From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: Institutional racism in education
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 19:52:35 GMT

In article <1992Dec10.203644.21800@athena.mit.edu> agoyo1@athena.mit.edu (Acee Agoyo) writes:
>In article <1992Dec8.231456.7197@oracle.us.oracle.com>, mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>|> Finally, something I think you just don't get is that the rest of the
>|> country is rapidly running out of patience with the idea that the
>|> problems of today were caused by the way the great grandparents of one
>|> group of people treated the great grandparents of another group of
>|> people 150 years ago.  

			..................

>|> Other groups in the US seem to have avoided
>|> being traumatized by much more recent events (i.e. Holocaust for Jews, war
>|> and refugee camps for Vietnamese and Cambodians) and the constant
>|> harping back to events from the 1800s just doesn't wash with people
>|> who don't even know who their great grandparents were because war and
>|> various forms of terror totally ripped apart their families in the
>|> 20th century, not the 19th.
>Since when did the Jewish Holocaust take place in the Southern US?  How many
>Cambodian refugee camps were located in America?  I think such comparisons
>serve only as such; comparisons.  Nothing can be inferred or "proven" from
>such comparisons.  The situation we are talking about relates to America
>and events which occur here.  They may or may not have correlations with
>other events.

>The reason why the trauma does not seem so great is because the events
>did not take place in America.  Immigrants often have this view of America
>as the "land of opportunity, home of the brave. etc."  Therefore, the trauma
>of past events is not so great because immigrants do not believe any injustices
>can occur in America (well at least not as serious as those in their native
>country).  When your own country treats you like a second-class citizen yet
>claims you are equal like everyone else, the injustices placed against you
>only give you basis to believe that nothing has changed.  Once your country
>treats you as they claim you are, you feel less traumatized.  Let's face it,
>a teacher telling a child he will fail (for no reason) is not comforting when 
>other people excel in the same school.

These other groups faced just such discrimination in these United States.
The intellectual capacity of the Jewish immigrants around the turn of the
century were called into question openly in the same manner that those of
the blacks were.  When I got my PhD, one of my professors told me that,
contrary to what one gathered from the press, etc., there was relatively
little discrimination agains Jews in southern universities; there was in
much of the north.  This was shortly after WWII.  At this time, blacks
could not get a job at a good university.  Less than 5 years later, they
could, and universities were seeking them.

Why do you think the Japanese-Americans were incarcerated during WWII?
Not because they were a security threat; they were left alone in Hawaii.
But because they had become prosperous, even in the face of laws which
kept those not born in the US from owning land.  When I was a child, a
common expression was, "He does not have a Chinaman's chance."  Discrimination
against these groups was quite open only a half century ago.  But this did
not keep them from succeeding.

What enabled Truman to desegregate the Armed Forces was that the blacks
proved, on the battlefields of Italy, that they could be effective soldiers.
Likewise, the Japanese.  The blacks, unlike the other groups mentioned here
and elsewhere, have officially had the doors opened to them without having
to show in advance that they could do well, and it is up to them to show 
that they can compete.  

You have had people going out of their way to help.  Possibly that is your
problem; you have not had to do it all by yourselves.  But opening the door
to opportunity gets you nowhere if you do not enter, and after entering,
show that you are deserving of being admitted.  You cannot be given an
education.  You cannot be given achievement; you must earn it.  And you
cannot expect the rewards without showing you deserve them by deed, not
by rhetoric.

I do know minority people who were admitted undeservedly.  This does not
help those minorities.   Quotas getting people who were not educated in
high school into the universities, or overzealous granting of grades and
degrees in the name of AA to those who do not have the knowledge and 
ability, must lead to distrust.  These have happened.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Xref: sparky alt.discrimination:5305 soc.culture.african.american:12865 misc.education:5248