May 31, 2013

The Atlantic on affirmative action

Racist ginger Abigail Fisher
sued for her so-called "constitutional
rights" in the Supreme Court
Americans Oppose Affirmative Action for Race, If You Only Ask White Americans 
What do polls show about racial preferences in college admissions? Don't take the overall number at face value.
... The story also drops this seemingly innocuous fact: "Polls show that while most Americans oppose racial or ethnic preferences in college admissions, they also think colleges should give extra help to the poor." 
That's a deceptively complex statement. When you actually take a look at the polls, the truth is more like this: A majority of Americans oppose racial or ethnic preferences, but only because a majority of Americans are also white.

The Gang of Eight is doing good work to solve that problem in the long run, but can't something be done in the meantime, such as disenfranchising or deporting about a 100,000,000 white citizens right now?

53 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could also say, "Non-whites love being held to lower standards," but that wouldn't be a very Atlantic-y way of seeing things. I'm glad I let my subscription to this piece of crap magazine expire. It's down to Harper's now as the only printed work I pay for.

eah said...

I never read it often, but I'm wondering: When did 'The Atlantic' become such a useless rag, so utterly full of absolute garbage?

BTW, read the comments to that piece and lose all hope. Among the few good ones:

I don't understand the point of this post. Here are some possibilities one could infer. White Americans aren't Americans. White Americans' opinions don't count. Only minorities should get to set Affirmative Action policy. People disadvantaged by Affirmative Action shouldn't get a say. There are probably some liberals who would agree with those, but not many. Otherwise, I don't see what you're trying to say with this.

Uhh, yeah, good points. However despite this unclarity, most of the commenters seemed to agree wholeheartedly with it. Whatever it's saying.

Anonymous said...

vdare had a link to this article that I've been sending young people in my family http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/27/one-cannot-truly-understand-a-legal-argument-on-be/

I do have to have some hope for the younger people, that they will somehow have the veils lifted from their eyes and see a broader perspective than whats in the media and what their blockheaded professors tell them.

poolside said...

I am always heartened when I see Steve commenting on an Atlantic thread. It lets me know there is still hope in this world.

E. Rekshun said...

OT: Quarterback No Longer Enrolled at Notre Dame, WSJ, 05/26/13

"Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson is no longer enrolled at the school, a spokesman for the school said...Golson, who led the Fighting Irish to an undefeated regular season and the national championship game in his first season as a starter during his sophomore season, was no longer enrolled as of Friday..."

No reason given. Things that make you go hhhmmm...Oh well, Cam Newton ended up doing pretty well after getting kicked out of the University of FL.

Billy Chav said...

Math is hard, statistics is harder, there's no point paying attention to either one, especially if you're counting white people. Plus numbers aren't really real, you can't touch them or eat them or anything, so would you already just shut up already?

Anonymous said...

Asians too oppose affirmative action.

con igapie said...

It's down to Harper's now as the only printed work I pay for.

I used to spend a lot of time at a magazine stand near the Berkeley campus. They had an amazingly eclectic selection, including Southern Partisan, Chronicles and First Things. Anyway, I noticed that they stacked 3 times as many copies of Harper's as any other title, and I asked the (Arab) owner about it. He told me it was his bestseller, outside of Playboy. Funny thing was, I never saw a single person buy or even peruse one.

Simon in London said...

Victims don't like being victimised; beneficiaries like benefitting. Unsurprising.

Actually, more interestingly, it does seem that whites have such a strong sense of fair play that most oppose Affirmative Action, even when they are the beneficiaries at the expense of higher-performing groups like north-east Asians. Most white Californians support no-Affirmative-Action in the college admissions system, even though the net result of abolishing it is to reduce white access to University. Whites tend to be individualist and just want a 'fair chance' even where quotas would be beneficial to them.
I think this very strong concern with fairness is admirable, but does leave them vulnerable to exploitation.

Bob Loblaw said...

A majority of Americans oppose racial or ethnic preferences, but only because a majority of Americans are also white.

Gosh, it's almost like the people who benefit like this policy and the people who get screwed don't like it. You could never have predicted that.

Silver said...

It lets me know there is still hope in this world.

Maybe. But if George Bernard Shaw was writing today I wonder if he wouldn't say something like

In your dread of nativists you established a state of society in which every immigrant is a dictator, every negro a dictator, every refugee a dictator, all with the livelihood of the whites at their mercy, and no public responsibility. And to symbolize this state of things, this defeat of all government, you have set up in New York Harbour a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete this monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription ‘Abandon all hope, all ye whites who reside here.’

Anonymous said...

Other Atlantic headlines throughout history:

Middle Easterners oppose jizya, only if you ask Christians and Jews.

American southerners oppose slavery, if you only ask black people.

Roman Empire expansion opposed, if you only ask barbarians.

Europeans oppose converting to Christianity, if you only ask heathens.

Asians oppose Mongol rape and pillage, if you only ask non-Mongols.

Anonymous said...

Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. Of course blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans enjoy preferential treatment. So do rich legacies. The worst thing you can be is a straight white male from a blue collar family. No one wants you to succeed, and a lot of folks want you to fail. "The world needs ditch diggers>"

Anonymous said...

The existence of structural racism in American society is still clearly visible in every direction, income, personal wealth, housing patterns, education, occupation, etc. In the 1960s there was a naive assumption that just by removing policies of active overt racial discrimination we would over time arrive at a society of full equality. Over 40 years later this has not happened. What we have instead is a society with increasing inequality and that trend falls most heavily on racial minorities who bear the brunt of structural racism.

Some form of adjustment based on racial disadvantage is the only way that I can see to correct the situation. It seems highly unlikely that this will happen as long as whites constitute a majority of the population. However, demographic projections indicate that the situation is about to change over the next generation. There will be different arrangements down the road.

Beagle Juice said...

150 million Americans go to Mexico, swim back, become instant millionaires

http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/150-million-americans-go-to-mexico-swim-back-become-instant-millionaires/

Bob Loblaw said...

The existence of structural racism in American society is still clearly visible in every direction, income, personal wealth, housing patterns, education, occupation, etc.

Oh, bullshit. This isn't "structural racism", it's illegitimacy, drugs, and crime. Black people in the US are their own worst enemies, and it's not hard to see when you look at how immigrant blacks do before they absorb American black culture.

Anonymous said...

"Over 40 years later this has not happened. What we have instead is a society with increasing inequality and that trend falls most heavily on racial minorities who bear the brunt of structural racism."


"Increasing inequality" should is actually "difference in achievement". "Structural racism" is a silly term for what exists in the USA of 2013. What exists between some racial minorities and others and whites is simply a difference in abilities.

What you have stated is a POS, and the difference between 2013 and not too long ago is that we now know it's a POS.

Corn said...

The fact that the Republican Party hasn't gone balls to the wall against affirmative action shows just how useless and pathetic they are.

JeremiahJohnbalaya said...

The existence of structural racism in American society is still clearly visible in every direction, income, personal wealth, housing patterns, education, occupation, etc.

The idea that, right now, in this society, "structural racism" is more to blame than a group or person's own pathologies is absolutely ridiculous.

PropagandistHacker said...

inequality is the banner of the false left, which they eagerly wave at every opportunity. But they transfer this principle accordingly: nonwhites should be given preferences over whites. That is the ultimate outcome of their entire ethos.

But what do they ignore? THat the plutocrats and the rest of us have differing interests. And that therefore the plutocrats should be constrained, limited, taxed of their wealth.

The true leftism maxim should not be equality, but instead control of the rich. And also maximization of homogeneity, for it is homogeneity within voting districts that allows the working class to unite against the rich.


Not surprising that the american left should ignore all of the foregoing, seeing as how they were funded by the plutocrats.

Anonymous said...

"I do have to have some hope for the younger people, that they will somehow have the veils lifted from their eyes and see a broader perspective than whats in the media and what their blockheaded professors tell them."

I have two hopes:

1) Recently, public officials have come out and said what we always knew, "Hey, college isn't for everyone, you know? You just might want to think about going in another direction."

Ya think??? Too many middle to low tier colleges have dumbed down curricula chasing the almighty dollar of high enrollment and found it wasn't cost effective at all after offering remedial classes that have no chance at remediating. Too many kids who had no aptitude for college work took out college loans because everyone told them they HAD to go to college.

That will change with the new "Hey, it's better not to chase a degree if it's not your thing."A huge segment of young people/voters won't hear the crap these prog profs have been feeding them.

2) More and more colleges will go to online courses, giving fewer and fewer crazy profs face time with kids. It'll be much harder for them to indoctrinate through these courses.

A final hope--many of the leftist loons will lose their jobs as the academe undergoes changes... or at least their forums will change sufficiently to minimize the damage they can inflict.

ogunsiron said...

that atlantic article is unbelievable. So a random sample of usa citizens where whites are the majority is somewhat a problematic sample ? Do these journalists know ANYTHING about statistics other than "correlation is not causation" ?
I left the following comment :
The racial breakdown table is kind of hard to interpret because we don't have precise definitions of white and hispanic (there is some overlap between those 2 labels).

According to the excel file NC-EST2009-03, found at the us census website,

the % of whites ( including hispanic whites) in the usa in 2009 was about 80%.

Assuming that the table above classifies whites in the same way as the census does, it can be racially analyzed as follows :

total N = 1117 + 126 + 137 = 1380
N of whites = 1117
% whites = 1117 / 1380 = 80%.

Therefore, the poll above is not even remotely biased in favor of oversampling whites.

It sort of looks like they undersampled black people and since I'm not sure how they defined hispanics, and where they put the asians, I can't comment on the sampling for the nonwhites. It's CLEAR though that they sampled whites in proportion with their share in the USA population as of 2009, using the census definition of white.

Anonymous said...

"The existence of structural racism in American society is still clearly visible in every direction, income, personal wealth, housing patterns, education, occupation, etc."

Even James Heckman (Journal of Law and Economics, 2006), adviser to Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign, concluded that stricter enforcement of 'civil rights' laws and affirmative action has little to offer at this point and that the biggest factor in black-white pay differences is differences in cognitive ability that already exist at age 3.

Anonymous said...

eah said:I never read it often, but I'm wondering: When did 'The Atlantic' become such a useless rag, so utterly full of absolute garbage?

I often wonder the same thing. The Atlantic isn't just full of mendacious attempts to buttress the conventional wisdom, it's loaded with poorly written articles about incredibly trivial topics. Their callow younger scribes produce the most egregious drivel imaginable, worthy of a college newspaper or on a good day a free metropolitan weekly.

-The Judean People's Front

Anonymous said...

"increasing inequality" - If you want decreasing inequality vote against mass immigration, so that labor becomes more valuable, and wages go up. that seems to especially help non-whites who have a hell of a time actually preserving capital on their own(given the trillions we've blown on them over the past half century).

Anonymous said...

Oh and disparate impact, as always, is the even worse offender here. Where AA wouldn't be a horribly onerous restriction on businesses, banning testing potential workers is.

Anonymous said...

"Asians too oppose affirmative action."

No, they don't. They support it by about 70%.

People may think this is weird, but remember that Affirmative Action is more than just college, it's a ton of other things especially hiring, promotions and so forth. Asians are net benefits when you include all things.

Anonymous said...

"Some form of adjustment based on racial disadvantage is the only way that I can see to correct the situation. It seems highly unlikely that this will happen as long as whites constitute a majority of the population. However, demographic projections indicate that the situation is about to change over the next generation. There will be different arrangements down the road."


Good luck. Whites will still be the majority for the next 30 years and even longer than that if you count white hispanics too, many of whom are taking much more hostile views towards these issues.

Second, it's not just about numbers. Think about South Africa today. Whites are 5% of the population but control 90% of the largest corporations and are vastly, vastly richer.

Another good example is Brazil, 50% white or so but again economic power is very concentrated.

You could go the path of Venezuela but the white (liberal) elite would never allow such a candidate to rise to power. They prefer a moderate Republican in blackface like Obama who goes in front of black college audiences and tell them "there's no excuse anymore" or lecture the Congressional Black Caucus to "take off your slippers".

Another example of a rising minority pol is Cory Booker.

Keep dreaming my friend. The white right is dead. The white liberal elite is the true power in this country and they control all the media, the power, the donors behind the throne and so on.

Aaron Gross said...

I never read it often, but I'm wondering: When did 'The Atlantic' become such a useless rag, so utterly full of absolute garbage?

I think it was about the same time it became a women's magazine.

Hunsdon said...

Who Is Steve Sailer and Why Is He Saying These Terrible Things About Me?

Money on the table, bro,.

Anonymous said...

GLUE globalist liberal urban elites

ben tillman said...

the % of whites ( including hispanic whites) in the usa in 2009 was about 80%.


Wow.

Try 61%.

ben tillman said...

Good luck. Whites will still be the majority for the next 30 years and even longer than that if you count white hispanics too,

No, Whites are on pace to be a minority in 2025, even if you count White Hispanics as White, and why wouldn't you?

Anonymous said...

Incorrect, Mr. Tillman.

Whites (incl Hispanics) - 78%
Non Hispanic whites - 63%

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

Year most estimates suggest whites will lose majority - 2043.

http://www.businessinsider.com/census-whites-will-become-a-minority-in-the-united-states-by-2043-2012-12

kh123 said...

Probably already brought up, but:

"A majority of Americans oppose racial or ethnic preferences, but only because a majority of Americans are also white."

Or, worded another less pleasing way, ethnics in America who identify with race/culture other than White American prefer gov't granted preference over Caucasians, because a majority of them value their own racial solidarity vs. equality, and place even less value on "American" as their nationality.

Quote is an amazing bit of doublethink in the same breath, that whites preferencing for their own racial or cultural interests is bad, but every other race is quite justified in doing the same. Because, you know, Spike Lee Joints and all.

Conatus said...

On the general topic of Affirmative Action, this law review, Gross Presumptions: Determining Group Eligibility for Federal Procurement Preferences, is a great read on set asides and the strange political dance groups, who want to be designated 'socially disadvantaged' go to, in order to obtain that long desired label. One of the authors, La Noue, is not a lawyer, and therefore the review is fun to read. He mentions many groups like Basques and Afghans among many.

http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1352&context=lawreview&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%2522gross%2520presumptions%253A%2520determining%2520group%2520eligibility%2522%2520la%2520noue%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CCoQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdigitalcommons.law.scu.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1352%2526context%253Dlawreview%26ei%3DurypUdTpFJCd0gHZ24DQBA%26usg%3DAFQjCNHEu6cWJTpmva0bc1ElHzGXECbr5A%26sig2%3DeZSkeBHy6IZ4yiOEVv6-yg%26bvm%3Dbv.47244034%2Cd.dmQ#search=%22gross%20presumptions%3A%20determining%20group%20eligibility%20la%20noue%22

Anonymous said...

The US is destined to become a nation of gated communities, homeowner's associations with powers of local governance, houses designed with perimeter walls and inner courtyards instead of front porches, condo buildings that require the board to approve owners and tenants, private clubs requiring membership fees, etc. The remaining public spaces will look like the Blade Runner/Max Headroom dystopia we have come to expect of the future.

Look to South Florida for an example. 98% white gated retirement communities aggressively enforce NO TRESPASSING homeowners association regs to prevent public beach access through their properties. I know one place that owns the longest stretch of private beachfront in Florida. They issue and aggressively check ID to prevent the general public from using paths through their property to access the beach, which is public up to the high-tide line. They have their own federation of gated communities with organized governance and taxation to support their own security and tram systems. They are currently upgrading their own infrastructure for TV, internet, etc. This is the world of the future, just look to Florida.

Billy Chav said...

What's becoming the norm for these pieces of ruling class agitprop is that even in their own comments sections, there's palpable disgust at this stupid, venal crap. HuffPo, Atlantic, Slate, Salon have a lot of regular commenters who appear to have reached limit of their tolerance for propaganda.

It's kind of like what you'd expect if Pravda and Isvestia had had open, anonymous comments sections in 1975: an even split between humorless Commie media-enforcers and dissidents/critics.

Anonymous said...

If there are any whites that think that affirmative action will go away when they become the minority, they just have to look at both Malaysia and South Africa. In both countries the majority are the ones that are getting the affirmative action. Also, since they now control the levers of power, why would they want to give it up, only whites are are that stupid.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

The existence of structural racism in American society is still clearly visible in every direction, income, personal wealth, housing patterns, education, occupation, etc. In the 1960s there was a naive assumption that just by removing policies of active overt racial discrimination we would over time arrive at a society of full equality. Over 40 years later this has not happened."

There are other theories as to why this hasn't happened. Read a little more widely, and you'll find out what they are.

"What we have instead is a society with increasing inequality and that trend falls most heavily on racial minorities who bear the brunt of structural racism."

This site is dedicated to the proposition that the tired old nostrums you are repeating are bullshit. Did you land at this site by accident? You don't seem to be aware of where you are.

Hunsdon said...

On the other hand, of course, David A. Graham absolutely rocks the Jew-fro.

Anonymous said...

Whites should;
- Let immigrants come into their country
- never force them to assimilate
- deny having a race/ethnicity, while others can
- disempower themselves (and it gets complicated here, because race didn't exist, but because of white malicious privilege it doen) for benefits of non-whites
- and never complain about any of those things, if they do they're a "racist" which would be a supposedly bad name because of past injustices committed by some of their ancestors way, way back.
- also, they should care what progressive writers tell them about being a good person in this regard, even though the definition will always be redefined.

Well, there are more things you should think, do and be, but why bother? If you're being judged for being bad an sich, you might reap the benefits of being bad.

Lesson: be your bad self.

Pat Boyle said...

A majority of Americans oppose racial or ethnic preferences, but only because a majority of Americans are also white.

What an offensive remark. If white people only acted in their narrow racial self interest, how do explain the color of the current President?

It may however be true of black people. Blacks seem to vote for other blacks to the exclusion of all other factors.

The best evidence is that white people can transcend race while blacks can't. This is a terrible competitive disadvantage. Whites will have to learn to vote for an inferior white candidate just because he's white the same way blacks vote for blacks irrespective of their qualifications.

This is a variant on Gresham's Law. Bad civic behavior drives out good.

Albertosaurus

Anonymous said...

This is one of Pat's comments I can fully agree with.

Anonymous said...

Writing as a professional diversity coordinator (honest to God, and I read this blog!), affirmative action keeps me in white wine and fancy cheeses.

rob said...

Anonymous said...

Asians too oppose affirmative action.


Not exactly. Asians oppose Asians losing out on AA. When the entire burden of affirmative was carried by (Gentile) Whites the Azns did not give an ef about any principles.

But the aliens tend to live around each other, so states with lots of Asians tend to have lots of hispanics and sundry others. The butt-ton of non-Whites in California left California schools with a problem: not enough whites to shoulder the burden. Schools had to discriminate against someone to discriminate in favor of the dumber populations. Jews? Jews aren't Episcopalians, so they weren't about to disfavor themselves for 'fairness' or other silly principle. With Jews out of the question and whites already heavily discriminated against. Asians were the only other over-represented population in colleges and unies.

It appears that affirmative action is here to stay barring revolution or revolt. The AA laws don't say anything about discriminating against gentile whites only. The costs of living in multiracial society should be split amongst the higher-performing groups. Asians benefit from living in the multiracial US by more than whites benefit from having some Asians around by orders of magnitude. Asians benefit more than whites so it's only reasonable that Asians should bear more of the costs as well.

Outside of college admissions, I have never heard an Asian complain about government contracting set-asides, loan programs, their protected status under employment law...

The Asians aren't really our allies on affirmative action. College admissions is an area where they don't get yellow skin privilege, and they want it back.

Dr Van Nostrand said...


What an offensive remark. If white people only acted in their narrow racial self interest, how do explain the color of the current President?

It may however be true of black people. Blacks seem to vote for other blacks to the exclusion of all other factors.

The best evidence is that white people can transcend race while blacks can't. This is a terrible competitive disadvantage. Whites will have to learn to vote for an inferior white candidate just because he's white the same way blacks vote for blacks irrespective of their qualifications.

This is a variant on Gresham's Law. Bad civic behavior drives out good."

This is not neccesarily a black thing.
Any community which has suffered discrimination in its past, will go out of their way to get one of their own in power once enfranchised
Identity politics had wrecked Irish Americans communities as they had the same thing.
Similarly with Dalits and other low caste groups in India.

They go through this phase and they may grow out of it

If blacks were really keen on black tribalism ,they wouldnt vote over 95% for this half white elitist poser into the White House

In 2012 about 30% of young black males voted for Romney.Probably the highest percentage of that demographic that Republicans have received in the last few decades.

john marzan said...

"You may have a point but Hispanics usually have kids. I blieve in the greater La area_La-Orange-Riverisde and so forth, whites are a lot less on government health care since they usually are not as likely to be poor and have less kids. Second and Third generation Mexicans who are children of the group that was legalized under Reagan received Medicaid more than whites in the greater LA area and immirgants that are legalized put their kids on the government healthcare programs. "

you are talking about hispanics U.S. citizens. i have no problem with them--whether they receive more medicaid, food stamps, welfare,,, or not.

i'm talking about the people that are about to be amnestied in 2013. legalized illegals who can work in the USA but dont qualify for obamacare. wouldnt big business want to hire these people instead of more expensive american labor (whites, blacks, hispanics) that will cost more to hire because of obamacare law?

(if you are worried about illegal aliens having anchor babies, the change your system to jus sanguinis.)

Silver said...

Lesson: be your bad self.

Or: if you're going to the time, you may as well do the crime.

Silver said...

Whites (incl Hispanics) - 78%

Only if you're playing by the 'Latin house rules' definition of white. The 'true' number is much less.

Tillman, 50% of hispanics identify as white, not 90%.

Anonymous said...

Yea why oh why would lower caste Indians be wary of voting for the descendents of the people who locked them into their shitty caste. That comparison would make sense if white leaders in the country were still committed to white supremicism but they aren't. At worst the blacks can expect color-blind treatment from the Republcians. Meanwhile allegedly upper caste Indians like yourself, although I'm suspicious of that claim why didn't you stay home if your blood lines are so great, get angry when Christian service organizations do so much as pervent a Dalit from starving to death in the streets. Upper castes gleefully oppress the lower castes so of course the lower castes aren't going to vote for them. Yea ethnic voting ruined the Dalits not the fact that your "ancestors"'denied them access to any but the most menial jobs. I'm proud that although all my ancestors were here before the revolution that they didn't resort to silly classifications to keep people in their place. But then again they were Northern Europeans who didn't need to resort to outbreeding taboos in order to artificially boost their IQs. Maybe if they had been starting at the base 75 IQ of the subcontinent they would have.


Honestly if upper caste Indians really value political conservatism in America it would be best if they just kept their mouths shut. You, allegedly, are everything the left accuses Americna conservatism of being.

ogunsiron said...

Re : 80% White vs low 60%.

I was using the census definition, for the purpose of talking about the pew study criticized at slate.
The pew study and and census probably use the same definition of white. For 2009, both the census and the pew study sample were 80% White. Therefore, the pew study wasn't unrepresentative or biased, as the dumb article author and some of his commenters were saying.

ben tillman said...

Tillman, 50% of hispanics identify as white, not 90%.

Don't know, don't care. The point is that the Census Bureau says 90% call themselves White. Do the math.

78% minus 63% is 15%. The Censsus Bureau says 16.7% of the population is Hispanic. 15 divided by 16.7 is about 90%.