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mynameismudMichael Harriot
8/27/18 1:16pm
Wow, your article is very poorly thought out. This is a very important issue for the black community and you should have actually engaged with the facts instead of doing a simplistic analysis of supposed myths v. facts like you’d do with an urban legend.
One of the most important facts that your article left out is that states that have outlawed the use of race as an admissions factor, such as California, where black and latino enrollment at their best public universities has plummeted (UC Berkeley and UCLA), have also seen a dramatic INCREASE in the overall graduation rates of black and latino students. The only sane conclusion from this data is that it is a benefit to most black/latino applicants to be declined admission into elite universities and instead enroll in schools that are actually commensurate with their abilities. Surely it is better to graduate from an average school than to drop out of an elite one.
At UC Berkeley (generally the highest ranked public university in the country), racial and economic diversity (still has a massive number of pell grants) are maintained by admitting way more asian students at the expense of whites, blacks and latinos.
It seems that the best thing for whites AND blacks is to take a cue from the asians and focus strictly on academic performance instead of sports and all sorts of goofy extracurricular activities.
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  A Big Butt And A Smilemynameismud
  8/27/18 4:07pm
  This is such hot garbage.
  Largely b/c you left out the main reason many black and Latino students don’t graduate - finances - you also left out the Cali policy of giving automatic admission to a public university for high achieving kids who graduate from a public school.
  UC Berkley and UCLA are hella expensive - and if you can even get in - you may not be able to afford to go where you have a less expensive or free alternative.
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  Michael Harriotmynameismud
  8/27/18 10:22pm
  Almost everything you just said is wrong.
  Since you mentioned Berkeley, let’s look at it. While it is true that the black graduation rates went up dramatically, it is only because FAR fewer blacks are accepted into the schools. After affirmative action was eliminated in California, Berkeley is only 3 percent black.
  It became almost impossible for poor students to get admitted. Most of the students at Berkeley (54 percent) now come from families in the top 20 percent of income. 4 percent of Berkeley students come from the top 1 percent of earners while less than 8 percent come from families who are int he bottom fifth of incomes.
  The only sane conclusion one could reach from this data is that poor minority students don’t have a chance to get in. Asians don’t get in because they are smarter and work harder. It’s because they have more money!
  If you doubt it, here is the list of Cal Berkeley’s enrollment by race.
  And here are California incomes by race:
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kidelo gave up commenting for 2019Michael Harriot
8/27/18 12:48pm
As Robin DiAngelo points out in her must-read book White Fragility, a lot of white people think that being white is merit-based; the very fact that they were born white means they are deserving of all the bounty that comes with it, and because it’s a zero-sum game, if you are not white, you shouldn’t get any of those things. Education and the privileges that come with it (including the privilege of debt) are among those things.
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  In-A-Mazda-Da-Vidakidelo gave up commenting for 2019
  8/27/18 3:16pm
  I really should buy this book, not just to read it, but also to continue carrying it around with my everywhere I go even after I read it, title prominently displayed, and see the reactions
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  kidelo gave up commenting for 2019In-A-Mazda-Da-Vida
  8/27/18 3:25pm
  It raises a ruckus!
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smoke&waterMichael Harriot
8/27/18 2:45pm
I remember an episode of Different Strokes where this was talked about. This aired back in the early eighties if memory serves correctly. Anyway, the two boys were taking an entrance exam to get into the school that the Dad figure went to when he was younger. The boys didn’t do well and when the Dad guy looked into it, he realized that the tests were written in a way that someone who had grown up white would find it easy and someone who grew up black would find it nearly impossible. The subtext was a bit heavy handed, but the 80s were the 80s after all. The Dad was rightly upset about the whole thing and felt bad that he put so much pressure on the boys to attend that school and was doubly upset at how racist the test was.
So, this isn’t new. The explanations for how affirmative action are not racist have been around. Hell, it was on a family friendly half-hour comedy show in the 80s. The reason why people still don’t “get it”, is because they don’t want to get it. Plain and simple.
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  bfredsmoke&water
  8/27/18 3:40pm
  I remember that one. One of the questions described a house and then asked the student to calculate how many people could sleep in it. The correct answer forgot to include people sleeping on the couch and in the bathtub.
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  crouching tigersmoke&water
  8/27/18 6:00pm
  I took a women's studies course in college, and one day the professor had us take the officer candidacy test for the WWI US army. It was a test designed around the knowledge base of southern white farmers, mostly. Not one of us elites could come close to passing, and most did about as well as guesswork.
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BlackMage2030Michael Harriot
8/27/18 1:29pm
If the merit myth were true, the vast majority of college campuses would be homogeneous enclaves of white men.
And that’s what makes them cry big fat tears at night. Too many want to go back to the days where college was for the landed white gentry and the wives they marry once they get their MRS degree from their glorified finishing schools. Everyone else - poor people, brown people, white women who have an iota of self-determination - would just suck it the fuck up and not even try to do better for themselves. And it’s something that even trickles down to the military and vocational trades (for all the “well don’t go to college, just enter the military or go learn a trade” types out there) so good luck getting somewhere great there unless you know a guy who knows a guy who’s someone’s cousin or something (a part of why white folks don’t have cousins like that is the growth of the myth of self-fulfillment of destiny - never mind peerage being the foundation of many trade orgs to this day). But no: we don’t want just our golden few to be blessed onward and upward to only work in us-exclusive operations due to overt codified racism any longer and for that we need to be granted the same opportunities as any of our contemporaries.
As is the argument needs to apply to outside the academic umbrella, particularly for Asian Americans that get suckered into support white opposition to merit-based programs: sure, some may feel kinship in the belief that other minorities get an edge leaving many in the cold, but it’s amazing how the opportunities fizzle and wilt once out of academia when it comes to positions of further advancement and leadership. Never mind the subtle to blatant colorism that sub-divides that they’re not willing to talk about when pulling in East Asians while ignore quite a few Filipinos, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Indonesians, and others.
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  A Big Butt And A SmileBlackMage2030
  8/27/18 3:56pm
  Never mind the subtle to blatant colorism that sub-divides that they’re not willing to talk about when pulling in East Asians while ignore quite a few Filipinos, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Indonesians, and others
  Yeah. When folk say “Asian” in this country they mean Chinese and to a lesser extent Indian. Folk forget about all those other “Asian” populations.
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  -.--.--.--.-BlackMage2030
  9/16/18 9:16pm
  I read an article recently where someone working in Admissions for Harvard said that if prior academic performance were the only factor in admissions, Harvard would be over 40 percent Asian. That alone gives the lie to any talk of white merit.
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NopeNopejustNopeMichael Harriot
8/27/18 1:00pm
They really should get rid of the SAT/ACT and just make everyone take college placement tests. If you know the material, great, if not, take remedial classes in community college instead. The only thing that the SAT measures is how good you are at taking standardized tests, and GPA can be subjective (inflated at poorer schools or deflated at highly competitive schools). I was always great at standardized tests, but exams in college are nothing like that anyways.
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  WherehaveyoubeenallmylifeNopeNopejustNope
  8/27/18 1:15pm
  “They really should get rid of the SAT/ACT and just make everyone take college placement tests. If you know the material, great, if not, take remedial classes in community college instead.”
  But what is “the material”? Scientific concepts? Historical minutiae? Is that really better than the SAT/ACT?
  I am a HS teacher, and I admit I am dismayed at SAT preparation courses. It seems that the wealthiest people have access to these programs. It also seems so silly that so many people with PHd’s are working there. Is it because it is so lucrative? Yes, yes, I also know that the job market for PHds is also quite tough.
  “The tests only measure how good you are at taking tests.” I don’t know about this. I just wonder if those standardized tests are just the best option, while also being an imperfect option. Answering standardized questions under a time crunch is an important skill, and “I am just not a good test taker” always seemed so hollow to me.
  I will also admit that I had minimal SAT preparation, and I got the highest SAT score in my HS class. I will also admit that I certainly can be described as an underachiever in both college and in life. Yes, and I’m working on it.
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  A Big Butt And A SmileNopeNopejustNope
  8/27/18 1:20pm
  (inflated at poorer schools or deflated at highly competitive schools).
  - No.
  Grade INFLATION is a HUGE problem across the board ESPECIALLY at competitive schools.
  The best predictor of future success is past success. Admit kids who finish in the top 10% to 20% of their school to state colleges for free - private schools can approach that however they want.
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MWCMichael Harriot
8/27/18 12:44pm
The one problem with this article is the notion that grades are a better predictor of success in college. This is patently absurd. Everyone gets A or A + for every course they take. The only value in school grades is it should at least show a person graduated. But grade inflation, including easier grading along with all the nonsense of taking classes that offer over a 4.0 makes analyzing someones grades as pointless. They probably should just make all college applications based on a lottery.
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  WherehaveyoubeenallmylifeMWC
  8/27/18 12:48pm
  I am a high school teacher and I am confused by some of your statements.
  “Everyone gets an A or A- in every course they take.”
  Really? This is news to me. I give plenty of F’s. I don’t like doing it, but if a kid isn’t doing any work whatsoever, that’s the grade he or she earned. Are you speaking about a specific kind of school?
  “The nonsense of giving any grade above a 4.0.”
  there is an argument to be made here, but you didn’t make that argument. Why is it nonsense?
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  hugosbeardflowsagainMWC
  8/27/18 1:12pm
  I think that many schools control for this, at least somewhat. Our admissions office, for example, takes the high school they’re coming from and the classes they took into account - how rigorous was the schedule, is it a school that just gives everyone A’s, etc. And they have a matrix that sort of creates equivalents for classes that are over 4.0/up to 110 or whatever. If even my not-so-great university does this I have to imagine others do. They’re also fully aware that grades aren’t the best indicators of success - but SATs are even worse so at my school they have been brainstorming other methods of evaluation.
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A Big Butt And A SmileMichael Harriot
8/27/18 12:16pm
Race-conscious admission is an attempt to make up for past discrimination
But it should be tho. That was the purpose of affirmative action - it was for American black people (descendants of slaves) as redress - then they gave it to everyone to dilute it and now any old body qualifies except white men - so white women who marry white men and have white fathers get the lions share - funny how that works.
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  WherehaveyoubeenallmylifeA Big Butt And A Smile
  8/27/18 12:41pm
  Yeah, that confused me as well. When Lyndon Johnson introduced affirmative action, he said:
  “You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe you have been completely fair,” Johnson said. He advocated “not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.”
  So, yes. I would have to say that one of the aims of affirmative action was to redress previous and current discrimination and inequity. One issue with this is that a lot of students are admitted to universities where they truly are not prepared to thrive academically. Truly addressing academic inequity is to undertake a major overhaul of this nation’s education system. One glaring issue is that funding schools with local tax dollars creates massive differences in neighborhood school funding. Americans seem so married to the belief that education should be a local issue. Yeah, sure I can see why some people would like to keep it like that, but I don’t know how it can truly be justified since the effects are obvious inequity.
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  Squib308Wherehaveyoubeenallmylife
  8/27/18 12:53pm
  One glaring issue is that funding schools with local tax dollars creates massive differences in neighborhood school funding. Americans seem so married to the belief that education should be a local issue.
  Drives me nuts. I wish we would quit the war in Afghanistan, put the money towards schools across the country based on the neediest first as a first step; then work on creating educational equality no matter what the school district is, where the school is.
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VodkaRocks&aPieceofToastMichael Harriot
8/27/18 4:09pm
Nat Turner picked up a machete because he wanted the opportunity to breathe free. Black Lives Matter simply fights for black people’s opportunity to breathe.
God damn, Mr. Harriot! This is just poetry. You inspire me daily. :)
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My KinjaMichael Harriot
8/27/18 2:38pm
“A 2010 study of 30 elite colleges found that family connections to a particular institution outweighs athletic ability, grades and even minority status when it comes to college admissions.”

I work with a White dude who one day shared his middle name with me. I ask whether he is named after a well known school. Verifying my theory, he tells me he is the ancestor of the school’s founder. He then reminisces on how he beat out a gifted young woman pursuing an athletics scholarship and how surprised he was she was not accepted. I interject by pointing out the obvious status he had over the other applicant to which he casually disregards and says he “worked hard to get in”.

Kind of threw up in my mouth.
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  Hulk Hogan Flashing All Across The WorldMy Kinja
  8/28/18 8:32am
  “Verifying my theory, he tells me he is the ancestor of the school’s founder.”
  You are using the wrong word. That’s not how ancestry works.
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  My KinjaHulk Hogan Flashing All Across The World
  8/28/18 1:35pm
  My apologies “descendant”
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rusholmeruffianMichael Harriot
8/27/18 12:52pm
Education as a socializing institution was and is committed to the preservation of a particular type of society, one that would ideally be governed by and most advantageous to a privileged white minority (read WASP, propertied, heterosexual men).
This is so, so important. With regards to their undergraduate populations, private colleges and universities in particular have always been about social capital formation to a much greater extent than they are about education. (The role of the faculty, on the other hand, was still primarily the formation of knowledge through research quite often wholly disconnected from the undergraduates. Plus ça change.) The fraternity system traditionally has served the purpose of extending this ethos to public universities; it seems a bit superfluous at private ones.
The challenge to this came in the mid-20th century from graduates of public institutions that could not discriminate quite as easily against non-WASPs, and particularly against Jews. City University of New York and Rutgers University produced a grip of young academic superstars who absolutely wiped the walls with their “respectable” counterparts at the Ivies; this ultimately led the Ivies to abandon their Jewish enrollment caps.
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