What is the purpose of race-based affirmative action? Is the purpose to give racial groups a seat at the table? And when I use the term “racial groups,” I am referring to individuals brought involuntarily to the U.S. and denied opportunity to benefit from fruits of their labor. Podcaster Lex Fridman is a believer in steel manning arguments, presenting arguments one is skeptical of in the best possible light. So, I have framed the question of purpose in the strongest way I can think of out of respect for those who believe in race-based affirmative action, particularly in college admissions.
Even framed in this strong manner, the underlying premises and assumptions about individuals do not hold up for race-based affirmative action. First, giving racial groups a seat at the table is a great way to ensure disunity and division. Consciousness becomes race-based as opposed to human-based or individual-based. Case in point is Sri Lanka which has suffered dearly due to the institution of an ethnic group spoils system over time. Demands for proportionate representation in the State Council (Are you Sinhalese or are you Tamil?) have led over the years to cultural clashes, political assassinations and a civil war. Attempts to give ethnic groups a seat at the table created disunity, not unity. Ethnic-based affirmative action known as the reservation system has been practiced in India since 1947. Has social mobility increased as a result? No, the real result has been great times for a small elite among groups given a seat at the table. This small elite never suffered from disadvantage but they prospered under the cloaking device of group disparities. Finally, there have been major social programs to give the Mapuche, the indigenous population in Chile, a seat at the table. Despite redistribution of educational resources to help the poor, there was “no sign of any systemic enhanced mobility.” The social experiment closed out with the coup d'état of Augusto Pinochet in 1973.
In an ideal world, all individuals should feel and believe social mobility is within their grasp. Forced social engineering does not appear to be the long-term generational answer.
Any individuals brought involuntarily to the U.S. are long deceased. The U.S. slave trade was ended in 1808. The last slave ship reached Alabama in 1859. So, no one living in the U.S. today was involuntarily brought to the U.S. These lazy labels always bother me. The labels attempt to freeze frame people by identity of ancestors five generations in the past. We don’t live in a country that perceives individuals as stand-ins for slaves. This premise is simply immoral and should not be used as an argument in favor of race-based college admissions in the year 2024.
Then there is the rationale that individuals have been denied the opportunity to benefit from the fruits of their labor. In what world? In what world have individuals been denied the opportunity to benefit from the fruits of their labor? The world of slaves in the antebellum South? While true for some (many - ?), this blanket statement was not true for all. My great-great-great grandfather-in-law used his savings as a slave to buy the freedom of his slave family in 1846. My great great grandfather, a former slave, used a large of sum of money to buy a mansion house on the James River for his family in 1871. My great-great grandfather-in-law use the fruits of his labor to buy a summer home in Windsor, Connecticut in the 1870s. My Grandma used the fruits of her labor to buy a home around the block from Twyman Road in 1921. My great grandparents-in-law used the fruits of their labor to buy a summer home in Sag Harbor before the Great Depression. Distant cousins have used the fruits of their labor to buy homes in Martha’s Vineyard. My parents used the fruit of their labor to buy a home in the suburbs in 1970.
In what world do Black Americans need race-based affirmative action because they as individuals have been denied the opportunity to benefit from the fruits of their labor? It is gaslighting par excellence.
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The Mindset
Oftentimes when I read comments in favor of race-based affirmative action for college admissions, I encounter what I call a limited perception of black people. What do I mean by a limited perception of black people? Well, if one understands that over 40 million black Americans will have over 40 million stories, experiences and perspectives, one would never bring a limited perspective to the table. One would perceive the richness of blackness and question simplistic rationales for race-based affirmative action.
For whatever reason, some are lazy when it comes to black people. They spout what I coin The Mindset. What is the mindset? The mindset is a ready made menu of shelf items for knowing black people. The menu consists of (1) slogan words “institutional racism,” (2) freeze framing to define blacks by experiences immediate ancestors faced, (3) pity that blacks lacked the ability to compile generational wealth, (4) redlining made homes worth less, and (5) poor quality schools in urban schools.
(1) Institutional Racism
Where? How so? In what way? This slogan word is never defined with precision. The phrase is simply thrown out there as an incantation. You’ve got to believe, dear reader. You’ve got to believe. The next time someone rationalizes race-based affirmative action based on institutional racism, ask yourself whether the person takes care to define the term. Does the person provide logical argumentation in one, two or three paragraphs? I doubt it. There will be no intellectual curiosity nine times out of ten.
(2) Immediate Ancestral Experiences
No, no and no.
First, notice how the writer never presumes positive and constructive ancestral experiences. The experiences are presumed to be negative and downtrodden. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining — that is what the commentator is getting at. There is never recognition of generational social mobility over the course of five generations. There is never acknowledgement of the great aunt who graduated from Morristown Normal College in 1919 and the University of Southern California in 1949. Some families have been on the ascent since 1790. That’s the reality of it. To be Black meant generational social mobility.
If one has another definition of immediate ancestral experiences, that’s not what I know.
(3) Inability to Compile Generational Wealth
The summer home in Sag Harbor did not come from the stork. The family house on 909 Prince Street did not come from the moon and the stars. The white two-story, wood frame house behind the railroad tracks from Twyman Road was not a rabbit pulled out of a hat. Uncle James Scott did not start from zero. All praise to his great grandfather Daniel Brown (1833 - 1885). I could name more examples but I decline to do so. Assets descend through the generations, even in Black American families.
Race-based affirmative action in college admissions is not needed because of a black family inability to compile generational wealth.
(4) Redlining Made Homes Worth Less
What homes were redlined? What neighborhoods? What areas? How many Black Americans fell victim to redlining? What years? I find this rationale for race-based affirmative action in college admissions unpersuasive. No Redlining For Me
(5) Poor Quality Schools in Urban Schools
Well, touch me tender! Talk about your caricature and stereotype. There are many reasons for race-based affirmative action in college admissions but the old canard of poor quality schools in cities won’t hunt. There are many black American students who have known only superior quality schools. I know many such students. There are many black American students who have never attended schools in the city. I was one such student myself as were most of my black friends in college.
This rationale for race-based affirmative action comes from someone who has a movie of black people running in their mind. I am thinking The Wire or Stand Up and Deliver. There is more to black student life than the Big City experience. Black parents have agency, you know. What is stopping parents from moving to better school districts or placing children in private schools or homeschooling?
If the movie running in one’s mind is of Baltimore and Los Angeles as the natural habitat for black students, then poor quality schools in urban schools may seem a plausible rationale for race-based affirmative action. This rationale is unconvincing since there is more to black student life plus parents have the freedom and ability to choose schools. At least, that should be the parental mindset.
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Conclusion: The aim of college admissions programs should be to affirm one’s human identity. Enabling racial stories of oppression may not align with the black applicant to Harvard University. Despite the scary headline Harvard’s Black Student Enrollment Dips After Affirmative Action Ends in the New York Times (September 11, 2024), I am heartened by three developments.
First, “the percentage of students not disclosing race or ethnicity on their applications doubled to 8 percent this year from 4 percent last year” is great news. The story buries the lead in this sense. The trend favors those choosing to discount race in the application process. We want the leaders of the future to think in terms of their common humanity. It is my hope that the percentage doubles again to 16 percent in the next applications cycle. Perhaps, students are rebelling against the heavy-handedness of race consciousness since the Bakke decision in 1978.
Second, there is evidence that some black students are showing other non-racial aspects of themselves in admissions essays. Kelli Higgins, a first-year student from Jackson, Mississippi, told the New York Times she avoided any mention of race in her admissions essay. “I wanted to show other aspects of myself.” Who wouldn’t? There is more to life than race. There is more to Kelli than race. I resigned from Blackness due to dogma and slogan words imposed upon me by the Harvard Club of San Diego. Kelli senses Harvard has an acceptable definition of race which might clash with Kelli’s self-perception of herself. Wise of Kelli to define her non-racial self and avoid the drama of dogma.
Finally, there was no reduction of black students at the University of Virginia (UVA). I suspect competitive students who want to attend UVA were going to apply regardless of any U.S. Supreme Court ruling. And this indifference to judicial rulings is how it should be. Students should be inner-driven as I was at UVA, not outer-directed. If the purpose of race-based affirmative action in college admissions is social engineering, affirmative action will fail because uncompetitive students will struggle, falter and fail. However, the real aim of admissions officers should be a rise in social status of individuals so that we see social mobility among families over generations. More competitive students armed with social capital.
It will take generational ascent in social capital. Great grandparents, great great grand parents and great great great grandparents matter. Be a good ancestor for your descendants.
“…I now had evidence that individuals’ life chances were predictable not just from the status of their parents but from that of their great-great-great grand parents.” — The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility by Gregory Clark, p. x.
The Movie of Black People Running in the Minds of Some