February 22, 2012

Will Texas Affirmative Action case be all about blacks again?

Earlier this year, David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy pointed out that the Fisher anti-affirmative action case from Texas, which is now going to the Supreme Court:
So, unlike every race/ethnic affirmative action case to reach the Supreme Court, where the underlying conflict has been primarily black-white, Fisher represents the affirmative action of the future, where Hispanic Americans, the largest government-defined minority group in the country, are the primary beneficiaries, and another large and growing group, Asian Americans, suffer the most harm.

This is an interesting point, but I wonder whether this will matter at all. My next Taki's Magazine column looks at the Academy Award nominations by race/ethnicity. We're all familiar with controversies over whether blacks get enough Oscar props, but I was struck by how long it has been since a person of Mexican descent who got his or her start in movies/TV in America (as opposed to being a fully formed product of the Mexico City entertainment industry) earned an Oscar nomination.

On the other hand, the concept of the Hispanic Tidal Wave is hugely popular. The Diversity Industry sees 129,000,000 Latinos in 2050 (as the Census Bureau has projected) as their meal ticket.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Tough issue, even as someone who benefited from #affirmativeaction. Maybe socioeconomic aff act would be more effective http://nyti.ms/y2wS8v"

https://twitter.com/#!/AndreaVasquez/status/172444230353043456

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1824988898/Vasquez_headshot.jpg

She's at least 80% white.

Anonymous said...

Selena Gomez was born in the USA and seems to have risen to the top of the hollywood pay scale for people her age.

Anonymous said...

"This is an interesting point, but I wonder whether this will matter at all. My next Taki's Magazine column looks at the Academy Award nominations by race/ethnicity."

Lots of bitching(again)about how the Oscar nominations are too white and male. It's like an annual ritual.
But 'white male' connotes 'conservative white conservative male'. But how many conservative Mormons or Evangelical Christians(or even white libertarians supporting Ron Paul) work in Hollywood? Most white males in Hollywood are Jewish or liberal. But notice there isn't any gripe about 'too many liberals' or 'too many Jews'. (In fact, there are far more Jewish women in Hollywood than conservative white males.) By griping about 'white males', Jewish-dominated media get to blame the unfairness of the Hollywood system on EVIL WHITE PATRIARCHY than on Jewish power and liberal elitism that really control the action.

Btw, are there many nominations for Mexican-Americans at the Grammies or Tonys? But I suppose that's okay since Grammies have lots of blacks and Tonys have lots of gays.
And it's okay that there's been no Mexican-American MVP in NFL and NBA since they are very 'diverse', aka black.

Anonymous said...

Steve,
you make a very good point.
Frequently here in the hbd blog-o-sphere you hear from European Americans denied admission to the ivies, who believe that if affirmative action was dismantled they would have gained admission

But all the stats show that if affirmative action was ended, the result would be massively more Northeast asians and massively fewer nams, with almost no change in the number of European Americans

In fact, Steve if you take the 405 to UCLA and walk the campus what you will find is that since the end of affirmative action there the number of Northeast Asians has exploded upward.

jody said...

isn't everything about africans? "Not enough africans!" - the 21st century american rallying cry. i've never heard, one single time, somebody utter the phrase "Not enough mexicans". or, not enough (fill in the blank with any other group).

what is peculiar is just how african US television has become in the last 5 years, due to advertising agencies, fearful of having the pants sued off them, stuffing africans into nearly 50% of commercials. meanwhile the liberal television news networks have dramatically increased their visible, on-screen african staff.

these are all low cost, low pain ways to avoid the hassle of the annoying and persistent pro african lobby groups, but it significantly skews perceptions, that's for sure. it's easy to hire random africans to read 3 lines of dialogue for a 30 second appearance on a television commercial in order to appease the year 2012 PC gods. the new trend i've noticed, is to regularly portray engineers, doctors, aircraft pilots, all manner of important technical workers, as routinely african. yet this is contrary to reality.

however, the opposite is never portrayed. short fat mexicans are never shown as athletes, musicians, or brawny construction workers or savvy club goers, hawking some hip new product. suit up a short fat mexican in a lakers jersey, and the average american immediately identifies it as goofy and ridiculous, suspension of disbelief is broken, and the advertisement starts to break down and not deliver it's message as the viewer has a moment of cognitive dissonance, trying to rectify the "out of category", miscast actor.

today a director can suit up a random african extra in a lab coat and have him portray the head surgeon of a medical staff, and the average american is buying it now. because they been beaten over the head with that for 20 years on television and in movies. the president of the united states was appearing as african in movies and television somewhat regularly, about 12 years or so before obama was elected.

jody said...

certainly, this helped condition americans to accept such a thing, and helped obama win what is now become a simple popularity contest, where european americans vie to demonstrate who is the "least" racist by advancing underqualified africans as high as possible as quickly as possible through political ranks. this is, to my mind, the only possible way to explain colin powell, condoleeza rice, or michael steele. or, later, how herman cain instantly shot to the top of the republican voters' list of who they wanted to run in 2012.

so then the public starts to think, i see dozens of africans every day, doing all sorts of jobs, in every field. they begin projecting omni-field competency on africans. so when they see no africans at the academy awards, they start to wonder, why no africans at the academy awards? aren't they good at everything? they must have made plenty of good movies this year. i see on television how they've designed lots of new drugs, invented lots of new ways to get oil out of the ground, and fly lots of jet aircraft and blow up america's enemies.

again, we witness the key principle of visibility. it's one of the most important things to control. perception of various groups. this is why, for instance, posters come on here blathering complete nonsense about homosexuals mostly being upper class, successful socialites, because that's overwhelmingly how they're portrayed on television. and that's on purpose. this is the image which the pro homosexual agenda types want to project. smart, sophisticated, successful. gay is good. people against gay are probably stupid, crude, backwards. they definitely make less money than gays. and so forth.

oh, by the way. they said ramming open homosexuals in the US military wouldn't hurt anybody or anything. ha. they're already organizing themselves to seek affirmative action on gay grounds. not enough gays get promotions. not enough gays are at rank (fill in the blank with any rank above captain). not enough gays are in charge of (fill inthe blank with various combat commands). bradley manning even sought to use the "But I'm gay, so it was ok, back off" defense in his military trial. "gay" will soon be yet another elevated group in the US military, with the corollary quotas, promotions, and special protections.

helene edwards said...

today a director can suit up a random african extra in a lab coat and have him portray the head surgeon of a medical staff

Remember "Bullitt," 1968? Story didn't make sense, great shots of (now) old San Francisco, and the chief surgeon in the E.R. was my favorite black actor, George Stanford Brown.

Anonymous said...

Oh Come On... you can barely tell she's Hispanic.

http://s18.postimage.org/rhk03z0jt/ohcomeon.png

Anonymous said...

With a cameo by Steve Hsu

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/22/beyond-race-in-affirmative-action

RKU said...

Relating to some of the previous comments, it's usually the more European-ancestry Hispanics who tend to dominate Hispanic discussion, on both sides of whatever issue.

That's partly because they tend to be better educated and more affluent, but also because they're much more socially-aggressive and verbal. I think this last fact is closely connected with white Europeans generally skewing more aggressive and verbal than Amerinds, who are similar to East Asians in that regard. Remember, the old stereotype was the "Taciturn Red Man" not the "Garrulous Red Man."

Anonymous said...

JUst went to Steve Hsu's blog and found his article about this:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/22/beyond-race-in-affirmative-action/merit-not-race-in-college-admissions

Autumn State said...

Bloomberg News reports, "With five of the nine current justices openly sceptical about racial classifications, today's action suggests the court at a minimum will scale back diversity programs."

Perhaps the Supreme Court will dismantle an unfair racial spoils system because they've realised different ethnic groups have different cognitive abilities and that European and Asian Americans aren't responsible for the failures of other ethnic groups.

UC BERKELEY 20 October 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------
Studies find Latino toddlers' gap in cognitive growth
-----------------------------------------------------------
Two new studies led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers find that immigrant Latina mothers, who typically live in poor neighbourhoods, give birth to healthy babies, but their toddlers start to lag behind middle-class white children in basic language and cognitive skills by the age of 2 or 3.

The Mexican American mothers "display remarkably sound prenatal practices and healthy diets, more beneficial habits than any other group in the U.S.," said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, who led both studies. He noted that pregnant Latina women also smoked and drank alcohol far less than their African American and white counterparts.

But while robust births contribute to the earliest cognitive growth of Latino toddlers, Fuller said these youngsters are falling behind the pace of white children's language and mental development by the time they turn 2 or 3.

Anonymous said...

A general rule for nationally televised commercials is that if there's more than two adults, there will be diversity. 80% of the time, that diversity is represented by blacks. Hispanics are a greater percentage of the population, yet are almost never featured in commercials. I don't think I remember seeing even one during the Super Bowl

eh said...

Tiresome crap.

I wonder

I wonder how much (metaphorical) energy is wasted in America wrestling with this issue.

On the other hand, the concept of the Hispanic Tidal Wave is hugely popular.

It's also hugely not just a concept, and will hugely contribute to the demographic destruction of America.

Not that it matters.

dogzma said...

"It's also hugely not just a concept, and will hugely contribute to the demographic destruction of America.

Not that it matters."

It's too late anyway. What happens next is what I wanna know. I could prepare for the future if I had any idea what was coming next.

Simon in London said...

anon:
"Frequently here in the hbd blog-o-sphere you hear from European Americans denied admission to the ivies, who believe that if affirmative action was dismantled they would have gained admission

But all the stats show that if affirmative action was ended, the result would be massively more Northeast asians and massively fewer nams, with almost no change in the number of European Americans"

According to my white* American wife, white Americans would not mind losing out to east-Asians, they just want a chance to compete on equal terms.

East-Asians do lose out, but then so do high-ability poor and rural whites, the stats show they have much less chance of being admitted to the Ivy League (after applying) than do wealthy and urban whites of comparable academic ability.

*Culturally white. Genetically more like 90%-white, according to her father's DNA test.

Simon in London said...

jody:
"this is, to my mind, the only possible way to explain colin powell, condoleeza rice..."

Two of the less incompetent members of the GW Bush Administration!

Not that that's saying much, obviously. But Powell didn't seem much worse than most recent US senior generals, and Rice was less crazy-mad than the neocons; eg she opposed and apparently helped prevent war with Iran.

Anonymous said...

As I've said before, all 'affirmative action' is just a zero-sum game scam that has white males and only white males as the dupes.
It just would be simpler and more honest to officially designate white men as third class citizens rather like Indian dalits, and then the whole future cockfight about who or whom benefits from AA can be avoided.

dogzma said...

"The Diversity Industry sees 129,000,000 Latinos in 2050 (as the Census Bureau has projected) as their meal ticket."

With enough hispanics, affirmative action will no longer be feasible for them as a group much as has become the case for white women.

It has occurred to me, as well, that since Asian test prep has pretty much invalidated the SAT, we're in for some major restructuring in how students get evaluated for college admissions.

As an itinerant mariachi songwriter once told me, anything is possible.

Anonymous said...

"In fact, Steve if you take the 405 to UCLA and walk the campus what you will find is that since the end of affirmative action there the number of Northeast Asians has exploded upward."

And steve has covered how that happened. They enacted new sets of rules designed to accomplish the aim of the old AA regime, and asians are the best at gaming them, to the dismay of the universites.

Old fogey said...

This particular idiot expected that once Obama had been elected president he would announce that his election was proof-positive that racial bias was a dead issue in the country and that his Administration would push to eliminate affirmative action programs within government and the private sector.

As I said before, I'm just an idiot.

elvira said...

"and that his Administration would push to eliminate affirmative action programs within government and the private sector.

As I said before, I'm just an idiot."

You're just in denial which protects from realities too harsh to handle. What they're really doing is getting rid of the white people.

gumm look said...

There are more than one kinds of diversity. There is visible/external diversity--race, sex, ethnicity--and invisible/internal diversity--ideology, values, etc. Ivy League schools wanna look visibly diverse to sell their progressive credentials. A white conservative in a liberal elite college LOOKS like just another white person whereas a black student, liberal or conservative, makes the college look more diverse; better for public relations.

Indeed, elite colleges will favor rich black conservatives over middle class white liberals via affirmative action. Public image of an institution matters a lot, and colleges wanna LOOK right. The effect of the LOOK is instantaneous. If you see a black guy at Harvard, it is DIVERSE!! But if there's a white conservative, you wouldn't know merely by looking. You would have to get to know the person, and who has time for that?

Anonymous said...

I think this last fact is closely connected with white Europeans generally skewing more aggressive and verbal than Amerinds, who are similar to East Asians in that regard. Remember, the old stereotype was the "Taciturn Red Man" not the "Garrulous Red Man."

Also not the "Peaceful Red Man" (unless, I don't know, you watch loads of Dances With Wolves and believe its true or something).

Amerinds are an interesting group - overrall IQ closer to Blacks than Whites, spatial ability closer to Whites than Blacks, verbal ability relatively worse than Blacks, performance at Maths and Science discernibly no better than Blacks.

But all the stats show that if affirmative action was ended, the result would be massively more Northeast asians and massively fewer nams, with almost no change in the number of European Americans

And of course, with more competition for European Americans and those Asian Americans who get through after graduation, since the AA people will eventually stop falling upwards.

(I'm not sure if Chinese numbers per se would change much atm - there might not be a negative effect for Chinese, if they're pigeonholed with Filipinos and Pakistanis with regard to the slots they compete for. It might be the Filipinos and Pakis who are really being screwed over.).

Truth said...

"isn't everything about africans? "Not enough africans!" - the 21st century american rallying cry. i've never heard, one single time, somebody utter the phrase "Not enough mexicans". or, not enough (fill in the blank with any other group)."

Well that's not true Jody, why just the other day, what I was telling an acquaintance of mine; "what this country really needs is more whiny internet nerds who haven't seen the light of day in 3 months!"

Alright, Son, settle down, I'm just joking, watch Birth of A Nation again, and alleviate your hard-on.

Truth said...

"today a director can suit up a random african extra in a lab coat and have him portray the head surgeon of a medical staff,"

Well, I've seen 16 movies now where a 106 lb. girl beats up a carload of German bodybuilders, but I didn't take personal offense in my manhood, to it.

Truth said...

"But all the stats show that if affirmative action was ended, the result would be massively more Northeast asians and massively fewer nams, with almost no change in the number of European Americans"

That would be cool! Harvard needs more white engineering majors switching to sociology and marketing.

Kiwiguy said...

Steve, have you seen Steve Hsu's opinion piece in the New York Times on affirmative action? Comments are open.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/22/beyond-race-in-affirmative-action/merit-not-race-in-college-admissions

Anonymous said...

"today a director can suit up a random african extra in a lab coat and have him portray the head surgeon of a medical staff,"

"Well, I've seen 16 movies now where a 106 lb. girl beats up a carload of German bodybuilders, but I didn't take personal offense in my manhood, to it."

Has anyone seen a Jewish financial shark in the movies?

helene edwards said...

Steve Hsu doesn't get it:

We have good tools for predicting college success, and those tools work about equally well across all ethnic groups and even for rich legacy candidates.

That's the problem, Steve - the SAT predicts black academic performance too well.

Svigor said...

The trouble with being satisfied with the status quo because your ox isn't being gored is that the status quo always changes, and nobody's going to give a shit when your ox is being gored.

Anonymous said...

"That's the problem, Steve - the SAT predicts black academic performance too well."

I went to Steve's piece in the Times, read the same old tired arguments in the comments section.

Those who think the SAT and high school grades (with the schools ranked, not all school grades are created equal, many give away A's and B's), should simply visit the public schools, the junior highs and the high schools, and observe the students' performances in the classes.

I wish they'd do it. They'd see that the overwhelming % of NAMS who get into the most prestigious schools fall FAR short of both verbal and math skills that such schools emphasize.

Once there, they major in non-productive ethnic studies and women's studies programs.

Go ahead. Go to a few public schools near you. Sit in on classes for a day, a week, whatever. Observe.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone seen a Jewish financial shark in the movies?


M Night Shyamalan lampooned the Jewish film critics in "Lady in the Water" - which I think is why he is no longer allowed to make movies in Hollyweird anymore.

Well, that and the fact that his movies were trending so strongly towards the fundamentalist Christian.

Maybe Mel Gibson will bankroll him now.

If not, then I suppose there's always Bollywood...

Anonymous said...

"M Night Shyamalan lampooned the Jewish film critics in "Lady in the Water" - which I think is why he is no longer allowed to make movies in Hollyweird anymore."

I dunno... LADY IN WATER was so horrible I could stomach only 20 min of it. He's a good director but can' t make up his mind to be artist or entertainer.

Anonymous said...

LADY IN WATER was so horrible I could stomach only 20 min of it.

For the record, I think that the movie is simply glorious.

A little heavy on the papist allegory & symbolism, maybe, but still just glorious.

Plus, it has Bryce Dallas Howard in her prime.

Sigh.

But Lady & Village are two of the most profoundly Christian movies made in the last several decades.

[Which, again, is why Shyamalan was wearing out his welcome in Hollyweird.]

Nanonymous said...

Yes, it will be all about blacks again. It never ends. The latest came in today:

"Navy Seeking More Minority SEALs"

http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/02/24/navy-seeks-a-darker-shade-of-seals/