Affirmative Action Post

After reading all the articles about the 'race-neutral' college admissions policies, I have to agree with those rather than supporting affirmative action. The universities in Florida, California and Texas all show that their minority acceptance rate was the same or better after they got rid of the affirmative action policies. While looking at two potential candidates for a university who are the same in both academics and extracurriculars, that's when race can be seen as a plus, but having special programs for minority students is not very helpful for increasing the diversity of the school. Socioeconomic status could be seen as an even better way to classify the students, rather than by race. Students who grew up poor and live in impoverished areas should be given special consideration because of their situation. Race is not an indicator of struggles in life as much as socioeconomic status is, a rich Black or Hispanic student have probably not have had to overcome many obstacles in their lives than a White student whose family sits below the poverty line.

"White Like Me"

In Tim Wise's book White Like Me, he discusses the hidden biases in American society. For today I read the chapter called "Privilege", in this chapter Wise talks about how whites are born with certain privileges that are not afforded to minorities in America. One thing that he mentioned is that our schooling is mostly Eurocentric, and it is from the point of view of people from European descent. He then goes on to say that this is not fair to the minorities in America, that it is too 'narrowly' focused. I have to disagree with Wise on this topic. I do not believe that the school system is inherently racist, while a VERY SMALL percentage of teachers might be racist, it is presumptuous to think that all teachers have these biases. He recalls that teacher more readily punished children from minorities rather than white children. Most teachers will treat kids with the respect they ask for, I show up to class, do my homework and take my education seriously. Any student who does not take school seriously will be punished regardless of their race. And now back to the "Eurocentric" views in our history textbooks, it should be pointed out that most Americans come from European descent so it only makes sense that our books would encompass that aspect of our history. America has always been closer with the European countries than anywhere else in the world so it only makes sense that we have more history with those countries, we aren't belittling the success of people from Africa or South America, they don't have as much history directly relating to us. And I know that I have never been taught that any other race or ethnicity is any different than me or my way of life.Maybe I'm just denying because I don't want to face the guilt, but I truly believe students who are committed and focused on school will not get in as much trouble as back-talking slackers, no matter what their race is.