If you want to be disgusted, take a look at the front-page story in today’s New York Times, “On College Forms, a Question of Race, or Races, Can Perplex.” It’s about how selective colleges and universities are wrestling with the problem of how to deal with applicants who check more than one box for race and ethnicity: which mixes are to be most favored, whether it’s better to be mixed or pure, what do to about students who refuse to check any box, and how to tell if a student is really sincere in his or her self-identification or is just “gaming” the system. Now, maybe it’s just me, but I think a lot of people will find it really sickening to read about how these politically correct educrats sit around and give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to an 18-year-old based on his racial and ethnic mix. As for “gaming” the system, were we supposed to lament the fact that a black applicant 100 years ago might try to pass for white? I think our condemnation then and now should be more concentrated on the racially discriminatory system itself rather than on those who tried or try to game it.
I am white, my wife Korean so there is absolutely no advantage for our son to give a racial identity on his college applications. Indeed, it might put him at a disadvantage vs applicants with similar qualifications and a more "advantageous" racial profile. Hence, I tell him to leave racial ID questions blank on college applications.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInterestingly, we are friends with a family where the wife is hispanic, though her family has been here for generations. Their daughter, who had top marks in high school and monster SAT scores, checked the hispanic box on her SAT registration & college apps, and ended up getting several unsolicited scholarship offers from many schools. She selected the best deal and is doing quite well in college.
I suspect the admissions Hutus regard failure to check the race boxes as evidence of whiteness and discriminate against that applicant accordingly. Unless, of course, parents of said whitey are wealthy alumni.
University admissions, like virtually every other aspect of modern academia, is a sordid and unseemly enterprise.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy state-supported institution has set up the student information system such that students cannot register for classes until they have confirmed their ethnic identities. I asked the registrar whether there was a way for students to opt out of this self-identification. Sure there is--just answer question 1 regarding ethnicity, skip question 2 regarding race, and then answer question 3 confirming that the information you’ve provided is accurate. If you answer Hispanic on question 1, you’re designated Hispanic no matter how you answer question 2. If you answer non-Hispanic to question 1 and skip question 2, you’re designated “not reported” and presumed to be white. Just so we’re clear: if you are Hispanic, your options are to answer question 1 truthfully and be designated Hispanic, or lie not once (on question 1) but twice (on question 3) and be presumed white. Thus far I have not been able to persuade the institution that there’s anything wrong with this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen asked to specify race on any application or form, I check "Other" and write in "Human." To demand to know the racial ancestry of a person is racist and I refuse to participate.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI do the same thing whenever asked that question on anything. Unless they're dumb enough to put "Native American" as a choice, because, well, I was born in America, so I'm a native.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo you can't register for classes unless you answer the questions intended to pin you down on race/ethnicity?
If I were at the point in my life where I was registering for classes at a college that did that, I'd think seriously about refusing to answer, then sue the stuffing out of them for denying me registration for exercising my First Amendment rights. I would do some thinking about my Fifth Amendment rights, too.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWasn't there a guy, once, who said something about having a dream that "my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character?"
Who was that? I can't remember. It probably wasn't important.
...
I like the bit about how, if you are multi-racial, and pick a particular race, there are people whose job it is to determine if you are black enough, or hispanic enough, or whatever. The mind boggles. The lack of self-awareness or sense of irony. It's too much.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA National Geographic show about the Carribean stated that Miami was the capital of the Carribean. I was born in Miami, but I have blonde hair and gray eyes, the result of being of Scottish descent. I decided that if Miami was the capital of the region, then I was actually from the Carribean. Occassionally, I have filled out forms that included a box for that region, and if the form has a check-off for "OTHER," that's what I check and then write in my ethnic origin.
Someone called me on it one time and said that I didn't look Carribean (and, of course, I don't). I replied, "Don't stereotype my people...mon."
I'm suspicious of any form that requires an ethnic or racial identification. My self-identification as an islander is my own passive-aggressive way of screwing up the liberal system.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen I was medically-retired from the Army, I took the law boards, thinking, foolishly, that the Veterans Administration might send me to law school as "rehabilitation". I got a good score, and it turned out, because my mailing address was a post office box right outside of Fort Benning in a Zip Code that was 97% African-American, that the University of Virginia Law School was very interested in recruiting me. Until they found out about that I was of the other 3%, whereupon I was invited to apply, but the talk of scholarships and generous financial assistance packages suddenly ceased.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOfficial discrimination against Asians and Whites is not going away soon in the college application world.
Until this official discrimination (better known as "affirmative action") is eliminated, the next best thing is to game the system.
You can bet that all of my children will mark the Hispanic box, as somewhere in their genealogical history was a relative from Spain.
However, since there is no official definition of Hispanic (certainly no blood test0, I suggest that everybody mark Hispanic as it just depends on how the applicant "feels".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is time to turn the left's own tactics against them. The system only works because applicants play along with it by self-reporting their "race", a problematic concept that should be smoked out. A little civil-disobedience is in order. Everyone should check off the black or Hispanic boxes and force institutions, if they want to continue placing emphasis on race, to come up with objective criteria for distinguishing one race from another. Just what makes someone black or Hispanic? Does having a black mother and a white father count? How about one black grandmother? And just what makes that black grandmother black? The sordid mess that is racial preferences would quickly be exposed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is a reprise of the old story of two gamblers:
Why do you play this game? You know it's rigged.
Yes, but it's the only game in town.
So, if the game is crooked, gaming the system is the only way to play.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I like the bit about how, if you are multi-racial, and pick a particular race, there are people whose job it is to determine if you are black enough, or hispanic enough, or whatever."
I get the image of these people pawing through old segregationist tracts looking for standards by which to judge -- "one drop" or "quanta" or whatever.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am of mixed heritage: white, hispanic, and native american. I find the choice of "white, non-hispanic" and "hispanic" to be ridiculous. It's like suggesting that every country in the Americas (except for the United States and Canada) are racially homogenous.
All that said, on my college and scholarship applications, I simply checked "white". I wanted to be selected for my ability alone.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEven setting aside the obviously unjust nature of the whole system, the current racial divisions are just nonsensical. I work with a small but very diverse set of people who have personal and cultural backgrounds from all around the world, and representing pretty much every major religious belief system. But by the current criteria, all except one are just "white". And the sole exception, an Asian male, is more likely to be disadvantaged than advantaged. We might as well be practicing phrenology.
BTW, can you guys please knock it off with these increasingly silly new captcha systems? Please?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI had a student who was as white as could be, literally as well as figuratively, but his name was Lopez:
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Even setting aside the obviously unjust nature of the whole system, the current racial divisions are just nonsensical. I work with a small but very diverse set of people who have personal and cultural backgrounds from all around the world, and representing pretty much every major religious belief system. But by the current criteria, all except one are just "white". And the sole exception, an Asian male, is more likely to be disadvantaged than advantaged. We might as well be practicing phrenology.
BTW, can you guys please knock it off with these increasingly silly new captcha systems? Please?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSome years ago, in the New York Times Magazine, there was a feature story on how many American blacks didn't find naturalized American immigrant blacks (i.e, Africa, Caribbean) authentically "black" enough, and felt they shouldn't be accorded "African-American" status in such surveys, counts and boxes. Understandably, THAT touched a few nerves, as well as touching off a few rousing arguments when my husband brought it in to work with him the following Monday.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA conservative/libertarian Cloward-Piven strategy? :-)
But yes, if anything was just begging to get a dose of its own Cloward-Piven medicine, it is the state-sanctioned racism that passes by the name of 'affirmative action'. So by all means, let's all claim to be black, Hispanic, and Native American all at once (throw a few others in for good measure) in order to make the system choke on its own vomit.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI've run across this topic many times in the process of applying to med school. I was talking to another applicant who was accused point-blank during an interview of lying about her ethnic background because she didn't "look" Hispanic, despite her mother being Mexican. (She inherited some recessive genes from the dad side of the family, including red hair and very pale skin.) Really though, it's not a bad idea to consider lying if you think you can get away with it - better chances of getting in where you want. Someone once said to me that she had a good chance of getting in med school because she was a woman and Hispanic. Are those really the qualifications we want admissions committees to focus on? At least I had it easier than my Asian male friends - both those qualifiers are negatives that have to be countered with fantastic GPA's and MCAT scores.
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