From: sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart)
Subject: Re: Racist/Sexist Role Models
Organization: my opinions only
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 23:00:41 GMT

In article <36Li02382cT001@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> kls30@cd.amdahl.com
(Kent L. Shephard) writes:
>In article <1992Nov21.045615.19575@samba.oit.unc.edu>,
>Terry.Parks@launchpad.unc.edu (Terry Parks) writes:

>>Many colleges provide special preferred academic treatment for Blaks.
>>These include lower admission standards (in effect, adding points to
>>SAT
>>scores, etc.), tutoring, mentoring, organization memberships, which
>>are
>
>I don't agree with lowering admission standards but the fact remains that inner
>city schools where most AfAm attend are not adequate for college prep and the 
>schools in suburbia are.  How do you solve the problem of a bright AfAm
>student 
>that has a lot of potential not being able to get into college because
>his high
>school was crap?

Long-term, you improve the schools.  For the individual, you supply
the student with decent tutoring, and _then_ let the school decide
whether that student qualifies for admission.  You do *not* reason "X
could not get a good education, therefore we will pretend that X got a
good education and did well in it."

>Also what is preferential about tutoring.  At SFSU and SJSU I was a tutor for
>the AfAm organizations.

You have the right to volunteer your time to anybody you want.  The
objections arise when the school pays for tutoring only for some of
the students, and the selection is based on race.  If they provided
tutoring for all students who needed it, that would be acceptable
(though I would be inclined to doubt their admission standards).

>  So.  Does it make me a racist because I volunteered
>my time to the AfAm organizations and not the white?  I don't think so.

If I volunteered to teach white students (only), would you consider me
racist?  If so, how do the two cases differ?

>Since when have white engineering or any other students had a problem getting
>a white tutor?

Since when have white engineering students cared more about the skin
color of their tutors than about the tutors' knowledge of the subject?

>  One reason for having AfAm tutors is the problems we experience
>are a lot different from white students.

I've never heard of a problem in math or computer science (my fields)
which cared about the skin color of the person solving it.  If your
tutoring is actually about social problems, rather than engineering
ones, that's different.

>As far as mentors go.  When was the last time a white student had a problem
>finding a white professional with the same type of career goals as he/she?

Who cares?  I wanted an advisor who was interested in the same branch
of computer science that I was; I didn't want one who matched my skin
color, hair color, or religion.

>>denied Caucasian students. Perhaps you didn't realize such advantages
>>made available to you were race restricted.
>
>White student have never had problems as a whole with all the things you list.
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^
>AfAm students have had serious problems in those areas.  

When you start treating people as groups based on skin color, rather
than as individuals, you're getting dangerously close to racism.

>whites have had the biggest quota system in ameriKKKa.  When you deny AfAm and
>other people of color admission to an institution you are gcreating a 100%
>white quota.

If you deny non-whites admission based on their skin color, that's
racism.  When you admit all qualified applicants (which may be defined
as "the 1500 best applicants" if space is limited) then you're not
being racist, no matter who turns out to be the best.

Seth		sethb@fid.morgan.com