The Washington Square News, the student paper of New York University, defends the right of NYU College Republicans to sponsor an anti-affirmative action bake sale, but editorialized against it disdainfully as “an unfortunately divisive and misguided publicity stunt that didn’t inspire reasoned conversation and only managed to leave students with negative feelings.”
Selling cookies at different prices based on the buyer’s race and gender hardly symbolizes what affirmative action policies try to do. Affirmative action isn’t about financial breaks for certain groups; it’s about access. Regardless of one’s opinion on affirmative action itself, it’s not difficult to see how the affirmative action bake sale relies entirely on a mixed and invalid metaphor.
Call me dumb, or the same thing — a racistrightwingfanatic, but I find that these satirical bake sales present a more perceptive and incisive comment about affirmative action than the WSN’s attempt at a serious editorial.
The article continues:
>>>These bake sales have been put on all over the country by conservative student groups seeking to gain publicity and start controversy. The result has almost always been protest or outrage, and the College Republicans at NYU knew what they were getting their group into. Their complaints about the protesters are pretty ridiculous when the purpose of the event was to cause controversy and spark protest. They got exactly what they wanted, and now they’re crying foul.”
I’m going to say something here, John. We don’t agree on the topic of Affirmative Action. We seldom find common ground. I’m sure that there are many times you look up at the screen in exasperation about many of my posts. There are some old bones you will never yank away from the dog in the corner, I guess.
HOWEVER…
The way you conduct this blog, and support your beliefs with research, facts, logic and insight is EXEMPLARY.
Your commitment to understanding both sides of this topic is outstanding, and NO ONE, not even those who ardently disagree with you can dismiss or trivialize your platforms. Also, those posters who DISAGREE with you provide those opposing viewpoints with reason and intellect most of the time. Knee-jerk, bumper-sticker sloganeering will not wash here.
It’s in that light, that I believe sophmoric, incendiary “street theater” pranks like “Affirmative Action Bake Sales” do more HARM to your cause than good.
The average college student would LEARN a lot more on the subject from reading DISCRIMINATIONS, or attending a debate series on the topic than from walking past an angry shouting match in the middle of the campus, don’t you think? Witness the amount of current college students who post here already.
Maybe you should suggest this blog as required reading on the syllabus?
–Cobra
“Call me dumb, or the same thing — a racistrightwingfanatic”
The former doesn’t know any better, the latter does.
The bake sale IS effective, since it IS an effective analogy with college admissions, even though the (obviously biased) student paper disagrees. Most college kids aren’t going to do hours of library or internet research, or go to a “panel discussion”.
And….how are you even going to have a “panel discussion” without leaving “negative feelings” – or without protestors shouting people down like the pro-quota people always seem to do?
And why is it that liberal groups constantly have very open protests, demonstrations, etc. – sometimes shutting down classes – but if a conservative group has a stand where they sell cookies, and protesters shout THEM down, THEY’RE the ones being “negative”? Why are liberal actions/protests never “negative” according to the media??? I’d tell the College GOP, do whatever you need to do to publicize your point of view, the college establishment will always critize you whatever you do.
Will writes:
>>> Most college kids aren’t going to do hours of library or internet research, or go to a “panel discussion”.”
Well, that statement casts a pall on higher education in general, don’t you think? What other scholarly activities do you find “most college kids” aren’t going to do? Class attendance? Reading?
I’m sure you can find a good argument against them as well.
–Cobra
So meaningless actions are divisive, but letting people into school based on race isn’t? Did these guys even read their copy?
On its face, the editorial appears to have a valid point. The perceived benefit to minorities from the bake sale is simply a cheaper cookie; hardly a good analogy for the efforts of affirmative action.
But the editorial misses the point. The good intent of discriminatory policies (there’s a phrase straight out of ‘1984’) doesn’t matter. Whatever the motives — and I have a problem with many of the motives as well — it’s simply wrong to hold some groups back while giving preferences to others because of the color of their skin (and maybe not even their color, but that of their grandparents, greatgrandparents, etc.). The AA argument of “yeah, but we have a really good reason” is wrong.
It will be interesting to see whether the editors apply this theory to other groups in future editorials. I’m guessing that they won’t.
I agree with Cobra on this. AA does not make for a cheaper education (although scholarships do), it gives people preferences for admission. A more effective demonstration would be a carnival game whereby prizes are awarded, where minorities get extra points to win those prizes.
This bake sale thing has been done to death, kind of like the left chanting “The people united will never be defeated” over the last 30 years. It makes the host organizations seem simpleminded at best.
Sorry, John from OK, but I still disagree with you (and, as usual, cobra) about this.
First, I think you’re being too literal-minded. No, AA doesn’t sell education to minorities cheaper than to whites/asians/other (except, of course, to the considerable extent that minorities get financial aid, Gates scholarships, etc., etc., based on race). But it does give them a benefit based on race, and — and this is the important point — everyone immediately senses the effectiveness of the parody.
Preferentialist don’t get so angry because they don’t understand the point, but because they do.
John from OK writes:
>>>This bake sale thing has been done to death, kind of like the left chanting “The people united will never be defeated” over the last 30 years. It makes the host organizations seem simpleminded at best.”
I absolutely agree with you on this John, and you see the point I am trying to make. It is an extremely tired, unoriginal, simplistic “practical joke” level approach to conveying a complicated viewpoint. It only breeds anger and confrontation. These Campus Republicans have every “right” to hold these bakesales, but is serious dialogue being created about the SUBJECT of Affirmative Action, or the MANNER of protest itself?
I suppose some people prefer primative styles of getting their point across.
–Cobra
Perhaps the bake sales would be a better analogy if, instead of pricing the cookies differently, the sellers would use quotas to sell the cookies. For example, if they had to sell 35% to blacks, etc. If they found that blacks weren’t buying, they would go out and aggressively market the cookies to the target audience. Of course, once the quota on whites had been met, they would have to start refusing to sell to them…
Cobra, others,
I have not fully formed an opinion yet on bake sales, there efficacy, etc., and won’t comment here. But, the question of alternatives was raised.
So when we have informational events and bring speakers onto campus and do debates and panel sessions, there won’t be someone shouting us down? Calling us racist for even making the argument?
Demanding that we be censored, even in historically accepted formats and styles of communication, occurs because of the position we take, not because of the style of our speech. For example, when Ward Connerly spoke at U-Mich on July 8th, 2003, a BAMN member shouted until she was removed, saying “We won’t stop until people like [Ward] are no longer able to speak.” [source: video-taped recording, personal files] For example, when Barb Grutter spoke in Feb 2004 to a group of Michigan State Univ. students, BAMN members including their leadership, occupied the entire room and made standard communication impossible (student groups at MSU must hold open meetings unless otherwise cleared). Their excessively loud argument was that the mere content of our speech was, prima facie, racist. In that same month, when Jennifer Gratz spoke to a student group in a private (following regulations) University of Michigan room, BAMN was so loud in the hallways outside the room as to have an small but significant effect on the discourse (I doubt that any other “protest” of that loudness had occurred inside a building without U-M police interseding). When she walked out of the room, she was stalked for about a hundred yards by a frothing and spitting Luke Massie yelling epithats with no other substantiation that his disagreement with her position.
The person who made the point that bake sales draw ire not because of their style, but rather because of the position on the issue, is correct. It doesn’t matter how the message is delivered – preferentialists will decry and attack the messenger in all cases because their goal is silence everyone who might deliver the message. The attack is a broadside not just on the 14th Amendment, its a broadside on the 1st Amendment (and if “diversity” is really “compelling,” why wouldn’t it be more important than free speech?).
One should also keep the alleged badness of bake sales in the context of the behavior I’ve outlined above.
Chetly Zarko writes:
>>>So when we have informational events and bring speakers onto campus and do debates and panel sessions, there won’t be someone shouting us down? Calling us racist for even making the argument?”
It’s unfortunate that this kind of thing occurs, Chetly. It really is. And it’s not limited to Affirmative Action. Look what happens on the abortion issue, or the Iraq War. Hell, even ol’ Bill Kristol caught a pie in the face recently during a campus speech.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/31/144422/548
Rules of decorum at these said events such be enforced. And nobody should be physically or verbally threatened and harassed for voicing an opinion, no matter the popularity. On that, I think we can find common ground.
NOW, one thing you can’t control is how people are going to interpret and legally react to those opinions. Like it or not, Affirmative Action is an emotionally charged, complicated issue that has generational consequences for millions of Americans. Emotionally charged, complicated issues tend to generate heat in most scenarios, so STOKING those flames with bake sale shennanigans is teetoring on irresponsibility, IMHO.
–Cobra
Cobra,
Selling cookies at different prices is “teetoring on irresponsibility”???
Why? because racial preferences is an “emotionally charged issue”? It seems like all of the emotionally unstable are the ones on your side of the issue – the pro-race preference side. THEY are the ones who shout people down and try to prevent free speech of others. THEY are the ones who threaten violence towards others. But somehow, liberals NEVER criticize these sorts of actions. You should be happy that the anti-race preference people are only selling cookies. If they were as violent and mentally unstable as the pro-race preference people, there WOULD be violence on our college campuses.
Or are you making the argument that pro-race preference people are inherently violent, unstable, unthinking people (like dumb animals) that can’t be held to the same standards as other people, and they don’t have responsibility for their crazy behavior, but others have to not to take any (even reasonable) actions to disturb or agitate them?
Will writes:
>>>Or are you making the argument that pro-race preference people are inherently violent, unstable, unthinking people (like dumb animals) that can’t be held to the same standards as other people, and they don’t have responsibility for their crazy behavior, but others have to not to take any (even reasonable) actions to disturb or agitate them?”
No more so than I can accuse ALL conservative Pro-Life activists of the same tactics as Operation Rescue, Randall Terry and prostesters who shout vile epithets and slurs at women entering clinics.
Secondly, there are extremists on EITHER side of the Affirmative Action issue. I have included examples of such on this site previously.
–Cobra
A test of editorial consistency. Another protest has taken place at NYU.
Will the editors of the school paper encourage these protestors to form a debate or panel discussion rather than protest in the streets?
What current or past imbalance in cookie access where these kids trying to correct? or the bake sale completely inapposite?
>>> What current or past imbalance in cookie access where these kids trying to correct? or the bake sale completely inapposite?
How does this matter? Does every protest or parody have to represent every facet of the issue, including an opponent’s justification?
The question should be: does it represent accurately the viewpoint of the protestors (that AA is unequal treatment of candidates based on race)?
Yes, it does.
“How does this matter? Does every protest or parody have to represent every facet of the issue, including an opponent’s justification?”
No. It just makes it more relevant if it is more like what its trying to parody.
Is their claim that cookies shouldn’t be allocated according to race? Thats a good claim. Theres no reason for that allocation.
>>> No. It just makes it more relevant if it is more like what its trying to parody.
“like” in what way? “like” from the standpoint of its opponents? From the standpoint of the protestors, it is sufficiently “like” what it is trying to parody.
>>> Is their claim that cookies shouldn’t be allocated according to race? Thats a good claim. Theres no reason for that allocation.
Again, from the standpoint of the protestors, there is no good reason for the allocation that AA brings about.
>>> or the bake sale completely inapposite?
If the bake sale were completely inapposite, you wouldn’t be arguing about it.
The reason you are arguing about it, is because it pretty effectively represents the protestor’s view of AA, while your own justification for AA is not represented, in your opinion.
Fine, create your own protest.
“From the standpoint of the protestors, it is sufficiently “like” what it is trying to parody.”
Then they’re claiming that there’s no reason for AA? That anything AA is trying to address is akin to cookies? ok.
“If the bake sale were completely inapposite, you wouldn’t be arguing about it.”
How would I then express the idea that its inapposite?
I’m an opponenent of affirmative action, but I agree with the editorial (or at least the portion of it that was quoted). It’s one thing to be intellecutally opposed to affirmative action because you think it’s reverse discrimination and that two wrongs don’t make a right, or because it perpetrates as much injustice as it seeks to remedy, or because it actually harms the very people it purports to help. But bake sales do nothing to advance those arguments.
>>> But bake sales do nothing to advance those arguments.
Advance an argument? I don’t think bake sales advance an argument. They are conducted for the purpose of gaining publicity to a point of view.
Considering the outrage expressed by the pro-AA position and the press publicity, they are doing a pretty good job.
Bake sales are perfect methods of protest. Since no items are actually sold, the bake sale is like the Cheshire cat; nothing is left for the left to apply their patented PC attack machine to. To understand how perfect it is, imagine where the left would go with a watermelon sale or a fried chicken sale. The lame
if that bake sale was like a bunch of freebies being given out be they flowers or veggies, i suspect there would be more people attending it.Anyways it is nobody’s business preventing bakes sales ridiculing AA. The left and their allies in academia use student funds to sponsor race preferentialists like Lani Guinier to speak b4 the student body all the time.
‘bonehead writes:
>>>But bake sales do nothing to advance those arguments.”
Of course they don’t. Bake sales are an intellectually lazy dog and pony show designed to agitate and promote unneccessary confrontation. It’s not even an historically accurate parody of the Affirmative Action issue, but facts are no longer required for many in Y2K America.
–Cobra
>>> Bake sales are an intellectually lazy dog and pony show designed to agitate and promote unneccessary confrontation.
IMHO, what promotes unnecessary confrontation between groups is the use of AA by governments (and govt-funded bodies) to discriminate between individuals based on their membership of a racial group.
Once government steps in, all groups immediately resort to incendiary rhetoric in an effort to show themselves as underrepresented or underserved. All other racial groups immediately become antagonists.
Well said, notherob2. Other than the clueless display of hypocrisy by the suddenly anti-bake sale crowd, nothing has been more rewarding than the cries of the skin color preferentialists that all this attention that is being focused on AA is counterproductive.
For the pro-AA groups that have used intimidation and threats of violence, newspaper thefts and physical assaults against anti-AA speakers to ‘speak truth to power’ it must be especially painful to see their opponents so easily garner publicity.
Bakes sales for me, not thee.
“It’s one thing to be intellecutally opposed to affirmative action because you think it’s reverse discrimination and that two wrongs don’t make a right, or because it perpetrates as much injustice as it seeks to remedy, or because it actually harms the very people it purports to help. But bake sales do nothing to advance those arguments.”
Hmmm… well it has us talking and arguing and discussing, right?
I don’t normally go for “back-and-forth” threads, especially on blogs, but for the most part I really respect the level of debate here, so I’ll try to state what I mean a little more thoroughly.
It’s one thing to argue against affirmative action because you believe it’s just another form of racial discrimination, and that it’s really important to draw a clear, bright line which says that any form of racial discrimination is wrong, and that it’s dangerous to set a precedent that racial discrimination is sometimes okay if it’s being done by the right people for the right reasons.
Or, to argue that affirmative action policies often have the result of denying admission to certain people with very high academic qualifications, while at the same time granting admission to certain people with very low academic qualifications, and that any policy which produces that result is simply exchanging one form of injustice for another.
Or, to argue that affirmative action policies often have the result of shoehorning certain people with very low academic qualifications into academic environments that they are clearly not yet prepared to be successful or competitive in, and that any policy which produces that result actually harms the very people it seeks to help.
Or, to argue that educational institutions, including universities, are often disproportionately scrutinized, and disproportionately held accountable, for a lot of broader social problems that they are not really equipped to deal with, and that there are much more fundamental and more effective ways to address the problems that affirmative action advocates really care about.
Whether one agrees with any of those arguments or not, they are, nevertheless, reasoned, principled, and intellectually honest arguments. And that is precisely the level at which the debate should be held. The trouble is that there are simply far too many campuses today where it’s not possible to have this debate, because those who disagree with those arguments will insist that there is no room for debate, and will start screaming epithets and throwing food.
Bake sales to nothing to elevate the level of the debate. They merely stoop to the level of leftists who seek to torpedo the debate by appealing to emotion, not to intellect. No matter how many pies they throw, it doesn’t help to stage similar antics.
Arguments against affirmative action will eventually prevail because they are intellectually sound, not because they appeal to emotion.
Bonehead,
Bravo. Although I’m diametrically opposed to your position, I respect your logic, reasoning and intellectual approach to it. I disagree, however, with your characterization of emotional arguments being a fixture of the left. In Bushamerica, emotional responses are the chariots of conservative arguments, whether it’s medical futility cases, evolution in the classroom, or jingoistic foreign policy.
I believe in Affirmative Action based upon the factual and statistical reality of racism and sexism in America. That’s “Cobra Argument #1.”
I believe that reality trumps any theory, no matter how reasonable it may sound.
–Cobra
Cobra,
On the issue of racial preferences, it’s clear that the liberal side is making the emotional – not logical – arguments. I don’t know if you’re from California, but I remember the debate over prop 209 in 1996 – to end racial preferenes in state government hiring and public college admissions. Nearly EVERY public statement and TV/radio commercial for the “NO on 209” side basically either said that either 1) the prop 209 supporters were neo-Nazis and white supremacists AND/OR that 2) if prop 209 passed California would wind up like the deep South (e.g., Mississippi, Alabama) in the 1950s. You had the typical radical-left student groups all over the state protesting, marching, disturbing traffic, shutting down classes, etc.
Will writes:
>>>On the issue of racial preferences, it’s clear that the liberal side is making the emotional – not logical – arguments.”
I disagree, and I’m a perfect example of the contrary.
Vish writes:
>>>IMHO, what promotes unnecessary confrontation between groups is the use of AA by governments (and govt-funded bodies) to discriminate between individuals based on their membership of a racial group.”
Didn’t the US Constitution, in it’s original form, do just that? What did the Founding Fathers have to say on race? Do you really want to go down that road? I don’t think you do.
Simply drawing attention is not productive debate. An eight year learning the trumpet in the house next door will draw your attention.
–Cobra
Cobra: I remember when you classified those oppossed to AA as Klansmen in nice clothes and as wishing for the ‘good old days’ of lynchings. Please don’t lecture others as to what constitutes productive debate. You are simply playing the usual game of imposing limits on others that you would never impose on yourself. It is the same game that you play with discrimination.
No Mikem. I said that the Klan’s “problem” (among many) was bad public relations and inferior marketing. David Duke without the robes, crosses and eptithets got 55% of the white vote when he ran for governor in Louisiana. His website today is almost indistinguishable from other right winged, reactionary sites. If you are going to use that information to claim that “I consider those who oppose AA as klan members”, that’s your comprehension problem. Not mine.
–Cobra
You are a flat out liar, Cobra. You can attempt to rewrite your comment history here with such lies, but I have cited your remarks several times before. Several months have gone by since I last spent much time here, but your previous comments are part of the record.
I am pleased that you are ashamed of your previous comments, but you would do better to simply disown them, perhaps even apologize, instead of hoping for poor memory among long term commenters.