Scalia’s “Racist” Comment Not Actually Racist
Affirmative action was argued in the Supreme Court this past week, and Justice Antonin Scalia was the target of the left’s “Smear of the Week.” Here’s leftist Adam Liptak in the New York Times:
In a remark that drew muted gasps in the courtroom, Justice Antonin Scalia said that minority students with inferior academic credentials may be better off at “a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.”
“I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible,” he added.
Oh, my! There were muted gasps at the RAAAAACISM of Justice Scalia!
This is yet another example of leftists elevating the importance of mushy-headed good intentions over that of results. Thomas Sowell has said:
Racial preferences put more minority students on campus, but in ways that reduce the number who graduate. Conversely, when racial preferences were banned in the University of California system, the number of black students who graduated actually increased substantially, as did their grade point averages. Instead of failing at Berkeley or UCLA, these students graduated from other good quality universities in the system.
Some might think that the result of having more blacks graduate is more important than the intention of having more blacks attend elite universities.
But anyone who thinks that way — that results matter more than intentions — is forced to turn in their Leftist Card.
I shouldn’t have to say this, but: to say that blacks should not be admitted to schools where they are not prepared to succeed is not racist. Affirmative action of any kind in college admissions is going to inevitably have the effect of admitting a greater percentage of students that do not succeed. If you give preference in the admissions process to people whose last names begin with consonants, you will start to see that more people flunk out of that school whose last names begin with consonants. If you instead give that preference to members of a certain race, you will see more flunking out by members of that race.
As in everything in life, there are trade-offs. Those who are admitted and succeed will likely have greater prospects. But those who are admitted and flunk out will likely have lesser prospects. In other words, simply having more blacks at an elite university (and fewer Asians, by the way, in case leftists care about the ill effects on that minority group, which we all know they don’t) is not necessarily a good thing on its own. You have to look at the consequences.
Scalia’s point — and it is buttressed by many studies — is that race-based admissions end up hurting a lot of minorities who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of such programs.
This all seems so obvious, I questioned whether it was worth it to write this post. But sometimes you have to point out obvious truths — especially when we live in a country where such truths are enough to make people gasp.
admitting someone – anyone – to a racist rapist hunting ground like a failmerican university without a personalized therapy dog regimen is a human rights violation i think
happyfeet (831175) — 12/13/2015 @ 1:05 pmHere’s an example of a leftist idiot who doesn’t understand what I just said:
Dana will recognize that I am really walking the line here on my “no posts about Trump” pledge. But I didn’t say no comments about Trump!
Patterico (86c8ed) — 12/13/2015 @ 1:07 pmThomas Sowell has the best discussion of this matter.
Professor Clyde Summers of the Yale Law School was the first person to explain, back in 1968, why preferential admissions policies for minorities were so often damaging to those minority students’ education. Summers, incidentally, had years earlier published a landmark article that criticized labor unions’ discrimination against blacks, so he could hardly be dismissed as an “angry white male” opposed to minorities’ advancement. Professor Summers explained that admitting black students to top-tier institutions, when they had academic qualifications that were at a level that fit second-tier institutions, meant that second-tier institutions now had a reduced pool of suitable black applicants and would have to dip into the pool of black students whose qualifications fit the third tier—and so on down the line.
That is what Scalia is talking about and it is racism to deny it occurs.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 12/13/2015 @ 1:26 pmi think propaganda whore Jake Tapper is being more stupid in that clip than Mr. The Donald is
that’s just me personally
happyfeet (831175) — 12/13/2015 @ 1:31 pmSome of the emotions and mindset behind affirmative action go far beyond race or ethnicity alone.
I grabbed this text from a UK-based publication, and although it dates from 2010 and references a land across the Atlantic, the liberal biases behind the “everyone is a winner!” policies that are being challenged are found worldwide, in the US included:
The joys and wonder of compassion for compassion’s sake.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/13/2015 @ 1:44 pmI still remember hearing the president of my alma mater saying that the school really tries to recruit more blacks, but that there just aren’t all that many blacks qualified AND interested in any given cohort.
There is a difference between competing for qualified students and ignoring qualifications to get the numbers you want.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/13/2015 @ 2:39 pmI have liked Jake Tapper in the past and have had fruitful interchanges with him on Twitter and email. However, I was disappointed by his behavior in the previous CNN debate, which appeared to be a shameless attempt to get the candidates to fight each other. And his interview with Chump — at least the parts I have seen in clips online — appeared to be more of the same.
Patterico (86c8ed) — 12/13/2015 @ 3:07 pmmaking a choice to spend no small amount of your one god-given life in the service of CNN
it means something I think
something not very good about your charater
happyfeet (831175) — 12/13/2015 @ 3:16 pm*character* i mean
happyfeet (831175) — 12/13/2015 @ 3:16 pmWasn’t Scalia asking them to respond to an argument from the briefs?
crazy (cde091) — 12/13/2015 @ 3:33 pmThis all seems so obvious, I questioned whether it was worth it to write this post.
Things like this used to be obvious, however, because of decades of the left’s influence and domination over the “window” and framing the debate – from our schools to our universities to the public square – it no longer is.
I believe that the political pendulum is always in motion, swinging left and right. It’s swung a far distance to the left and we can see that by this not being obvious, and by the audible gasps. I believe it is now start to swing ever so slowly back toward center, but even so, there’s a tremendous amount of damage done that will need to be undone if a Republican wins the White House.
Dana (86e864) — 12/13/2015 @ 3:46 pmAnd what about the black student who actually IS qualified to attend the elite institution and who does quite well there and comes through with a fully earned degree… in a subject that is actually recognized as viable in the marketplace? Yeah, that guy. They are forever tarnished by AA since too many people will see their credentials and their skin color and immediately default to the person being a product of AA admission, and special treatment at grade time.
The degree becomes a participation trophy.
Gramps (c50fca) — 12/13/2015 @ 4:37 pmI saw Tapper’s work, early on, when he ran over the state of florida, to maintain salon’s ‘stolen
narciso (732bc0) — 12/13/2015 @ 4:54 pmelection’ narrative, I didn’t know then he first worked for chelsea’s mother in law,
Gramps, the black student who is qualified generally is an independent thinker and therefore graduates to a Republican which automatically makes them “Oreos” and demeaned by black activists and leftists in general.
Those lousy blacks like:
Mia Love, Tim Scott, Dr. Ben Carson, Jason Riley of the WSJ, Herman Cain, Thomas Sowell (that his more than half century of polemical scholarship has been ignored by the Pulitzer and Nobel judges illustrates what is at stake when a great black mind refuses to remain on the leftist ideological plantation), Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Michael Powell, Will Hurd, Allen West, Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Steele, Antonio Williams, Lynn Swann, James “Bo Snerdley” Golden, Walter Williams, LL Cool J, Herschel Walker, Shelby Steele, Prince, Larry Elder, Jimmy JJ Walker, Don King, Ward Connerly, Scott Turner, and thousands more.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/13/2015 @ 5:06 pmi like black people a lot
happyfeet (831175) — 12/13/2015 @ 5:30 pmhere’s a really nice red cup season post it made me cry you should read it for to help you remember that this is a very special time of year
even if the pope is a sleazy communist
happyfeet (831175) — 12/13/2015 @ 5:31 pmoops i shoulda linked to the post not the comment so you’ll just have to scroll up
sorry for the inconvenience
happyfeet (831175) — 12/13/2015 @ 5:33 pmWhole lotta virtue signalling goin’ on ’round here.
ropelight (f6bf97) — 12/13/2015 @ 5:48 pmWhat Scalia describes has had college administrators tied in knots for years, only they don’t speak about it in public. One exception was the President of Rutgers University, Francis Lawrence, twenty years ago. In an apparent fit of frustration of how to deal with minority preferential enrollment and its consequences, he said this:
“Let’s look at the SATs. The average SAT for African Americans is 750. Do we set standards in the future so that we don’t admit anybody with the national test? Or do we deal with a disadvantaged population that doesn’t have that genetic hereditary background to have a higher average?”
When the story was publicized by the Newark Star Ledger (and picked up by AP), he received all sorts of flak and tried to walk it back. But he said what he said in a moment of candor. Others should speak up too. But they won’t.
Corky Boyd (2c491d) — 12/13/2015 @ 5:53 pmTapper’s still a pup… He was still droppin’ acid blowin’ roadies when his interview style was being perfected by Sam Donaldson
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/13/2015 @ 6:27 pmIf you disregard what Leftists say about their good intentions (there’s that virtue signallin’ thing again) and instead examine the process and outcomes of Affirmative Action admissions the conclusion is starkly unsettling: putting under-prepared black students into elite universities is a prescription for failure and the process works exactly as intended.
AA admissions sets up black students for failure, they sense it even if they can’t articulate it, they know they can’t keep up and that it’s only going to get worse. Consequently they’re often apprehensive – waiting for the other shoe to fall, or angry looking for excuses and scapegoats.
So, the best black students graduate and become prime recruits for high paying jobs. Of the others, some lucky ones transfer to 2nd or 3rd tier schools, do well and also become prime recruits. The others hang around, learning how to feed off financial aid and other school programs that put money in their pockets, but eventually they drop out or flunk out and ply their new learned trade at government give away programs teaching others how it’s done both by example and in simi-formal instructional settings.
Perfect for organizing Democrat Party operatives. The flunk-outs become the middle managers of ‘grassroots’ so-called self-help programs – taxpayer funded of course – which deliver voters to the polls in shinny new vans paid for by guess who?
ropelight (f6bf97) — 12/13/2015 @ 6:34 pm@14 — Rev, you are preaching to the choir. Trust me, you are.
Gramps (c50fca) — 12/13/2015 @ 6:54 pmThey are forever tarnished by AA since too many people will see their credentials and their skin color and immediately default to the person being a product of AA admission, and special treatment at grade time.
I know some black doctors who are in their 70s who are obviously pre-AA graduates. One I work with is 78 and his wife is 80. He has shown me photos of her when they were young and she was gorgeous. They met as college students and have been married almost 60 years, He is a great guy and has no apparent hangups about race. These people have no concerns and, I suspect, have children who do have them. The Democrats have done enormous damage to this population.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 12/13/2015 @ 6:56 pmTapper is telling me on Twitter that he just quoted Cruz. Ehh…there was a little bit of characterization there too.
Patterico (86c8ed) — 12/13/2015 @ 7:08 pmDemocrats have never stopped doing enormous damage to blacks and everyone else they come in contact with, including themselves, and especially their own children.
ropelight (f6bf97) — 12/13/2015 @ 7:11 pmyes yes he was framing it to where Mr. The Donald instinctively picked up on his cues
i’m not really clear on what this accomplishes
happyfeet (831175) — 12/13/2015 @ 7:15 pmAt the heart of all race-based admissions notions — as well as MOST of the “hand out” type benefits offered to blacks — is racism. The “soft bigotry of low expectations”, which is at the heart of all of liberal PC anti “racism”.
The notion that blacks CAN’T do it on their own, so they need someone to GIVE them things they aren’t capable of earning — unlike all the others they compete with.
IGotBupkis, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (7a15a1) — 12/13/2015 @ 7:49 pmGood call, Col.
mg (31009b) — 12/13/2015 @ 8:04 pmTapper – just another white punk high on himself.
Democrats have never stopped doing enormous damage to blacks and everyone else they come in contact with, including themselves, and especially their own children.
Or, in general, the damage done by the idiocy of liberal sentiments.
I was looking at a recent photo of the top members of the new government elected by the people of Argentina last week. From a racial/ethnic standpoint — whether that matters or not — one would have a difficult time differentiating the folks in that picture from a snapshot of “white bread” people based in the American Midwest. The point being that one of the most racially monolithic and mainly Euro-extraction nations of the Americas, Argentina, with less racial/ethnic diversity than the US, has been an economic and social mess — with high crime rates and a banana-republic economy — not due to demographics (pertaining to race or otherwise), but due to all the mindless “I-love-Hillary” type of leftism that has roiled that society for over 100 years.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/13/2015 @ 8:11 pmThomas Sowell: Professor Summers explained that admitting black students to top-tier institutions, when they had academic qualifications that were at a level that fit second-tier institutions, meant that second-tier institutions now had a reduced pool of suitable black applicants and would have to dip into the pool of black students whose qualifications fit the third tier—and so on down the line. Mike K (90dfdc) — 12/13/2015 @ 1:26 pm
That may be the case in reality, but in the alternate universe of academia it is racism to suggest that blacks might not be as able to do the work as whites – even though they will admit, if pressed, that the schools they attended did not educate people as well, and will also admit that the more you know the more you can learn and that this is why courses have prerequisites.
Sammy Finkrlman (4d9cfa) — 12/13/2015 @ 8:57 pmI’m so old, I remember when liberals were making excuses for George Takei calling Clarence Thomas “a clown in blackface.”
It was last summer.
tops116 (d094f8) — 12/13/2015 @ 10:53 pmScalia’s comments were tough on black Americans. If you read the LA Times article as linked to by Drudge, that is. Or other news sources who didn’t report on the whole thing, and provide the context. Or do what Patterico did, and explain for all of us what Scalia really meant by his remarks.
So interesting that for Scalia, we owe it to him to look deeper, for the more nuanced point of view, to understand how Scalia, as a judge who has experience examining this issue, might arrive at his opinions and just blurt them out without qualification of explanation of his remarks. We owe it to Scalia to show others what Scalia really means when his inartful remarks get misconstrued. How unfair of anyone to just take Scalia’s remarks at face value, and look at how, upon that face value, they may indeed be taken as “tough” on a certain community — especially those of said community not savvy enough to look into the context, much less understand or agree with the context.
Look — I’m a big fan of Scalia. But have any of you LISTENED to audio of his remarks during oral argument? Scalia provided no context. He framed his remarks in terms of “There are those who contend it does not benefit African Americans to get them [blacks] into the University of Texas where they DO NOT DO WELL…” — not. Talk about a remarkably undiplomatic statement! Scalia sure as hell did not say: “Should we demand that students who may be inferior candidates for admission on the basis of their academic achievement, be admitted in the hopes they will perform, even when statistics may show that these candidates, once admitted, typically underperform as compared to their more academically qualified peers, race notwithstanding?” That — would be a lot more defensible.
Check out the audio here. Scalia’s remarks come in about 40 seconds after the 1:06:20 mark (remarks of U of Texas atty first for context):
https://soundcloud.com/latimes/fisher-v-university-of-tex-at-austin.
And Scalia CERTAINLY didn’t say what Patterico said Scalia meant, that “My point — and it is buttressed by many studies — is that race-based admissions end up hurting a lot of minorities who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of such programs.”
Scalia did NOT say that! Had he, the left wouldn’t be able to have the field day they are having, and Scalia wouldn’t have opened himself up to the criticism he has earned. Look — Scalia’s great, but he done F’d up. LOVE Scalia! But he done F’d up.
But to Patterico, Scalia shouldn’t be held to the standard of how he phrased his remarks and how that inartful and incredibly undiplomatic phrasing that invited all kinds of misconstruction — as well as a class of people who may infer insult — might need some ‘splainin’? Instead, Patterico points out what a dumbass Trump is.
So interesting the lengths to which you go to defend Scalia, but for Donald Trump — we owe him no such courtesy. He needs to be held to the face value reaction his remarks elicit. No examination necessary.
Patterico. I love ya. But you’re a hypocrite. You will expend much effort to defend those you respect, like Scalia, and that’s fine. But to not extend a fraction of that effort to those you despise? My goodness, man! As far as I’ve read, you still have yet to acknowledge that Trump said “temporary” ban on Muslim immigration after your initial post on that topic; no edit, and not so much as a comment acknowledging same.
Sorry, Pat. Scalia EARNED the criticism, and Donald Trump is absolutely CORRECT to say that Scalia’s remarks were tough, and that he was surprised by them. Jesus — I’m surprised by them too. Scalia is almost always uses excellent choices in words, but not here, not this time.
This is an argument you lose, Patterico.
School Marm (f96753) — 12/14/2015 @ 12:13 amSo interesting the lengths to which you go to defend Scalia, but for Donald Trump — we owe him no such courtesy.
Scalia’s record has earned him the benefit of the doubt; Trump’s record has only earned him mistrust.
nk (dbc370) — 12/14/2015 @ 12:45 amThis is an argument you lose, Patterico.
What prize would the SchoolMarm Argument Evaluation Foundation have awarded Patterico had he won the argument?
nk (dbc370) — 12/14/2015 @ 12:49 amIf you want to disagree with Scalia it is that his statement
minority students with inferior academic credentials may be better off at “a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.”
is total and utter horses**t. Either because of genuine ignorance of so-called “elite schools” or characteristic Scalia disingenuousness.
“Elite” schools are elite because
1) They have very bright students from relatively privileged backgrounds with solid foundations from the lower schools that will have them doing well without hardship in college;
2) They have tons of resources and spoonfeed and coddle their students so that even mediocrities achieve the semblance of a good education; and
3. The brand name.
They are anything but “fast-track”. They’re cushioned carriages on rose-petal strewn track. With a monopoly to certain stations.
nk (dbc370) — 12/14/2015 @ 3:15 am“Oh wow, man !”
“Wait a second man. Whaddaya think the School Marm’s gonna look like this year ?”
“My ass, man !”
S-S-S-School Marm stop that screaming, School Marm don’t you see ?
Don’t wanna be no uptown fool.
Maybe I should go to hell, but I’m doin’ well, School Marm needs to see me after school.
I got it bad, got it bad, got it bad… I’m hot for School Marm
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/14/2015 @ 3:40 amusing the University of Texas as an example of an elite school is just weird
happyfeet (831175) — 12/14/2015 @ 4:18 amWorrying about how Scalia stated an absolutely true statement is bizarre. They can’t stand to think about what he said so they whine about how he said it.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/14/2015 @ 5:11 amSchool Marm is an arse. Has been one for a very long time. And don’t be fooled, she has never presented herself here as a Conservative or as a critical thinker. Just another head full of mush, in love with some squish-squish.
John Hitchcock (d395d8) — 12/14/2015 @ 5:36 amSchool Marm is a good pickle what loves america
a patriot and a good pickle both
i know that there’s pain Mr. Hitchcock why do lock yourself up in these chains
happyfeet (831175) — 12/14/2015 @ 5:41 amSchool Marm,
Do you understand that Scalia’s question(s) occurred in Court in a case that had been before the Court before and that had been briefed and discussed for literally years? This isn’t a public speech, this is a discussion in a court case. The public can listen but it is a legal case in which the attorneys are addressing specific legal points. Scalia was addressing the issue of mismatch that was a part of the briefing and the case.
Think of it as an operating room that the public can observe, but the surgeons’ discussions are focused on surgical issues related to the operation and not the patient’s feelings or any PC concerns. That discussion might seem strange, too, if you ignored the context.
DRJ (15874d) — 12/14/2015 @ 5:48 amI am interested in what you think Trump believes about affirmative action, School Marm.
Does he support it or not? And what does he mean when he said Scalia’s words were “tough”? Does that mean Scalia was unfair or wrong or right … or what? It’s such a vague statement that I submit no one, including you, can really say what it means.
DRJ (15874d) — 12/14/2015 @ 6:00 amhear those who can do
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/14/2015 @ 6:14 amand also those who can’t teach
and some of them scold
trump and teh School Marm
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/14/2015 @ 6:21 amhe’s got her under his sway
volcanic mind-meld
Or as Little Rishard sang:
Can man do, Can man do!
felipe (b5e0f4) — 12/14/2015 @ 6:22 amnk,
I agree elite schools make it possible for some students to do relatively little work, if that was your point. Even when I was in college, there were many students who did the least work possible and relied on last-minute cramming for exams and papers. I don’t think that has changed much, and the pampered kids at elite schools may be the worst offenders.
But that’s part of the point of mismatch, isn’t it? There are kids who can do that and still succeed, and there are kids who can’t do that so they won’t succeed. Students with lower test scores generally can’t do that and, because of affirmative action, the only students with lower test scores at elite colleges are minorities.
UT-Austin actually proves this point because if its admissions scandal, in which children of state legislators with low test scores got preferential admission. They didn’t do well either. The problem is special preferences for students based on diversity instead of academic merit. It creates a mismatch that hurts the student and the school.
DRJ (15874d) — 12/14/2015 @ 6:25 amthat inartful and incredibly undiplomatic phrasing that invited all kinds of misconstruction
I suspect that Scalia assumes that those who listen to his discussions are intelligent people who share the obvious knowledge of how affirmative action has harmed the people it is alleged to help.
He can’t help it that some, like the commenter, are hopelessly conditioned by leftist tropes.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 12/14/2015 @ 6:25 amTrump has performed a service, in that he’s stirred things up, said some things that needed to be said and some that didn’t. I’m no fan, he’s a Democrat at heart, with the prerequisite over-inflated ego, big mouth, narcissism and obnoxiousness.
Having said that, I would vote for him before I’d vote for Bush, Kasich, Paul, Graham, Santorum, Huckabee…
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/14/2015 @ 6:30 amTrump in a bottle (apologies to Jim Croce)
If I could hold Trump in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to contain everything
That he ever had to say
So I could unleash them anew.
If progressivism could last forever
felipe (b5e0f4) — 12/14/2015 @ 6:54 amThen words could make wishes come true
Then Trumps words would be such a treasure
For I could unleash them on you.
This is for when the Donald announces the end of his campaign
felipe (b5e0f4) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:26 amYa oughtta bottle that, felipe… sweeeet!
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:28 am” I’m a big fan of Scalia. But have any of you LISTENED to audio of his remarks during oral argument? Scalia provided no context.”
This is utter BS. The whole case IS the context. The case is about minority students being given a substantial boost in admission — merely for being minority — without which most of whom would not qualify. It is such students that Scalia was referencing.
If Scalia’s view were followed, admission would be completely race-blind. African Americans would be free to apply and compete for spots like anyone else, and those who qualify would get in and likely be able to compete quite well with everyone else.
Bored Lawyer (aff0d2) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:31 amBottle of Trump
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:32 amGot him some Gump
When’s he gonna talk like he’s sober
Leave us alone, just go on home
And do it before next October
We see the rise of the BLM crowd, and black students demanding all kind of BS changes at universities. Which by and large cave at the first shove. These people are convinced that they’ve been victimized by a racist society. And, you know what? They have a point. But it isn’t the racism they’ve been indoctrinated to believe in.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/14/us/georgia-atlanta-public-schools-cheating-scandal-verdicts/index.html
Guess what “struggling schools” is a euphemism for?
Guess the race of these educrats. Hint; it’s the same race as the “struggling students” they robbed of an education. As the article goes on to point out, they didn’t think they were guilty of anything. Their bonuses depended in part on how well their students did on standardized tests, so dammit their students were going to do well on those tests. But the teaching part was optional.
If you’ve seen the vids of the BLM crowd invading the library at Yale, you may find this interesting. Because what were you looking at? A crowd (mostly white, mind you; we are talking about Yale) invades a library where students are doing what we have traditionally expected of students. They were studying. But the protesters berated them for studying. It appears they should have been protesting.
That’s where we are as a country. Students shouldn’t study to earn good grades. They should protest for them. We saw a similar phenomenon in Baltimore and Ferguson, where protesters were burning stores while demanding jobs. The connection between cause and effect is essentially illegal to teach because, racism. Because if we could connect cause and effect, one thing would become obvious. That the real racism is served up by the people of all colors who hold the opinion that we just can’t expect as much from some people as others.
This country comes up with all sorts of lies to coddle people who could do better. The latest lie is white privilege. It’s the institutional racism that permeates ever nook and cranny of society that determines who succeeds and who doesn’t. Individual merit has nothing to do with it. It’s a funny sort of white privilege, though, considering that Asians benefit more from it than whites. Heck, even black people who immigrate here from countries where their minds haven’t been poisoned benefit from white privilege.
I recently read a letter to the editor from an English teacher at a predominantly minority school. She said she couldn’t teach her students Shakespeare or other books by dead white heterosexual males because they couldn’t relate. Instead, she was teaching them tales from East African oral tradition.
???!!!
WTH? Not to denigrate East African oral tradition but speaking English is a job skill that is valued around the world. And this is an English teacher, who can’t defend speaking English. So she’s robbing her students of knowledge they deserve to have. On top of which, she’s pounding the idea into their heads that they don’t need to know anything that someone of a different culture expressed. I don’t hold Maya Angelou in as much regard as many, but I saw a video where she talked about how until she was 11 years old she thought Shakespeare was a young black girl like herself. Shakespeare seemed to be talking directly to her.
It isn’t that those students can’t relate. It’s that this teacher is a lousy teacher. Like those teachers in Atlanta who rather than impart the knowledge necessary to do well on the test simply altered the grades. Then these kids get to college, and their entire lives they were led to believe they were doing well.
I’ve actually moved off the subject of raaaycism, as since it’s raaaaycist to say you expect less from certain people because of melatonin, it’s morphed into not expecting much from anybody. As illustrated by the Occupy Wall Street crowd of almost entirely white kids who are convinced that because they went a quarter of a million dollars into debt to get a bachelor’s degree in Maoist cinema or Cuban revolutionary feminism and now can’t get a job that it’s capitalism that let them down.
Steve57 (50e6a1) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:34 amTY, Colonel.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:34 amBut that would mean a color-blind society and merit-based and that just won’t do, bored lawyer.
Colonel Haiku (b5bb0f) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:34 amYesterday: “You didn’t build that!”
Today: “You don’t deserve that!”
felipe (b5e0f4) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:41 amI agree that Scalia’s phrasing was infelicitous, School Marm. But as Bored Lawyer notes, the case was the context. Even Adam Liptak characterized Scalia’s comments correctly. So why get into a big discussion about his imperfect phrasing when everyone, including the lefty NYT hack, knows exactly what he meant?
Patterico (86c8ed) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:42 amHere is an interesting take on the current situation that appeared about two weeks ago:
http://spectator.org/articles/64739/little-understood-engine-campus-unrest-racial-admissions-preferences
champ (56cd04) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:43 amSorry, Pat. Scalia EARNED the criticism, and Donald Trump is absolutely CORRECT to say that Scalia’s remarks were tough, and that he was surprised by them. Jesus — I’m surprised by them too. Scalia is almost always uses excellent choices in words, but not here, not this time.
I’m not sure who or what is closer to the truth.
Scalia has witnessed over the past few years major judicial decisions altering the face of this society that have not gone in his direction. So he’s likely not, as they say, a happy camper.
A combination of exasperation, alarm and disgust — and his undoubtedly being fully aware of the socio-political turmoil going on out there, from Ferguson to San Bernardino, from a White House floodlit with rainbow colors one evening to a system now demanding that the public pay for a service that was formerly private and optional, may be triggering his desire to be blunt, to be very non-PC plain-spoken.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/14/2015 @ 7:56 amCandor is contagious.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 12/14/2015 @ 8:00 amDRJ, (language warning) http://imgur.com/sewU5x9
nk (dbc370) — 12/14/2015 @ 8:40 amusing the University of Texas as an example of an elite school is just weird
At Austin. “At Austin” has delusions of grandeur. It wants to be another Berkeley. Good luck with that. Why do we not see cases like this out of Berkeley? Because Berkeley has all the smart black applicants, who can stand toe to toe with whites and Asians, that it needs. UTA has to entice dummies to balance its pie chart, and dat ain’t no way to become elite.
nk (dbc370) — 12/14/2015 @ 8:52 amUT-Austin used to entice National Merit scholarship winners with special incentives but now UT doesn’t even want them because that would make it “one-dimensional.” I call that one-dimensionally stupid.
DRJ (15874d) — 12/14/2015 @ 9:08 amOT: Today we had another case where Scalia and Thomas did not agree.
What ever your thoughts on Justice Thomas , don’t you just have to like
http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/428479/directv-imburgia-ginsburg-breyer
seeRpea (2c8672) — 12/14/2015 @ 4:43 pm