Michael Perelman wrotes: > >> David is correct, BUT colleges and universities never had the purpose of > >> integrating > >> society. Public education is a means of creating a common experience.
David B. Shemano wrote: > Colleges don't have the purpose of creating a common experience? Darn, there > goes the diversity rationale for affirmative action..< some colleges have one of their purposes as being to create a common experience, so the "diversity rationale" still stands. Not all of them do so, of course. Bob Jones University doesn't, for example. As far as I'm concerned, the whole purpose of affirmative action (AA) is to break down the racist (etc.) barriers in our society, including labor markets. The in-groups dominate the best schools, jobs, etc. Pro-capitalists should applaud AA since it moves the system marginally closer to being a meritocracy. It's pretty far from that, but what the hell. In any event, AA isn't aimed at breaking down barriers of class. That would take much more. > I really have to laugh about this and relay an anecdote from today. I live > in Los Angeles, with three kids in LA public schools. My son just started > 6th grade at an LA magnet middle/high school, one of the best schools LAUSD > has to offer, where Anglos are about 30% of the student body. If the "common > experience" is going to happen anywhere, it is going to happen at this > school. My wife volunteered today at the cafeteria and reported to me that > the Blacks all sat at the Black table, the Koreans at the Korean table, etc.< I hope that nobody has to go to a school where the administration sees it as one of their goals to encourage Blacks to sit with Whites, etc. The plaint about "oh, those Blacks sit only with each other" seems nothing but a more pleasant way of saying "oh, those Blacks _still_ don't like us Whites." (Of course, I cannot see into David's cranium, so that may not be what _he_ is saying.) But I don't see why we should expect the Blacks to like us Whites, especially given how poorly we've treated them over the years. School administrations shouldn't take David's complaint as a guide for policy. The point is that now the segregation is only one of lunch tables and the like. Unless the admins have used tracking without thinking, kids of all sorts of different ethnicities are in the same classes. Further, the lunch table segregation is _voluntary_ (the Blacks are "free to choose," right?) whereas the old-style segregation was _involuntary_. > I don't mean to be flippant (ok, I do), but people concerned about "creating > a common experience" are probably people who do not have kids going through a > public urban school system. Things like getting a solid education while > avoiding getting beaten up are much higher on the priority list. And > furthermore, it is naive and unrealistic to believe that because of the > existence of public schools, upper class families are going to have a "common > experience" with lower class families.< right. they have more money. They're the ones who get to lord over the members of the lower-class families. > It has never happened and it will never happen. If 50 years of court-ordered > integration efforts have taught us anything, middle and upper class parents > will do almost anything to avoid having to send their kids to schools > dominated by lower class kids.< that fits a Marxist analysis: AA and the like are mere reforms. To break down class barriers, a revolution is needed. Right, David? -- Jim Devine / "The truth is at once less sinister and more dangerous." -- Naomi Klein.
