are there any URMs that think AA is TOO helpful in admissions process?

[TBoneUCLA]

Nice arguments by both sides.

Everyone here is pulling out stats and figures, but forgetting that everyone's individual situation is different, but AA doesn't take that into account. It says, "you're black, so here's +50 points to your application numbers". If you want to talk about hardship and how race has impacted your LSAT and your grades, talk about it in your personal statement. Let it be a discretionary thing for the adcoms to consider. It's hard to say that AA is making up for white privilege when you've got black kids who came from families just as privileged as the average white family, and they get a huge bonus on their application for being black. How many people from the ghetto are honestly applying to law school? And even if they are, are we saying that it is so important to add diversity to the class that we should allow people who are not even close to as competent as their classmates to join them?

The last racist laws were repealed 50+ years ago. Whatever stats and figures there might be about the middle class, and various advantages that whites had 50+ years ago do not speak to the fact that ANYONE can get a job, work hard, and move out of the ghetto if they want to and they put in the effort. There is no law saying they can't work 50+ hours a week to save enough to move out.

i think it is actually a good point to note that not ALL blacks and latins are from the ghetto, or would even know how to get to the ghetto without mapquest...

ontop of that, i think it is MOST LIKELY the black and latino kids that are not not from the ghetto that are the ones applying to law school anyways.....(i knew alot of black and latino kids at ucla undergrad. they all came from educated and comfortable families. i heard no stories in college of people huddled in the dark trying to finish thier alegebra homework in high school as gang wars too place right outside thier bedroom window.

i know that happens. it is just the exception rather than the rule.

and i think that exception/rule is tenfold when we are talking about law school. what perecent of black and latino applicants to law school actually grew up in the ghetto dirt poor?

[shiveringjenny]

Nice arguments by both sides.

Everyone here is pulling out stats and figures, but forgetting that everyone's individual situation is different, but AA doesn't take that into account. It says, "you're black, so here's +50 points to your application numbers". If you want to talk about hardship and how race has impacted your LSAT and your grades, talk about it in your personal statement. Let it be a discretionary thing for the adcoms to consider. It's hard to say that AA is making up for white privilege when you've got black kids who came from families just as privileged as the average white family, and they get a huge bonus on their application for being black. How many people from the ghetto are honestly applying to law school? And even if they are, are we saying that it is so important to add diversity to the class that we should allow people who are not even close to as competent as their classmates to join them?

The last racist laws were repealed 50+ years ago. Whatever stats and figures there might be about the middle class, and various advantages that whites had 50+ years ago do not speak to the fact that ANYONE can get a job, work hard, and move out of the ghetto if they want to and they put in the effort. There is no law saying they can't work 50+ hours a week to save enough to move out.

i think it is actually a good point to note that not ALL blacks and latins are from the ghetto, or would even know how to get to the ghetto without mapquest...

ontop of that, i think it is MOST LIKELY the black and latino kids that are not not from the ghetto that are the ones applying to law school anyways.....(i knew alot of black and latino kids at ucla undergrad. they all came from educated and comfortable families. i heard no stories in college of people huddled in the dark trying to finish thier alegebra homework in high school as gang wars too place right outside thier bedroom window.

i know that happens. it is just the exception rather than the rule.

and i think that exception/rule is tenfold when we are talking about law school. what perecent of black and latino applicants to law school actually grew up in the ghetto dirt poor?

i actually did grow up dirt poor. we lived on a dirt road in rural georgia when i was a kid. my mom worked at wal-mart. we only moved to a middle-class neighborhood in a suburb of atlanta right before my high schooling.

[TBoneUCLA]

Nice arguments by both sides.

Everyone here is pulling out stats and figures, but forgetting that everyone's individual situation is different, but AA doesn't take that into account. It says, "you're black, so here's +50 points to your application numbers". If you want to talk about hardship and how race has impacted your LSAT and your grades, talk about it in your personal statement. Let it be a discretionary thing for the adcoms to consider. It's hard to say that AA is making up for white privilege when you've got black kids who came from families just as privileged as the average white family, and they get a huge bonus on their application for being black. How many people from the ghetto are honestly applying to law school? And even if they are, are we saying that it is so important to add diversity to the class that we should allow people who are not even close to as competent as their classmates to join them?

The last racist laws were repealed 50+ years ago. Whatever stats and figures there might be about the middle class, and various advantages that whites had 50+ years ago do not speak to the fact that ANYONE can get a job, work hard, and move out of the ghetto if they want to and they put in the effort. There is no law saying they can't work 50+ hours a week to save enough to move out.

i think it is actually a good point to note that not ALL blacks and latins are from the ghetto, or would even know how to get to the ghetto without mapquest...

ontop of that, i think it is MOST LIKELY the black and latino kids that are not not from the ghetto that are the ones applying to law school anyways.....(i knew alot of black and latino kids at ucla undergrad. they all came from educated and comfortable families. i heard no stories in college of people huddled in the dark trying to finish thier alegebra homework in high school as gang wars too place right outside thier bedroom window.

i know that happens. it is just the exception rather than the rule.

and i think that exception/rule is tenfold when we are talking about law school. what perecent of black and latino applicants to law school actually grew up in the ghetto dirt poor?

i actually did grow up dirt poor. we lived on a dirt road in rural georgia when i was a kid. my mom worked at wal-mart. we only moved to a middle-class neighborhood in a suburb of atlanta right before my high schooling.

a wonderful example of the exception to the rule. thank you for sharing, annoying goth (aka dirt poor urm)

[risingMC]

i think it is actually a good point to note that not ALL blacks and latins are from the ghetto, or would even know how to get to the ghetto without mapquest...

ontop of that, i think it is MOST LIKELY the black and latino kids that are not not from the ghetto that are the ones applying to law school anyways.....(i knew alot of black and latino kids at ucla undergrad. they all came from educated and comfortable families. i heard no stories in college of people huddled in the dark trying to finish thier alegebra homework in high school as gang wars too place right outside thier bedroom window.

i know that happens. it is just the exception rather than the rule.

and i think that exception/rule is tenfold when we are talking about law school. what perecent of black and latino applicants to law school actually grew up in the ghetto dirt poor?

Actually, I hear that most of the minorities who get to college aren't. A number that gets thrown around is 86%, but not sure where I heard it. We probably had a couple more at Berkeley because we were at public-school Berkeley, but still, it was hard to find people that I could relate to both culturally and socio-economically. Friends of mine who grew up in similar circumstances actually tell me that they're having a really hard time in law school trying to do the same.

But, seriously, this goes back to the argument that AA is meant to bring the provervial ghetto kid out of south central LA; in all reality, the kid doesn't ever even graduate high school, much less apply for his JD.

[faith2005]

the point is not that all white people are rich b/c of white privilege, but that black people systematically were discriminated against according to the color of their skin. there are poor white people, just as there are poor of every type of person. poverty is not something that aa is meant to remedy. race based discrimination is what aa is meant to remedy. generally black families who have a similar income to a white family are deeper in debt than said white family b/c of the history of white privilege. i think that people should unify as impoverished people in the states and organize according to that. but, unfortunately, whites who are poor have shunned organizing with black people b/c of issues with race. thats why the southern states continue in the situation they are now. and thats some of what i see in this thread as well.

concerning black folks from the "ghetto." there are alot of black folks who benefit from aa who aren't descendants of slaves, but instead sons/daughters of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. i do have a problem with this. this situation is b/c oftentimes they have better grades/sat scores than black folks from the ghetto, and their parents are generally more well off. alot of times they live in the suburbs/go to private schools. i was one of the few black folks at my undergrad who was "Black American." but, my solution isn't to stop letting those people benefit from aa, but to expand aa to continue to equalize the playing field. aa is responsible for creating the black middle class we see today, i think that more can be done to continue the process of wealth redistribution. but i accept that most people don't agree with this end goal, so i guess we'll agree to disagree.

[LaneSwerver]

the point is not that all white people are rich b/c of white privilege, but that black people systematically werediscriminated against according to the color of their skin.

I believe you just made my argument. "Were" indeed.

[risingMC]

concerning black folks from the "ghetto." there are alot of black folks who benefit from aa who aren't descendants of slaves, but instead sons/daughters of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. i do have a problem with this. this situation is b/c oftentimes they have better grades/sat scores than black folks from the ghetto, and their parents are generally more well off. alot of times they live in the suburbs/go to private schools. i was one of the few black folks at my undergrad who was "Black American." but, my solution isn't to stop letting those people benefit from aa, but to expand aa to continue to equalize the playing field. aa is responsible for creating the black middle class we see today, i think that more can be done to continue the process of wealth redistribution. but i accept that most people don't agree with this end goal, so i guess we'll agree to disagree.

Good point, faith.

[SleepyGuyYawn]

poverty is not something that aa is meant to remedy. race based discrimination is what aa is meant to remedy. generally black families who have a similar income to a white family are deeper in debt than said white family b/c of the history of white privilege. i think that people should unify as impoverished people in the states and organize according to that. but, unfortunately, whites who are poor have shunned organizing with black people b/c of issues with race.  

You say that poverty isn't what AA is meant to remedy.  But then you launch into a discussion of poverty.

The truth is that you seem to recognize the biggest hurdle for African Americans at the moment.  It isn't discrimination, per se (you keep saying that discrimination is an issue, but you haven't taken the time to spell-out just how that functions).  It's an economic condition.  Unfortunately, it's hard to break out of poverty.  I'm not sure it's exactly a "cycle of poverty," but it's something close.

Your assertion that poor white people refuse to "organize" with poor black people b/c of race is specious.  I don't know where you get this.  I'm not even quite sure what you mean by "organize."  Even the NAACP doesn't focus that much on issues of poverty, especially in light of their fight for AA.  There are a lot of reasons that poor white people and poor black people tend not to work together to break out of poverty.  One is that they don't have a shared history.  Certainly at one time this had to do with racism.  But I don't think the current "non-cooperation" has to do with racism.  And if it does, I think it has to do with racist feelings that african-americans hold just as much as anything else.  Another reason might be that poor, white people are much more likely to live in different areas than poor black people.  With the exception of certain parts of the south, most poor black communities exist in large cities, while poor white communities exist more in black communities.  

The biggest reason that poor black people and poor white people don't "organize," however, is probably that no poor people really are organized to fight for their rights at all.  Certainly there are organizations like the NAACP, but I'd hardly say that the NAACP is civil rights organization, not an organization of impoverished people fighting for their rights.  

Last, I used to work in a labor union, as an organizer (only for a short period of time).  And I did see white people and black people working side by side.  They saw themselves as workers and union-members, not black and white.  So perhaps this idea that white people won't work with black people is more your perception than reality.  

[angmill08]

My feeling is that poverty is linked to discrimination. That is why proportionately more people of color live in poverty than the proportion of whites in poverty in the US. I also think that interracial cooperation on economic issues would happen more readily if whites would be conscious of the history and continuing effects of racism.

I'm not saying whites and blacks never work together. But look at this very debate for an example of how we often don't. Most people posting here agree on some general issues that AA could be improved, that it is a band aid solution, that economics and class are also important. But what do we have passionate arguments about? Whether or not racism still exists. Not that I mind sharing my opinions on this topic, obviously... But if instead of just trying to eliminate AA, white anti-AA folks would propose other methods to recify the underrepresentation of people of color in elite professions, then I think we would be more likely to see cooperation on this.

[faith2005]

i didn't mention the naacp at all. and i stand by what i said. black people on the whole, those who are descendants of slaves benefit from aa b/c they were systematically discriminated against. when people compare the black experience and the immigrant experience, thats exactly what I mean. If this country were actually a meritocracy, where people came and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, then, there would be little to no comparison of Black Americans with Italian/Irish/Jewish immigrants, b/c they shouldn't be in the same socio-economic position if that were truly the case. factor in the fact that disproportionately Black people in the States are in a worse position than most 2nd/3rd generation European immigrants and it is even more clear that this discrimination in the past still has a large effect on Black people today. poverty is tied to race in the U.S. those Black people who are disproportionately in poverty are impoverished b/c they are Black and descendants of slaves.

examples of discrimination today are different and alot harder to ger agreement on. for example, why are Black people still disproportionately represented on death row (particularly black people who murder whites)? in prison? why are predominately Black and Latino communities more likely to have failing schools?