And this is why affirmative action can be bad.

[CitizenPained]

Because when you beat out 700 people to get to the final interview for a job and it's given to a person of color, you can't help but to wonder if that person really was the better choice.



I busted my ass in a community for a year, going well above and beyond anything 99.99 per cent of teachers do, and I was pretty sure this job was mine. After all, I had experience in the ESL program at the high school and this was the feeder middle school. I taught their older brothers and sisters.

I got the call yesterday that it was given to someone 'from the community'. This person 'had ties to the community'. I worked in the community and put my ass on the line for various gang members, trying to see they got an education, volunteered with the Spanish speaking population, etc. etc. but I'm not from the community and I missed out?

ADLJA D:OI* !)(!) !!

The lady who called me sounded rather pained, too, and said that I did 'really well, honey' and told me to keep looking. She said I had the most impressive portfolio, too.

Since the community in question is 95 per cent non-white, I couldn't help but to wonder what that meant, exactly. From everything I saw at the major Open House (150 of us made it that far out of the 700 applicants), there were only a handful of non-whites (makes sense, considering our demographics and education system here) and I was the only person I knew besides two others (who didn't get callbacks) that had specifically worked in a neighborhood school. (The district is huge.)

I'm not saying the guy wasn't qualified. I'm saying that when a liberal weenie like myself has a thought like that cross through her head, that's just reinforces the theory that affirmative action hurts those who deserve those jobs because people distrust their qualifications. (If you've ever seen the acceptance rate for black people at Harvard v. non black or caps on Asian enrollment, you'll see what I mean.)

Allan Bloom made this point in Closing of the American Mind and I was always inclined to agree that it may be a drawback to affirmative action in the 90s (well, that's when I read it) but now I really see what he meant.



Jeez. I feel guilty for my reaction and insanely curious as to WHO THIS FUCKER WAS THAT GOT HIRED OVER ME? !

I have been accused of some negative things, but never for being a bad teacher. I am thorough. And GOOD. Damned good. I have a pile of 'love letters' from the toughest students. Plus I know my material 'cause I'm a history/polisci geek.

So I'm unemployed, don't have health insurance, and will have to pull my son up out of his happy world and move a couple thousand miles away to California so I can live in my dad's apartment above the garage because people don't want to hire teachers anymore.

There were 7 jobs total posted in the district for social studies. Thousands of applicants. The jobs are gone.

I'm not a teacher who decided to go this route because I had nothing else to do. I really do believe in public service and this is the best way I knew how to serve.



Also, can I have my $40k in post-graduate loans I had to borrow back?

I'm going to go slit my wrists in a warm bath while blowdrying my hair now if you don't mind.

 

[Jos]

Because when you beat out 700 people to get to the final interview for a job and it's given to a person of color, you can't help but to wonder if that person really was the better choice.



I busted my ass in a community for a year, going well above and beyond anything 99.99 per cent of teachers do, and I was pretty sure this job was mine. After all, I had experience in the ESL program at the high school and this was the feeder middle school. I taught their older brothers and sisters.

I got the call yesterday that it was given to someone 'from the community'. This person 'had ties to the community'. I worked in the community and put my ass on the line for various gang members, trying to see they got an education, volunteered with the Spanish speaking population, etc. etc. but I'm not from the community and I missed out?

ADLJA D:OI* !)(!) !!

The lady who called me sounded rather pained, too, and said that I did 'really well, honey' and told me to keep looking. She said I had the most impressive portfolio, too.

Since the community in question is 95 per cent non-white, I couldn't help but to wonder what that meant, exactly. From everything I saw at the major Open House (150 of us made it that far out of the 700 applicants), there were only a handful of non-whites (makes sense, considering our demographics and education system here) and I was the only person I knew besides two others (who didn't get callbacks) that had specifically worked in a neighborhood school. (The district is huge.)

I'm not saying the guy wasn't qualified. I'm saying that when a liberal weenie like myself has a thought like that cross through her head, that's just reinforces the theory that affirmative action hurts those who deserve those jobs because people distrust their qualifications. (If you've ever seen the acceptance rate for black people at Harvard v. non black or caps on Asian enrollment, you'll see what I mean.)

Allan Bloom made this point in Closing of the American Mind and I was always inclined to agree that it may be a drawback to affirmative action in the 90s (well, that's when I read it) but now I really see what he meant.



Jeez. I feel guilty for my reaction and insanely curious as to WHO THIS FUCKER WAS THAT GOT HIRED OVER ME? !

I have been accused of some negative things, but never for being a bad teacher. I am thorough. And GOOD. Damned good. I have a pile of 'love letters' from the toughest students. Plus I know my material 'cause I'm a history/polisci geek.

So I'm unemployed, don't have health insurance, and will have to pull my son up out of his happy world and move a couple thousand miles away to California so I can live in my dad's apartment above the garage because people don't want to hire teachers anymore.

There were 7 jobs total posted in the district for social studies. Thousands of applicants. The jobs are gone.

I'm not a teacher who decided to go this route because I had nothing else to do. I really do believe in public service and this is the best way I knew how to serve.



Also, can I have my $40k in post-graduate loans I had to borrow back?

I'm going to go slit my wrists in a warm bath while blowdrying my hair now if you don't mind.

 

[Patrick2]

"Affirmative action" CAN be bad you say???? I feel like saying something about karma, but I won't. I actually feel sorry for what happened to you. When is "affirmative action" bad - when it happens to YOU, but to other people it's OK? I can tell you lots of stories of "affirmative action" I saw and experienced in grad school and in the aerospace industry. Now you should read up about how it harmed Barbara Grutter, and the white New Haven fireighters, and many others.

Every day, "affirmative action", screws people out of jobs, promotions, university admissions, professional school admissions, scholarships, fellowships, internships, mentoring, grants, union apprenticeships, franchises, service academy appointments, and government contracts. People have the door slammed in their face, in favor of the less qualified, because they don't have the right skin color (non-white).

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Without knowing the qualifications of the person in question, there’s no way to make the statement ‘affirmative action’ is ‘bad.’

Anyone who infers ‘reverse discrimination’ from this without knowing the facts is merely exhibiting his ignorance.

 

[Patrick2]

Without knowing the qualifications of the person in question, there’s no way to make the statement ‘affirmative action’ is ‘bad.’

Anyone who infers ‘reverse discrimination’ from this without knowing the facts is merely exhibiting his ignorance.

Whatever the facts of that case, there's no doubt "affirmative action" is bad. It irrationally and unconstitutionally makes skin color a criterion.

 

[CitizenPained]

Without knowing the qualifications of the person in question, there’s no way to make the statement ‘affirmative action’ is ‘bad.’

Anyone who infers ‘reverse discrimination’ from this without knowing the facts is merely exhibiting his ignorance.

I'm not sure if you read my statement. I said it was bad because it made people question the legitimacy of certain job-holders. It doesn't mean I thought this person was chosen because of his skin color per se. It means it crossed my mind. And if I'm thinking this, I can only assume what the rest of the world feels like.

The net effect is backlash against anyone who is potentially helped by Affirmative Action.

Bloom

Affirmative action now institutionalizes the worst aspects of separatism. The fact is that the average black student's achievements do not equal those of the average white student in the good universities, and everybody knows it. It is also a fact that the university degree of a black student is also tainted, and employers look on it with suspicion, or become guilty accomplices in the toleration of incompetence. The worst part of all this is that the black students, most of whom avidly support this system, hate its consequences. A disposition composed of equal parts of shame and resentment has settled on may black students who are beneficiaries of preferential treatment. They do not like the notion that whites are in a position to do them favors. They believe that everyone doubts their merit, their capacity for equal achievement.

This was sort of touched on in Obama's campaign (especially when he wouldn't release his records, jahajahajah) but not with the kind of tact or careful thought that warranted much merit.

 

[Tank]

Women are part of the affirmative action program.

 

[CitizenPained]

And yet, we don't really benefit.

We're half of college campuses and a small percentage of management, CEOs, etc. Even in female-dominated workforces.

Know how many female high school principals I know?

0.

 

[CitizenPained]

affirmative action was designed so that people don't discriminate. but anyway, Tank, I'm more likely to get plowed over by a Vet than a black man for a job.

 

[shintao]

"Affirmative action" CAN be bad you say???? I feel like saying something about karma, but I won't. I actually feel sorry for what happened to you. When is "affirmative action" bad - when it happens to YOU, but to other people it's OK? I can tell you lots of stories of "affirmative action" I saw and experienced in grad school and in the aerospace industry. Now you should read up about how it harmed Barbara Grutter, and the white New Haven fireighters, and many others.

Every day, "affirmative action", screws people out of jobs, promotions, university admissions, professional school admissions, scholarships, fellowships, internships, mentoring, grants, union apprenticeships, franchises, service academy appointments, and government contracts. People have the door slammed in their face, in favor of the less qualified, because they don't have the right skin color (non-white).

I say your guessing, because you have no idea how qualified they were.

 

[CitizenPained]

Depends on what you consider a qualification to be. That in itself is subjective. If the school wanted a Latino man over a white woman to teach primarily Latino students, is that okay?

Even if the white woman had a Master's and excelled with these kids' older brothers and sisters?

Or what if the school thinks a man is better equipped to do the job because the neighborhood is rough?

Or hires a white woman over a black man in a majority-white school because the white woman looks, you know, bread & butter?

Again, I'm not saying the guy isn't more qualified than I am. (At a certain point, all teachers in the last interview rounds are equally qualified. It's a matter of personality and style preferences.) I'm saying that Affirmative Action hurts the people it is supposed to help because these questions don't go away. AA policies just strengthen walls between races, ethnicities, genders, whatever.

Some of my student teacher friends checked "Latino" or "Other/Mixed" on the background questionnaire on their applications, hoping it would help in the event of a neck and neck race.







edit: If the person hired was Latino, I'd actually feel better. Those kids do need good male Latino teachers and that school is 68 per cent Latino with all black and white staff. But only if he is as kickass as I am.

 

[Tank]

What part of Cali will you be moving too?

 

[Tank]

affirmative action was designed so that people don't discriminate. but anyway, Tank, I'm more likely to get plowed over by a Vet than a black man for a job.

Affirmative action was designed to discriminate against white males.

 

[CitizenPained]

affirmative action was designed so that people don't discriminate. but anyway, Tank, I'm more likely to get plowed over by a Vet than a black man for a job.

Affirmative action was designed to discriminate against white males.

No. I'm sorry you think that.

Answer: Monterey County.

 

[Patrick2]

And yet, we don't really benefit.

We're half of college campuses and a small percentage of management, CEOs, etc. Even in female-dominated workforces.

Know how many female high school principals I know?

0.

It's WELL known that middle class white women are the biggest beneficiaries of "affirmative action". The lack of women CEO's is equally well known to be due to women being less inclined to work weekends and long hours because of their children, their need for absences to take care of sick children, etc.

 

[Patrick2]

Affirmative action was designed to discriminate against white males.

Undoubtedly, but the leftwing has set up a discrimination hierarchy: Blacks trump white women, even though white women are the biggest beneficiaries.

 

[CitizenPained]

And yet, we don't really benefit.

We're half of college campuses and a small percentage of management, CEOs, etc. Even in female-dominated workforces.

Know how many female high school principals I know?

0.

It's WELL known that middle class white women are the biggest beneficiaries of "affirmative action". The lack of women CEO's is equally well known to be due to women being less inclined to work weekends and long hours because of their children, their need for absences to take care of sick children, etc.

Cite?

Clearly you haven't met the women in my family.

edit: maybe we should force men to take off work to care for sick babies.

 

[Patrick2]

affirmative action was designed so that people don't discriminate.

Anbody else catch the utterly Orwellian nature of that statement?

 

[CitizenPained]

Affirmative action was designed to discriminate against white males.

Undoubtedly, but the leftwing has set up a discrimination hierarchy: Blacks trump white women, even though white women are the biggest beneficiaries.

Please don't derail my thread. I really wanted to talk about the merits of the argument: That affirmative action makes it so that black men (especially black men) who get jobs are often viewed with a certain kind of magnifying glass.

 

[CitizenPained]

affirmative action was designed so that people don't discriminate.

Anbody else catch the utterly Orwellian nature of that statement?

If you look at the history of anti-discrimination law, you'll find what I said to be true. It was supposed to force employers to comply with the Civil Rights Act.