• BoofStroke@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Meh. Brilliant poor kids of all races exist. Where is the help for them? Dumb rich black kids exist. Affirmative action has no place in a society that wants to get past racism.

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      enslaves an entire race for centuries and then racially segregates them for another, stripping them of generational wealth, education opportunities, equal treatment under the law due to prejudice, and otherwise on average putting them far behind their white counterparts through zero fault of their own

      “Teehee we gave you equal rights (kind of sort of) so now it’s egalitarian and paying you back would be unfair to everyone else. You have to run the same-length track as everyone else, and don’t go asking for special treatment just because we shot you in the leg before the race.”

      • assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        What’s wild to me is that legal segregation was like, not that long ago at all. It always feels like it’s taught as ancient history but it was only half a lifetime ago, really… and still ongoing. It’s not like this happened a thousand years ago and “you should really be over it by now”, this was the experience of some people’s still living grandparents and parents.

        The idea that an entire demographic of people should magically recover and be equals again after like 30 years of half-assed “equality” after literal generations of slavery is fucking wild.

        Absolute goblin energy to not recognize the ongoing effects of such a recent thing.

        • makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I’m pretty young and my mom has told me stories about when the token black kid was bussed into her Oklahoma school because of legal requirements. She’s not even retired yet. Passing a law doesn’t magically fix things overnight. It takes time AND community effort to enact social changes

          • Billiam@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I’m in my late 30s, and my older brother went to a different elementary school than I did because of the city’s integration program. I went to the school up the street in our neighborhood; he was bussed to the inner city.

            We’re not nearly as far from the effects of racism as the racists want us to believe.

      • Halosheep@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Sorry brother, not my problem. I was born well after those events occurred and so did these people.

        Solving the problem of having an advantage based on race is not going to be solved by giving “the right” people an advantage based on race.

        Economic factors should be the most weighted if any advantage is needed to be given.

    • bradv@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      And what if the white people have all the money and all the best schools? How do you want to get past racism then?

      • metaStatic@kbin.earth
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        2 months ago

        We can only build an egalitarian society on the ashes of the old.

        Equity is a necessary evil only so long as we keep the current underlying power structures of capitalism.

      • BlackLaZoR@fedia.io
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        2 months ago

        And what if the white people have all the money and all the best schools?

        Certain german guy said the same, except he used “jews” instead of “white people”.

        Stop thinking like him.

            • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Pointing out the effects of systemic racism. Is not racism. But a strawman is a strawman.

            • Beaver@lemmy.caOP
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              2 months ago

              White people have it good. Equality feels like oppression when you’re privileged.

            • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              You seem to misunderstand.

              Prejudice exists throughout all people and cultures.

              White Supremacy is a focused method of prejudice.

              Racism is a tool of white supremacy.

              Racism towards Jews, PoC, indigenous, etc. has created societal disparities.

              White people are not victims of those societal disparities, and cannot be a target of racism, because again, racism is a specific tool of white supremacy.

              You’re thinking of prejudice, which will never go away.

              But racism can go away.

        • StinkyOnions@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Oh please stfu. White people like you have a fetish of being oppressed. You’re not and you never will be.

    • Beaver@lemmy.caOP
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      2 months ago

      That’s a strawman as all the kids who are accepted into mit are smart. We shouldn’t be colour blind when it comes to resolving inequalities while past and current racism is still largely affecting the United States.

      If you want to fix the percentage of minorities being underrepresented in post secondary education affirmative action is the quickest way to do it even if we’re assuming “racism ended years ago” as the trauma and lack of generational wealth would still linger.

    • Windex007@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Racially agnostic support for exceptional achievers still exists, it’s not an either-or proposition.

      I think you could argue that affirmative action has no place in a society that has overcome the systemic issues caused by generation of racism. But that isn’t the society in which we live. I hope to live in a world where one could abolish it and everyone can agree that the time has come. It isn’t now.

    • WHYAREWEALLCAPS@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      America is not a meritocracy. It is big racist misogynist shithole with misogynist racists usually in charge of selection processes. “But we have legal protections against that!” you cry. Yeah, as long as you can prove it. If they don’t say something or leave a paper trail, you can’t prove shit. The system is still absolutely rigged against minorities and women and set up in a way that protections against any form of bigotry are so fucking vague as to be virtually unenforceable in all cases except the most extreme. Affirmative action is one of the ways to combat that. It, too, is not a perfect answer, but it is better than letting the bigots win. Indeed, the end game of Affirmative Action is to get enough women and minorities lifted up that the US can actually become a real meritocracy.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      You mean like in the sense of free college education for all, or more in the sense of like close our eyes and pretend generational wealth isn’t the largest factor to success?

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        And also just fucking racism. We don’t need to pretend it’s just economics. Studies have shown people with black names get selected for interviews less frequently.

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Yep, when I was poor and smart, even though I was an immigrant, there were no scholarships for me. All the scholarships were for aspects you can’t change about yourself.

      Have never supported affirmative action after that, it never seemed fair to me.

      I’m sure others would think it’s fair, but the issue is, I’m the one who it affected negatively, and I think it’s unfair. I wish my opinion mattered.