So actually, I would prefer to be treated by doctors who had gone to integrated medical schools. I believe I and many other patients will get better treatment from doctors who are themselves women or minorities or who have a lot of experience dealing with women and minorities as equals and individuals. Medicine is much more subjective than people think, and since that is true, I think integrated medical schools will produce better doctors than non-integrated ones.

Therefore, two wrongs do make a right !

If we can’t fix all of the impropriaties in society, the best thing we can do is add to then.

Well, but the “wrong” done to a discriminated-against group is that they lose out on things–schools, jobs, promotions, salaries, neighborhoods, loans, contacts–that they otherwise need and deserve. Since non-minority people already have disproportionate access to those things, knocking them down a peg or two to a level that’s still a little too high is not a comparable “wrong.”

If my house gets repossessed to pay off a settlement for the employees I’ve been systematically depriving of overtime, it’s not theft on top of theft.

You might be interested to check some of the work of Jonathan Kozol, if you haven’t already. He has done a great deal of work on issues of economic and racial disparity between children getting a public education in Urban and inner-city environments and those children whose parents can afford to place them in expense private schools. Savage Inequalities is a good one to pick up.

If we want to level the playing field ( which I don’t agree with), shouldn’t we be doing it at the kindergarten level, rather than college etc….?

An additional problem I have with merit is that I have not been impressed with our ability to accurately determine it. When you’re already in a sexist/racist/classist culture the methods developed to uncover an individual merit often are more useful indicators of that individual’s sex, race and class.

Also, I do certainly hope that your father’s surgeon is the best you can get. My thoughts go out to him, and you.

I don’t need a brain surgeon, however my Dad does, and I certainly hope he made it that far because of his merit.

Would you want a president who got into college just because he’s a rich, white man whose daddy happens to have ties to the school?

What about your brain surgeon?

If we can’t fix all of the impropriaties in society, the best thing we can do is add to then.

How is pure merit wrong?

Pure merit is not one of our options, realistically. Either we have 1) a racist, sexist system in which whites and men are rewarded out of proportion to their real merits; or we have 2) a racist, sexist system in which whites and men are rewarded out of proportion to their real merits, but this trend is mitigated a little bit by affirmative action.

If pure merit were an option, I’d favor it.

And if it is ok to tell a college that they have to have x number of minority students regardless of their “merit”, then what do you suppose would happen if a lower percentage of those minorities actually graduated? There would be another uproar.

Basically you are saying you want a merit based system, just at a later date ( graduation rather than entry ). How is pure merit wrong?

What I care about is that my brain surgeon successfully passed through all the necessary training to perform surgery on brains. It’s going through med school and residency that makes someone a brain surgeon; how high their SATs were really doesn’t matter at all, compared to the training.

Quotas, as opposed to affirmative action, is an effective form of reparations. However, the quotas need to start at the elementary school level. Instead of just bussing kids from inner-city schools, kids from better suburban schools should be bussed to the “ghetto” or “barrio” schools. That is true “equal education”.

If he thinks the voters of Illinois are ignorant or simple minded, I think he will be surprised when a few more boo him again at yet another parade!

I have no idea what he is thinking. Who is he trying to appeal to?

but, no shock, I don’t agree on another point. I have read a lot of his stuff (my Libertarian brother pointed me to him a few elections cycles ago) and I really don’t see him having much of a ‘great’ mind.

I don’t like the idea of reparations mainly for the reason as stated above “who gets them”. It’s one thing to recompense the direct victims or perhaps their children, but….

Though blond haired and blue eyed I’m probably a second cousin twice removed of Alex Haley (through common Native American/African American ancestors)..

can I claim?

ANd then what about my grandmother’s people, Native Americans… do THEY get reparations for the generations of cheating, slaughter, displacement and poverty they’ve suffered at the hands of European settlers and then the US Government?

In my view, the _best_ reparations are fair government and corporate policies, _real_ equal opportunity in education, housing and jobs, and vigorious enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. (none of which we have yet)

Not quite. There are two differences with this and Bush’s ideas. First, in order for this to be “reparations”, African Americans need to be getting a benefit others do not. So, I’m assuming that Keyes wants everyone else to get taxed. Second, I think Bush wouldn’t set the federal income tax level at zero for everyone. The federal government would literally close down if they did that!