Outsiders.” Later, when my books became popular, I found I liked the privacy of having a “public” name and a private one, so it worked out fine.”

    I’m of mixed feelings about this, because on the one hand, I don’t believe a person should have to “hide” themselves to appease other people’s sensitivities. I also know that many people feel the need for personal privacy. It’s an interesting issue.

    John writes:

    >>>Actually, Cobra, I wasn’t speaking about you. Despite the clear implications of most of your comments, the world of discrimination doesn’t revolve around you.”

    I know the world of discrimination, or the world doesn’t revolve around me. But, as your own statements paint me as “a masochistic, liberal (redundant?) serial commenter here who incessantly offers outrageous defenses of racial preferences,” and then refer to one of the “outrageous defenses” here:

    “Preferentialists also justify preferences by arguing that America remains a thoroughly racist society, permeated with still-rampant discrimination.”

    Well, if you call me out, and point out the root of my arguments, I don’t know John…I get the feeling that at least on SOME occasions, you’re addressing your statements to me, or at the very least, people who believe as I do.

    Is it wrong for me to read that in your statements? As far as I’m concerned, you’re an incredibly intelligent, well read guy with whom I disagree entirely on a host of different subjects.

    I totally get Notherbob’s sarcasm and Stephen’s baiting. That’s fine. I have thick skin and a sense of humor. I guess that’s the LIBERAL in me.

    –Cobra

  22. Michelle Dulak Thomson February 20, 2005 at 2:12 pm | | Reply

    Cobra,

    I never claimed you were uncivil. My exact terms were “spirited response” and “opposing commentary.” If you define those terms as “uncivil”, I don’t know what to tell you.

    Well, then I’m hard-pressed to think why you brought the thread up in the first place. To prove that commenters who attack conservative positions get argument here? But commenters who attack liberal positions get argument here. One of the reasons I like this place (and Megan McArdle’s blog, Joanne Jacobs’ blog, Dean Esmay’s blog, and a few others) is that it isn’t an echo chamber.

    There are also other threads currently running where accusations of anti-semitism are being thrown about.

    Now, that isn’t so. There is one post on one thread (Richard Nieporent’s last on “Food Fight”) that makes an accusation of anti-Semitism. There are no other posts that do so, so far as I can see. Speaking as the one who argued most with James, I may say that I was as careful as possible not to imply that he was anti-Semitic in any of my own comments. If you saw such implication, Cobra, please do tell me where; I’d hate to be misinterpreted.

  23. David Nieporent February 22, 2005 at 2:37 pm | | Reply

    1. John, the Danish king and the armband is an urban legend, though probably one of those stories Too Good To Fact Check.

    2. Cobra: Funny…the police who pull me over for fantasy traffic violations don’t have a problem identifying me as an African American. Neither do prospective landlords, department store security guards, car dealers or many white women riding the elevator with me as their handbag grips tighten.

    Nope, I don’t think I’ll be needing a fitting for that arm band any time too soon.

    Even if this weren’t more a symptom of your paranoia than of reality, you do understand that college admissions are done on paper, right? They don’t scope out people on an elevator to decide whom to admit. You file a written application. If you don’t check the box, they can’t see your skin.

  24. Cobra February 23, 2005 at 9:18 pm | | Reply

    David writes:

    >>>Even if this weren’t more a symptom of your paranoia than of reality, you do understand that college admissions are done on paper, right? They don’t scope out people on an elevator to decide whom to admit. You file a written application. If you don’t check the box, they can’t see your skin.”

    There are personal interviews with many Ivy and high level colleges and universities. I was part of one myself. I guess mine wasn’t as persuavive as the one idealized by the movie “Risky Business.”

    Oh well…such is life.

    –Cobra

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