Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Trivializing Rape

Diversity sucks. (Politically-informed diversity, not the different-people-getting-along-nicely kind.) But it doesn't rise to the level of rape, not even rhetorically. "Ideas" like this one are simply counterproductive. (H/T The Corner).
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7 comments:

emily1 said...

what exactly is 'politically informed' diversity?

12:24 PM
Robert said...

You guess and I'll tell you if you're right.

12:36 PM
emily1 said...

it's an honest question. really.

1:51 PM
Robert said...

It's an honest response. You define the terms.

1:54 PM
emily1 said...

i'm not the one using the term. you are. i don't understand what you mean by 'politically informed diversity.' since you wrote the post, i thought it was fair to ask you what you meant.

2:05 PM
emily1 said...

if he meant affirmative action, then why didn't he just say, "i think diversity is great, but i don't like affirmative action."

'politically informed diversity' could referred to any number of ideas about diversity that piss off conservatives, and it wasn't clear to me which one he was talking about. this was not an attempt to be deliberately obtuse on my part. 'politically informed diversity' is not an instantly recognizeable political phrase the same way 'affirmative action' is.

that said, i actually agree with the statement that race-based affirmative action is flawed and unfair -- try being of east asian ethnicity and applying to MIT, for example. i would whole-heartedly support affirmative action based on the student's family income, so poor kids get a leg up in college admissions.

middle class parents who can afford to live in communities with good schools are never going to be happy with other kids getting *any* advantage over their own. even so, it's really difficult to argue that a kid that grew up in poverty did not also face greater obstacles in their lives. some might argue that thems the breaks, but i'm not one of them.

income-based affirmative action probably would produce a diverse student body, but minorities who get an advantage would not be middle class as they tend to be now. it would also help poor white kids a lot.

4:44 PM
mythago said...

I see that the person at Robert's link is speaking in English, but they're still making no sense.

11:16 PM

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