What. The. Hell. [Politics]

"MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s" (mastermario) 02/17/2017 at 09:47 • Filed to: Politics

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Any body else find this as messed up as I do?

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This is ridiculous, has my alma mater gone nuts? I get wanting to help disenfranchised people have a better shot at getting into college, but anything that factors race into the equation is just not a good way of going about it in my view.

If you want to help minorities because they are more likely to be poor and go to a bad school, maybe you push an agenda that helps poor students from bad schools get into college. If it’s run properly the proportion of black, hispanic, white, asian, etc should closely reflect the proportion of those populations who are considered poor and/or from bad schools. So it should in theory help a proportionally larger set of minorities since they are more likely to be poor or under educated.

If you can’t tell, I’m not a fan of affirmative action. I get why it’s there, but I think there are better ways to make changes than using race as a deciding factor in something.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 09:56

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Black students get free tuition, but what about white, students that also can’t afford college? Or kids of literally any other race, that can’t afford it. Not to mention they would mostly raise tuition cost, claiming they had to in order to cover the cost of giving free tuition to black students.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 09:58

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I’ve long said that you can determine that something is racist if when you swap out races, it becomes racist. It was racist to begin with. I totally support grants and aid for people who can’t afford to get into school. But it should be based on financial standings rather than ethnicity. (eg: if your household is under $20k/year, you can get this aid package...)

Even though I’ve long since got my degree, and didn’t qualify for any aid. I rather enjoy the idea of not living in a country of ignorant idiots, so it behooves us all that when someone wants to better themselves with an education, they should be able to obtain it reasonably. If you’re from a farming family in Modesto you’ll need as much financial help as if you were from an apartment in Long Beach if you want to go to a place like Stanford.

Krieger (@FSKrieger22) > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 09:58

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All right then, put forwards your “better way”.

Autophile412 - what's the world got in store? > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 09:58

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This is not affirmative action. This is a cultural phenomenon that surpasses affirmative action. This is a societal philosophy that says “blacks are victims and reparations must be made”.

I have black friends that are insulted by this mentality. They are anything but victims in society. They have chosen to do the right thing daily and make better lives for themselves and their children through their daily actions and not wait around for a hand out of some sort.

My extended family is mostly guilty of acting like they are disenfranchised victims because of the neighborhood and tax bracket they grew up in. My mom’s family was big (12 kids in all) and because of that they grew up in poverty and were mistreated as children by their peers because of it. A generation later and I have cousins that still cry and complain that life isn’t fair and that if you have money or a nice home that it was somehow given to you and that you are fortunate.

What they fail to realize is that we live in America and we are blessed with being born here with the opportunity to try harder and to work harder and to choose our actions that will either allow us to succeed or allow us to fail. You don’t need a hand out to make it in life no matter how poor you were growing up. You need a good attitude. You need to speak well. You need to work hard and you need to stay within the lines of decent society. It really isn’t all that difficult. It may at times feel like you lose part of yourself to the machine but if you want to make a better life for your kids you pull up the pants and tie your shoes and you go out and do it.

Nibby > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 10:01

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go to 20 seconds

wiffleballtony > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 10:16

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It wouldn’t be nearly as bad, if that free tuition didn’t mean increased tuition for everyone else.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Autophile412 - what's the world got in store? 02/17/2017 at 10:20

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This is what I never understand about people crying how things are unfair, it may be hard work, but pretty much anyone can live a decent life in the US. These seem drawn to instant gratification so they always seem to have the newest iphone or some other frivolous purchase that eats a large part of their income.

My dad came here from Sicily when he was in his teens, never went to college, has worked as a mechanic, a steel worker, owned a restaurant, and is a truck driver. Nothing glamorous and all with out an education yet because he was smart with his money his house is paid off (has been for years) and he has enough money to comfortably retire.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 10:21

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We’ve seen similar endeavours up here. Not necessarily on tuition, but same sorta deal, your race brings you some kind of assistance. But unfortunately in order to prevent it from becoming a free-for-all, you have to nail down exactly what defines that race, you need to start chasing family trees back four or five generations, and then people who thought they counted discover that in reality it was just their way of life making them think they count because legally they don’t count, when people who you wouldn’t expect to count because of their way of life suddenly count because if you go back five generations there was one person of that race.

I’m all for helping the disenfranchised too, but the reality is that defining a racial group and attaching benefits to that race is still segregation, and it will cause more problems down the road than it solves.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Krieger (@FSKrieger22) 02/17/2017 at 10:24

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I thought I did, base it on economic needs. If we want to make sure minorities are helped make sure the proportion of minorities helped with the program closely matches the proportion of minorities classified as “poor” then the program will be helping a larger proportion of minorities if a larger proportion of minorities are indeed poor. And this system only lets the economically disadvantaged use the program. Race based ones can be used by minorities even if the have a multimillionaire for a parent.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee 02/17/2017 at 10:26

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That’s an interesting point about having to define race. It sounds like a giant mess.

DipodomysDeserti > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 10:27

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White people complaining about minorities getting preferential treatment in one specific thing has got to be one of the most annoying things in the world. That’s not me making a political statement, that’s just my own personal view on white people complaining about minorities being given preferential treatment in one area of life. 

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > DipodomysDeserti 02/17/2017 at 10:31

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I don’t mind helping the disenfranchised or the poor, but basing anything on race is not what a “blind” society should be doing. If minorities are indeed more likely to be poor then a properly run program targeting poor students should be helping a larger proportion of minorities.

Autophile412 - what's the world got in store? > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 10:40

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My dad came here when he was 9 from Holland. His parents were adamant that their children were coming to the US to fit in and make the most of their opportunities. My Opa worked in a steel mill and all three of his boys went to college and got good jobs.

My mom quit school at 16 to care for her two younger siblings when her mom passed away. She got her GED and went to work for a large warehousing company (and earned respectable money) in the 70's and worked there until I graduated high school in 01.

My parents were furious when my brother decided not to go to college and they poked and prodded me through and I got a college degree and a good job. Now I have three kids and I hope they become doctors or something more advanced than I am.

Advancement through the generations is what the American Dream is all about. Building for a better future so to speak.

Textured Soy Protein > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 10:56

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Fellow UW grad here.

This very much feels to me like pushing for an absurd idea that nobody expects will be approved in order to make a point in the issue, not a proposal meant to taken seriously in and of itself.

To give context, UW is white as fuck. I grew up in the DC area and I vividly remember the day my freshman year when I was eating lunch at Gordon Commons, and I realized, “ohhh now I know what’s weird, EVERYONE HERE IS WHITE.”

The university talks about “students of color” lumping all non-white people together and oh we’ve made so much progress, now we’re at 15% non-white people! Sorry UW, but 85% white is still white bread as shit.

That 15% non-white number is including all the Indian and Asian engineering and medical students who come from overseas, which is all well and good but glosses over the problem of getting black people from Wisconsin (and the rest of the country) to come to the school for some reason other than an athletic scholarship.

Yes, Wisconsin is a white bread-ass state, but as of the 2010 census it was 6.3% black, and only 2% of UW students are black.

Again, this proposal is ridiculous, and their strategy of asking for the moon in order to hopefully end up with a nice trip to Florida is not a good strategy, but they definitely have a point that there’s a problem, and I suppose they feel that the school has not been responsive enough to more reasonable approaches.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Textured Soy Protein 02/17/2017 at 11:08

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Oh I agree that Madison is white as shit and that they need to do a better job of reaching out to minorities and helping them, but things like this or blindly trying to meet % quotas don’t help anyone. Help those that need it (economically) and that should help a larger proportion of minorities since they are more likely to be economically disadvantaged.

DipodomysDeserti > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 11:09

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We might live in a deaf and dumb society, but definitely not a blind one.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > DipodomysDeserti 02/17/2017 at 11:14

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Things like this don’t help towards making it blind though.

Textured Soy Protein > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/17/2017 at 11:18

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Again, I’m fairly certain this proposal is not a serious one. It’s too absurd to be serious. It’s meant as a provocation. There’s no point in responding to it as if it were serious. But it’s misguided because, as you’ve shown, people are likely to respond as if it were serious, and therefore it misses the intended goal of being the opening shot in a negotiation.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Textured Soy Protein 02/17/2017 at 11:39

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I sure hope it wasn’t meant to be a serious proposal.

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 02/22/2017 at 12:37

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A bit late to this party – and I do in general agree with your sentiments. In an ideal world, these things SHOULD be based on merit. But if you look at most opponents of affirmative action (at least the ones with the power to do anything) – they aren’t trying to take down the systems and replace it with something more equitable to all poor/disenfranchised people. They’re just purely pissed off that people of a certain minority get something that they don’t, point to a few random examples of people gaming the system, and want to tear the entire thing down. A far better plan would be to EXPAND affirmative action to focus on things like income, and to focus on outreach to minority/poor communities, mentoring poor/disenfranchised/minority kids from middle school to have clear goals and paths, etc. But instead, overwhelmingly the push from those with power to fight these programs has been to stop affirmative action. Beyond that, bootstraps!

Also – looking solely at affirmative action and say these people get an unfair shot at life, while completely ignoring all the ways kids from rich and/or white families get preferential treatment is a bit unfair. Everything from rich kids parents making “donations” (coug*jared Kushner*cough), knowing people on boards, etc. to implicit biases that have been proven over and over and over again that is essentially part of human nature – to be able to relate to and perhaps even subconsciously want to support people “like you”. So yes, while affirmative action is absolutely not perfect – it’s not exactly fair to focus on just that while there are many other forms of preferential treatment implicit in society and amongst those with decision making power that we just take for granted.

As someone else mentioned, this group is probably pushing their luck hoping for a negotiation and end up with something in between – and as written this plan will never ever pass. Every group fights for its own benefit, and politicians for the most part just want to dismantle affirmative action and not work on anything else that has a broader reach. Someone had mentioned Stanford – I believe they now have a program where even for undergrads acceptance is based on merit and the amount of tuition you pay is based on what your family can afford (believe they’ve had this for graduate programs for a while). For a prestigious school they do seem to be doing much better in diversity statistics and making admission a feasible option for anyone who is qualified. We need to focus on more public programs like this – not find the one group that is getting some kind of help and fight for it to be thrown out if we can’t have it too.