thanks jane. :-) I'm just sayin'... yanno.

An important issue. There has to be a fair way to ensure equity. I trust you are posting this now due to the new case going to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here is my 2 cents my father was at the bottom of his class in high school went off to IU and his entire fraternity had the highest grade point average of the school they were black and it was the mid 50s. My dad was in the top 5% of his class. I worked with plenty of young mothers at my last job who were maintaining b averages and working 30-35 hrs a week. Let's ask the question another way shall we? Should the children of alumni get placed because their parents attended a college, isn't that a preference? Are you aware that AA students who go to ivy league schools have a lower drop out rate than those who go to average colleges ? Are you aware that the recent studies show that genuinely equivalent students will not make a penny more graduating from Cornell or UofW? Are you aware that white students use AA to go to Historically Black colleges should they also be disqualified?

GREAT and important questions and considerations, Desnee.

This is an important post- I hope it gets read a lot.

While I disagree entirely overall, and, have to point out that EVERY equal rights issue was opposed by the hoi polloi, as has been there tradition of ignorance and suspicion of the other for millennium.

Those points out, your actual and direct experience is telling, but the answers are very hard to see when the questions are so close.

The cold, hard facts that only cowardice can even attempt to deny is that learning culture specific curriculum well requires, from most (some people are tough as nails, not many though) a good diet as a toddler, attention and the right vitamins during developmental stages, and, most overlooked, a non-stressful environment to grow up in which very, very, very, very, very many US whites just take for granted.

So, the problem is truly deep and needs to be addressed in ways which are just now getting some, if not nearly enough, attention- in the meantime you (POA) are stuck right in the middle of it.

Until an admission is made about the source of all this (4 centuries ++ of absolutely brutal American racial hate, slavery, killing and injustice) then it will continue to play out in a long arc, creating the same kind of stress for teachers like you as it does for poor kids stuck in poor conditions.

All this said, US whites have, as a group, a truly awful lack of perception of equivalency- and this is due to the BRAINWASHING of horrid racist white Consensus History, written by seditious, Confederate TRAITORS, yet, for reasons obvious to some, taught as if the gospel even today in schools like your own.

on a positive note, the Internet generations racism quotient is, like, you know, like, maybe 10% of all earlier haters, so, victory is soon upon us, yet the struggle continues.

R

Affirmative action isn't!

It can't be for all the reasons outlined by you, Oahusurfer, and many others.

And we in North America found the absolute worst possible way to attempt it; blocking others with equal qualifications on the theory that it is only possible to have a limited number of seats available at Universities.

The fact is that more space should have been created. What stupid, twisted mind came up with the idea of chopping off a chunk of the present number of spaces, and gifting them to students of a disadvantaged background?

It is a WONDERFUL idea to offer such eduction to ANYONE who wants it. It is a TERRIBLE idea to take such spaces from one group to give them to another. We should have created MORE spaces. It's as simple as that.

The way it is being done is deliberately designed to create more dissension and racism. It is deliberately unfair to BOTH sides. It sets one group against another; a common trick by politrickians, I'm afraid.....

Great post. It may help to raise the awareness level of many. Good on you for having the courage to write it and post it!!!
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Rated++++++++
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Not to lecture…. but…in my life I've encountered all kinds of discrimination, reverse and otherwise... from Texas to the People's Republic of China. I too graduated with a high GPA and I scored in the top 3% on my SAT's and Advanced Placement Exams. I applied to the US Air Force Academy, The University of Texas, Rice University and just for a lark to Stanford. I was accepted by all and in 1967 after working on the docks in Houston and a six month excursion to San Francisco during the aftermath of the "Summer of Love" when we held the "Funeral for the American Hippie," I returned to Texas and went to UT Austin.

Although I was academically over prepared I too dropped out after only one term. I hated morning classes and generally despised the remedial curriculum offered to freshmen and sophomores. I dropped in on a social psychology class that I wouldn't be able to take until I was a junior and worked as a paid research technician with graduate students in the university's microbiology lab. I could not, however, escape the notice of UT's administration and so I got a post card requiring my presence for an appointment at the office of the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.

I came prepared with my midterm test scores and a GPA of 3.2 expecting to be irritated by some clerical minion, only to be genuinely surprised when I was admitted to the office of the actual Dean. I won't go into the details of my meeting with that genial reptile, except to say that when I left his office I was so pissed I withdrew from my classes and hitchhiked to LA.

I was in my late twenties when I finally figured out what that snake did during our meeting. With my mind and attitude I was going to end up as a graduate student, teaching assistant who would go for a doctorate and apply for a faculty position. I would be a thorn in his side and a pain in his ass until he retired, so he very gently with a polite smile and quiet voice managed to filter me out of his university and his life.

The nature of discrimination whether overt or benign is political and it is invariable institutional and has little or nothing to do with individual merit, talent or potential. It's not fair. It's not just but it's been ingrained in human and primate social behavior for millennia. You're either part of the tribe or you're on your own and more often than not you may discover that it's better to be on the outside looking in.

What does not kill me makes me stronger.