Can I apply as Black if I'm 10% black?

[SuicideNixon]

I'm pretty sure a private school can use whatever standard it chooses to select applicants.

there are limits. Schools are prohibited from using race in an impermissible way like to choose only whites. also private schools can be forced to do what the government wants because congress can nix the school's non-profit status or deny all federal student aid to its students.

[JayDee/P-Head]

Just BEING African-American does not a disadvantaged person make.  That is why the whole system is so utterly absurd on its face.

What evidence do you have that justifies such a statement?  Disregarding a certain minority of blacks who, on the whole, are outliers in the sense that they are of high socioeconomic status and privilege (after all, finding exceptions to any rule is quite easy, yet is not necessarily helpful when analyzing general characteristics), what empirical evidence leads you to conclude that being African-American does not come requisite with certain disadvantages in the US?

[denk]

Just to be a total dork - it's impossible to be "10% black", as the original poster wrote, isn't it?

Consider this a Logic Game:

I believe that it's only possible to be this fraction:

1 / (x ^ 2), where x >= 0.

In order words, you can only be 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 black, etc...  Ok - that's it -- with a mistake like that you shouldn't go to law school. 

[dbgirl]

Just to be a total dork - it's impossible to be "10% black", as the original poster wrote, isn't ?

Consider this a Logic Game:

I believe that it's only possible to be this fraction:

1 / (x ^ 2), where x >= 0.

In order words, you can only be 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 black, etc...  ?

(Of course, the whole thing's absurd - what does "black" mean, anyhow ... but the math is fun.)

I'm pretty sure it's possible.
For example I am "1/2" black, but my black mother is not entirely black, she's racially mixed on both sides of her family.
Therefore, I'm probably not "really 1/2" black, but some other percentage. But I don't break myself into fractions or percentages. I just say that I'm mixed.

[denk]

...what empirical evidence leads you to conclude that being African-American does not come requisite with certain disadvantages in the US?

This sounds like a dangerously invalid line of inquiry - asking someone to prove a negative like this.  More appropriate would be to ask to show proof for the contention that by simply being black, one is disadvantaged.

[denk]

I'm pretty sure it's possible.
For example I am "1/2" black, but my black mother is not entirely black, she's racially mixed on both sides of her family.
Therefore, I'm probably not "really 1/2" black, but some other percentage...

Ummm... I don't know.  I still think that a person MUST be something from the series 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc.  I'll try an informal proof:

Say you're "mixed".
Step 1: Look at your parents - your father is white and your mother is "mixed".
Step 2: Therefore, you are 1/2 of whatever your mother is.
Step 3: To find out what your mother is, substitute her for you, and repeat at step 1.  (This is called "recursion" in computer science.)

Or, let's say your father is mixed also; maybe he's 1/2, and your mother is 1/8.  But, since those are both powers of two, when you multiply them, you get another power of two:  1/16.

This is some fast-and-loose logic here, but I think I'm on the money. 

[Billy Pilgrim]

It isn't worth taking the risk if you are 90/10, I think.

[dbgirl]

[quote author=dbgirl link=topic=60816.msg1392999#msg1392999
I'm pretty sure it's possible.
For example I am "1/2" black, but my black mother is not entirely black, she's racially mixed on both sides of her family.
Therefore, I'm probably not "really 1/2" black, but some other percentage...

Ummm... I don't know.  I still think that a person MUST be something from the series 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc.  I'll try an informal proof:

Say you're "mixed".
Step 1: Look at your parents - your father is white and your mother is "mixed".
Step 2: Therefore, you are 1/2 of whatever your mother is.
Step 3: To find out what your mother is, substitute her for you, and repeat at step 1.  (This is called "recursion" in computer science.)

Or, let's say your father is mixed also; maybe he's 1/2, and your mother is 1/8.  But, since those are both powers of two, when you multiply them, you get another power of two:  1/16.

This is some fast-and-loose logic here, but I think I'm on the money. 
[/quote]

Denk, you are trying to make a simple situation out of my complicated ethnic heritage. My mother is not simply half black and half something else. My grandparents on both sides are of mixed heritage, although the "percentages" were lost somewhere along the line.

[denk]

1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16

Ok, my final post on this: I realized I was slightly off:  because one could also be 3/4 black, if one has one white grandparent and 3 black ones.  So the set of possible fractions is really:

1/2, n/4, n/8, n/16, etc.

By the way, I got interested in the whole math of this when a girlfriend of mine once told me she was "1/3 Dutch".  :-)  I couldn't imagine how *that* would happen.

[denk]

Denk, you are trying to make a simple situation out of my complicated ethnic heritage.

No, really, I was just having fun with the math. 

I believe that the whole concept of saying "1/4 Black" is silly in so many ways - mostly because it devalues the "Black" attribute - as if there's this thing that's pure "whiteness", and everything else is a dilution.