It Build Character

My mom speaks and even writes in broken English.

I think it's my favorite kind of English. I like the gaps and spaces, the wrong tenses, the missing articles, and mixing up the genders. It adds a sense of mystery and opens up her meaning to limitless possiblities.

I like that I know what she means beyond what she just says. Sometimes I tut-tut about grammar, but she never really fixes her mistakes, and that's great.

I was reading the graduation card she wrote me today:

"I don't have to worry a thing about you"

-- I like the double meaning of the "I don't have to worrry about you" and the phrase she mixed it up with: "you don't have to worry about a thing." It's better than a normal phrase with only one meaning---like maybe you get upset because you have broken a mirror, only to discorver the beauty of the web the cracks weave.


It must not be a disadvantage, because I'm an English major now.

Pre-Turkey

When I talk to people about the holidays, people are always interested about how I spend my Thanksgiving, for example.

I think they want me to say something exotic.

Well here is a little taste:

My mom is explaining to my ex-aunt how to cook a turkey in Vietnamese. To me it sounds kind of like this:
"blah blah blah blah turkey blah blah turkey, then blah blah blah blah blah turkey....blah blah blah blah blah....."

And then on Thanksgiving our extended family comes and we eat my mommy's delicious turkey, (sometimes baked, sometimes deep fried, once even both) and she usually makes another meat, some potatoes, rolls, a causal casserole, and a wildly unpopular salad or salad variation.

I think this is fairly standard protocol.

Sorry to disappoint.

What is Discrimination?

http://wecanmo.org/

^ This site is dedicated to encouraging Missouri residents to keep Affirmative Action in Missouri and "reject discrimination" but isn't that what Affirmative Action is? It wants you to make sure people are fairly represented, despite qualifications.

They actually won to keep it of the ballot.

And the site also criticizes Ward Connerly quite a bit. There argument isn't the most solid thing I've heard and its no wonder they've turned off comment capabilities. Ward Connerly also thinks people should have more consideration based on socioeconomics rather than race, and the site criticizes him for spending money campaigning rather than giving his money to the poor. As if it makes sense to try and help just some people a little bit, or try to help a lot of people indirectly. He came to Truman State University in Kirksville, MO to speak last year (I didn't get to see him, and didn't know who he was at the time anyway). I wish I had heard exactly what he had to say.

I think Affirmative Action is considered liberal, and banning it is considered conservative. Pro-AA people try to make it seem like voting against it means you're racist. Cheap shot, guys. I know we have a way to go, but I think people need to change their whole view on this, and keeping laws which make it the for front of people's minds doesn't help.

"Obama and affirmative action"

"Obama and Affirmative Action"
Article from Boston.com November 15th, 2008

Obama is for Affirmative Action. But he admits his children is are well-off and shouldn't be one of the people who are affected by affirmative action. Here we see that the socio-economics plays a more important deciding factor than race---in my opinion.

"But the relevant question is not what America might do for the Obama girls, but what they could one day do for an increasingly diverse nation where by 2050 "minorities" will make up more than half of the population, according to Census Bureau predictions."

Are we going to keep helping only the minority, even if they aren't minorities anymore? Or should we be making possibilities available to everyone?

"Time is running out - at least legally. In 2003, then-Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor set a clock ticking when she wrote the Grutter v. Bollinger ruling. The court defended the University of Michigan's "narrowly-tailored use of race" in its law school admissions process as a means of creating a diverse student body. The caveat: "The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today."

25 years?! That seems quite a long time for the justice and equality we should already have.



I know I have been focusing on admissions, were I strongly believe that against Affirmative Action, but I wonder how others feel about it in the work place. Is it still necessary there? Is racism a big enough factor for employers to discriminate? (Just saying that makes me think not). I know Dateline (or some other primetime news channel) once did a "study" when they had similarly qualified applicants apply for the same job, but one was more attractive than the other. If I remember correctly the more attractive applicant got the job all, or at least most of the time. Do you think the same would go for race, even if the minority is more qualified? I'm not completely sure about this area of Affirmative Action.

University of California-Berkley, Keepin' it Real

When universities give preference to one race over another, it will create resentment between races, widening the divide, and give the benefited race a sense that they are victims and need to be helped. The most noticeable case of this is perhaps the University of California-Berkeley which became almost the poster child for inequality in admissions in 2000. John Moore, the former chairman of the university regents, spoke out against what he considered the unfair practice of Berkeley’s admissions, where white and Asian applicants were seemingly
discriminated against (Yang). He reported that the university (not just UC Berkeley, but also UCLA, and UC Santa Barbra) would admit black and Hispanic students with below average SAT scores over similarly qualified white or Asian students. The president of UC, Robert Dynes then asked his own office to investigate Moores’ “outrageous” claims.

The results of their study were grim. They found that, given the same qualifications, a black or Hispanic student would have a 54% chance of being admitted, while a white student would only have 24% chance of being admitted (Yang)!

It gets worse.

Moore expanded on their findings in 2003 study when he found that hundreds of below average SAT scores were being admitted and thousands of higher-than-average scorers were being rejected. And more than half of those students with below average scores were black and Hispanic students.

How do you think these applicants would feel if they found out their race was the reason they were rejected from the school of their choice? Do you think they would be understanding that the school wanted diversity or do you think they would be feel like race was more important than how hard they might have worked in high school? I think such a policy, which puts so much emphasis on race, also creates a false importance of race in the minds of those it affects; shattering the idea of true equality that America has been trying to promote.

Political science professor, Andrew Hacker commented on the situation at Berkeley and Affirmative Action when he said that it is “a disservice, by placing them in a college for which they are not properly prepared,” (Hacker, 163). Citing his own study which found that, of the underrepresented students who were admitted even though they were below Berkeley’s standards, only 20% end up graduating.

How you can tell someone's from out of state at UW

"Educate yourselves, friends"

Racism!

The controversial campaign/election of Obama.
Why so much fuss?

BECAUSE HE'S LEFT HANDED!

College admissions claim to want to claim to want to diversify their student body so that that students will have a more worldly experience, but trying to achieve a perfect ratio of races when considering college admissions doesn’t quite seem like what college is about. This “reverse discrimination” is still discrimination nonetheless and shouldn’t be part of an academic setting. As an underrepresented minority, I don’t want to be singled out as someone who needs special help, or someone who has been valued by my race rather than my merit, and I don’t want to be haunted by the idea that I was only admitted to a university because of my race. Race isn’t something earned, chosen, or worked for; it is some, unchangeable part of a person that they were born with. It would be a no more appropriate qualification for college admissions than a movement to admit more left-handed people (or if they’re lucky, ambidextrous people). Then the 90 some percent of right-handed students would be better able to empathize with the plight of the minority left-handers.

I blame myself, a right-hander for not being more considerate of the hardships that left-handers must have to overcome throughout their life. The jeers, the stares, and just how much it must hold them back in general. I believe we need to have equal representation of both left-handed people and right handed people! We have two hands! But when they come together, work together, then we can truly be a nation again!!!!

:/

The Poor Kids on the Block

Front the book Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education (copywrite 2005)

How'd you like that?

Merit vs. Socioeconomic

"Please sah, can I have some more?"

Am I proposing that those with lower income get the almost automatic admissions that minorities have gotten in the past?

No.

I still believe that there those will lower income show merit, drive, and an overall want to be educated and improve their stations in life. They should get concessions in the way that, maybe they only took 3 AP classes in high school because their high school only offered four. They shouldn't be down-credited because their school has limited resources. If you look at one school and the student has taken a foreign language for 6 years and 10 AP classes, maybe engineering classes, maybe this maybe that...because their school is able to offer it to them. I know my high school (probably like most high schools) sends out a school report which evaluates the school, with statistics like average grade, maybe number of AP classes offered (I never actually read it) etc. I think it would be affective the admissions board looked closely at things like that.

I know I girl who was able to go to African for a few months and help people there. I'm sure that looked amazing on her resume, but not all of our parents can afford to fly us around to 3rd world countries like financed superheros. (She went to a private high school, graduated early, and went to MIT).

My friend at UNL had a roommate who has very low income and was paying for college herself. But she didn't seem to have a real drive to be in the university, as much as she had a drive for her boyfriend, whom she transfered to that school for. She would sleep through her morning classes, sometimes past 11 o'clock, and then would not be seen again until like 1:00am when her boyfriend dropped her off (if at all) so who knows if she went to those classes. During the first month of school she was in a panic about affording college, even found a job, but then once she found out that the financial aid office would let her pay whenever she could before the end of the semester. She quit her job and didn't find a new one. It's now the end of the semester and she has $4,000 left to pay and loan brochures are stacked on her desk.

I would not go far enough to say that she doesn't deserve to be here, that she is unworthy of an education. There many people who come to college and drop-out for not doing the work, whether their low income, or minority students, or regular Joes. What I want to say is that if a college is going to pay for you to come to their school, like a business, they will want someone who is reliable, dedicated, and will use the the money they give them to the fullest.

At the sad risk of sounding egotistical: compare this person's situation to mine. I pay for college myself, and my parents couldn't help if they wanted to. I got straight A's my first year, and am doing well this year. I found a work study job on campus early during the summer to start working in fall, and have already gotten a raise (meager) for working hard. I'm also taking 18 credit hours so that I can graduate on time with a major and two minors. I'm also probably going to have to take summer classes (how am I going to pay for them, who knows!?) and am applying for the McNair Program.

I want to be here. As mega-dorky as it sounds, I love learning. I usually find at least something in a class interesting, or at least the passion of my professors. And if I enjoy the subject matter to, I am in awe that I'm lucky enough to be there.

In my introduction, I said that I dreamed, when I was little, of going to Harvard. Not to because of the prestige of the school, but as a symbol of my hope-knowing, dream, fantasy, destiny that I would be able to rise out of my situation and still be able to live the American Dream.

1. Merit & Talent
2. Socioeconomics

Not

Merit & Talent OR Socioeconomics

Special Election Update!

#1. Thank GOD!

#2. Initiative 424 in Nebraska to end affirmative action passed!

"Proposal 424...

• Reflects the colorblind language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act -- because equal treatment is the essence of civil rights.

• Ends discrimination against groups and individuals based on race or sex for state employment, university admissions, and public contracting.

• Bans quotas and set-aside programs giving every person a fair chance to compete for good paying jobs and college admissions.

Proposal 424 DOES NOT...

• Affect public health facilities, including breast cancer screening centers, fair housing programs, or private scholarships.

• Eliminate outreach or true equal opportunity programs."

Nebraska + Affirmative Action

Affirmative action debated in Nebraska
by Jean Oritz

Ending Affirmative Action was on the ballot this year in Nebraska ( Initiative Measure 424) and I'm sure you all know how I voted.

Jean Oritz points out a very good point in regards to AA, this year we had both a woman and an African American senator running for president and a female vice president nominee, so doesn't this mean we've progressed further than some are giving us credit to?

Ward Connerly has been going around the country trying to get Affirmative Action on the ballots, and this year they were able make it in Nebraska and Colorado.

Hope everyone voted today!