Re: Is white racism nec. all bad?
Donald Edwards (warrl@blarg.com)
2 Apr 1995 03:48:56 -0700
Gary Strand (gary@ra.cgd.ucar.edu) wrote:
" AA is "good" racism for non-whites, in the short term.
Extremely questionable.
AA has sped the rate at which those particular individuals of
minority ancestry, who were highly qualified when they first
came in contact with an AA program, have advanced relative
to those individuals of the same minority ancestry but
less highly qualified.
That is, it has helped (for example) the rich blacks get
richer, but it has not helped the poor blacks get richer.
In fact, while the *average* salary of blacks has advanced
(relative to the average salary of whites) more rapidly
since the 1964 Civil Rights Act than it did before, the
*median* salary advanced more rapidly before than it
has since.
(The median, in case someone doesn't know: line 'em all up
in order by size, and take the one in the middle of the
line.)
Or to put it in other terms:
Among black Americans, the poorest 20% have 3.2% of the
income and the richest 5% have 17.3% of the income.
Among white Americans, the poorest 20% have 5% of the
income and the richest 5% have 16.8 of the income.
Rich blacks are richer as compared to poor blacks than
rich whites are as compared to poor whites.
Further, the same remains true for more even comparisons.
Here's the complete list.
Blacks Whites
17.3% 16.8% richest 5%
47.4% 43.4% richest 20%
25.4% 23.8% next richest 20%
15.7% 16.7% middle 20%
8.4% 11.0% next poorest 20%
3.2% 5.0% poorest 20%
------ -----
99.1 99.9
Affirmative action has been a tool by which the minority
individuals who would have "made it" anyway, can do better
than they would have otherwise.
As for the rest... a person who would have in the ordinary
course of events would have graduated from the state
university, but because of Affirmative Action flunks out
of Harvard instead, isn't helped.
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