Cobb

Two comments:

1) Purdue University has a different spelling than Perdue Chickens. Kindly learn the difference.

2) AA is not an American invention. It has been in place in many societies (India, Malaysia, and on and on, sometimes for many decades) with very interesting results. Dr. Sowell has a very engrossing book on the empirical status of AA around the world. It will behoove you to read it.

I forgot about Purdue, I was thinking in French.

I've read quite enough of Thomas Sowell, perhaps you could give us an abstract. My guess is that Sowell would consider it inflationary with respect to qualifications & border conditions depending on the ways it was implemented. Further, he'd probably say that backlash against it outweighs the short term benefits. If that were true, I could find little to argue with from an economic perspective.

I argue however that Affirmative Action's political value to the African American electorate outweighs its eceonomic shortcomings, and justifyably so. That in the absence of alternatives, it is an entirely reasonable demand and one that could be expected.

Aside from all of that, the only moral case against Affirmative Action has to do with the extent to which it is publically funded and undermines public confidence in its institutions. This can be reformed, but few people have the patience. Since the rhetoric for and against it is so twisted and there are so many different types it seems to be an intractable problem.

Are you aware of whether or not the Affirmative Actions of India in particular were models from which MLK might have taken inspiration?

Sowell's main points are:

1) AA is always promoted as a temporary solution to temporary ills, but generally persists many times longer than intended or advertised. (I note Purdue's MITE is nearly thirty years old - they seem to be proud of that.)

2) It falls short of the desired "leveling" effect, leading to 1).

3) Two unintended side-effects: the "benefitted" class' drive to take risks and excel is diminished, because they are assured a degree of success by the system; and the "other" class(es)' drive to take risks and excel is diminished because they see diluted and reduced prospect of reward.

Thus the entire affected population has reduced economic growth.

(My comment: Duh! People of whatever class or race are not necessarily stupid; they respond to the incentives placed before them.)

I haven't found a reference to MLK using the Indian system for guidance, but if he were to have spent much time on the subject, he'd have seen the best and brightest fleeing India's stifling bureaucracy for greener pastures in Europe and America.

Which points up another issue: Look at immigration flows from socialist states to capitalist ones, compared to contrary flows. The Soviet Union never complained of illegal immigration from its neighbors... although E. Germany tried to justify the Berlin Wall with this transparent nonsense.

But even South Africa under apartheid received quite a sizeable illegal immigration from neighboring states under political or economic oppression. There's a subject for someone's thesis!

While we're on the subject: If I am a prospective client of a lawyer, and I happen to note a) he is of Black complexion, and b) his sheepskin says University of Michigan; am I likely to regard his credentials on the same plane as some other lawyer? Am I likely to resist paying him the same fee structure as some other lawyer of either different alma mater or different color?

Ergo: if I am a Black pre-law student selecting a law school, how can I best insure my professional success? By choosing an AA school like U of M?

I think opponents of Affirmative Action like Sowell, from the economic perspective, tend to overemphasize the stigma. This may betray some prejudice. The exact same arguments made against Affirmative Action can be made against agricultural price supports, yet who complains about the stigma against farmers?

There are all sorts of political cheats which pollute pure supply and demand. Affirmative Action is no different. You are 100% right, people respond to the incentives placed before them. I also believe people overestimate the impact of Affirmative Actions and the size of the beneficiary class.

As for the pre-law student, they should be reasonably assured that a decent law firm will pay a healthy amount of attention to whether or not they passed the bar on the first shot, and what their score is on that. The rest is sentiment.

When you tack a "opponent(s) of Affirmative Action" label on Dr. Sowell, you discredit not him, but rather yourself.

Either re-examine his data and find a substantially different conclusion, or -

Find a better, more representative, more complete data set.

Truth will out.

Your conclusion #3 can only be drawn from regimes that don't seek balance but rather seek a permanent preference. Affirmative Action programs such as Balanced Workforce are not of that kind. On the other hand permanent quotas can only insure that the beneficiary class is restricted to a fixed level of success, and the ability for that to change the expectations of that potential class varies in proportion to the size of the quota. So there are two cases which defy your interpretation of Sowell.

Are you already to adhominem in less than a day?

Balanced Workforce Model
www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/aa/bwf.htm

Male vs female is quite easy to pigeonhole, although there is just a little ambiguity there. (snicker)

Two of my neighbors defy the Black vs. White categorization, though; one is a native African, and disavows any part of the "African-American" victimization culture. The other is a successful light-skinned young lady, married to a successful Black professional, both refusing to "talk Black" or play on their victimhood. How would you count them, and would they agree with it?

The MajM thru MinF boxes reject the level of humanity involved, and it is this that I (and I suspect Dr. Sowell too) find offensive.

We aren't perfect, but in our better moments, we treat each other as individuals, not as members of a class.

While I acknowledge most Blacks' ancestors were brought here against their will, most immigrant Euros and Asians came willingly and much later in time. If any American today sees more opportunity outside our shores, we should wish him bon voyage in his quest to "find a better country".

You are suggesting, by the use of the term 'African American victimization culture' that the politics of Affirmative Action are strictly those of illegitimate complaint.

You also make the common error of suggesting that black culture is strictly vulgar and low, which is something I find offensive. But since part of my mission here is to correct that assumption I can only suggest you read further on that topic.

The evidence that the politics in support of Affirmative Action are more than the whining victimology I think can be plainly categorized in terms of the number and character of signers to the amicus brief in Grutter. I'll have to get that up on this site.

You seem to deny that there is real racist exclusion going on in American business and that Affirmative Action is a part of the solution.

As for rejecting the level of humanity involved, I think of no better argument for de-emphasizing standardized test scores. But this is practically impossible and we all must subject ourselves to being abstracted in various ways - especially when it comes to matters like application forms, etc. Race is one of those proxies and it matters. That is why a subtle and flexible Affirmative Action regime can work. Integration matters.

"...You also make the common error of suggesting that black culture is strictly vulgar and low, which is something I find offensive..."

There is nothing wrong with any culture, save perhaps the Sicilian mafia and the Wahibi fanatics and their ilk. They spread xenophobia, a fear and lack of respect for outsiders.

So too do the white kids who dump on their peers for achieving like Asians, or black kids roughing up achievers in the hood.

Black families fleeing the inner city for the 'burbs are trying to right this wrong, with more or less success. (All of which leads one to view "white flight" in new light, I guess)

I don't know where you live, but there are plenty of jobs to go around for all races in my area. The ONLY obstacle to success is individual behavior. My company is hiring retirees, students, disabled, and searching for room to put them all. Problem behavior is not tolerated, but good attitudes are very much in demand.

I live in 90277. Where do you live?

90277? Must be Silicon Gully.

I'm in 45240. Rust belt USA, but a real growth area today.

Lousy with cicadas, though.

Go to www.pbs.org & look for Tucker Carlson, where he reports on AA at the Hub Of The Universe:

Affirmative Action?
June 25, 2004

Here's something I bet you never thought you'd hear a liberal say: Harvard is letting in too many Africans.

Yet that is almost exactly what a group of earnest liberals told The New York Times this week. It turns out that the school's affirmative policies have produced a student body that is disproportionately African and West Indian. By some estimates, more than half of Harvard's black students are foreign born.

Why is this a problem? Well, say the progressives, affirmative action was designed to redress past injustice. And no one has suffered more injustice than black people in America. So by definition the son of a black doctor from Greenwich is more disadvantaged, and therefore more deserving, than a kid from Sierra Leone or the slums of Kingston.

But of course not necessarily more industrious. And that's the real problem: Immigrants, of all colors, tend to work harder than those of us who were born here. Working harder gives them an advantage. That's why they do it.

Some educators consider this deeply unfair. As one of them disapprovingly told the Times, "These immigrants represent Horatio Alger, not Brown versus the Board of Education."

Keep in mind, that's meant to be a criticism. Sounds like the best possible advertisement to me. The kids who work the hardest get rewarded? If that's affirmative action, let's have more.

Affirmative Action is like the GI Bill. It is political patronage for a certain class of American citizens. Anything else is not Affirmative Action.

If it's Harvard, it's tokenism no matter what. So I don't particularly care if they are poor blacks or not.

There can be no honest comparison between immigrant poor and domestic poor. That's like comparing Cuban baseball players who defect to Little Leaguers.

"...Affirmative Action is like the GI Bill. It is political patronage for a certain class of American citizens. Anything else is not Affirmative Action..."

That is the prevailing perception, but is that the way the law is written? Evidently not, for if Harvard were not following the letter of the law, how could they get away with counting African-born students?

Similarly - wasn't a second-generation Spaniard removed from LA's Fire Dept. because - in effect - descendants of Spanish (i.e. Spain, in Europe) families do not qualify as Hispanic?

Oh, what a tangled web...