opinion on URM..repeat? dont care

[DoctaJay]

An under the radar way of calling people racists, almost smooth. So you are racist if you wonder if a minority doctor would have gotten there if admission was not race based? **** that. Take away AA and minority doctors who really deserve to be there won't face doubt.

take AA away and there will be no minority doctors because you haven't realized yet that the problem begins in KINDERGARTEN. Unless it is fixed there, medical schools will continue to compensate. Unlike you, adcomms are concerned about the overal healthcare for all americans

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DoctaJay]

this thread has reached its annoying point. We already should understand and know the values BigRedPreMed, Chuckwalla, Ryo-Ohki, Instatewaiter, and EndSong. If there is ever a thread on AA, they are there, just do a search. Their minds won't change and reality won't change either. I'm bowing out my friends.

 

[4paw]

Women have not benefited at all from Affirmative Action in medical school admissions.

Go back, way back, only a few years before you were born, and VOILA! Rates of women at med school of only 10-15%. And then the feminist movement, and rights movements, and affirmative action. History people!

I'm pretty sure that schools do make sure they have a sense of what balance of male and female they are accepting. of course, when was the last time you saw a man or woman without a race or class? so the question is, which men, which women...

the feminist movement went farther than that though. many communities do not truck at all with doctors being able to decide how health is measured, treated, etc. without community input. hence, the book Our Bodies Ourselves, women's health clinics and women's movements that changed many health practices.

 

[Chuckwalla]

Go back, way back, only a few years before you were born, and VOILA! Rates of women at med school of only 10-15%. And then the feminist movement, and rights movements, and affirmative action. History people!

The Civil Rights movement was absolutely necessary as it fought for equality for minorities and has mostly achieved that aim though there still is discrimination.

The Feminist movement was needed as well to free women from their gender roles. It achieved equality and needs to be kept in check now because all that is left is female superiority which it is more than happy to push.

I said there is still discrimination against minorities. This needs to be stopped but you don't fight it by discriminating against the majority. By all means help kids in inner city schools succeed, I am all for this. But the main things affirmative action does is make non-racists racist and calls the merits of minority doctors into question.

If I am dying in the emergency room I don't care what color or gender my doctor is. All I care about is if they are qualified to save me.

 

[Mozzo]

The Civil Rights movement was absolutely necessary as it fought for equality for minorities and has mostly achieved that aim though there still is discrimination.

The Feminist movement was needed as well to free women from their gender roles. It achieved equality and needs to be kept in check now because all that is left is female superiority which it is more than happy to push.

I said there is still discrimination against minorities. This needs to be stopped but you don't fight it by discriminating against the majority. By all means help kids in inner city schools succeed, I am all for this. But the main things affirmative action does is make non-racists racist and calls the merits of minority doctors into question.

If I am dying in the emergency room I don't care what color or gender my doctor is. All I care about is if they are qualified to save me.

I guess that implies that if you have a mild, chronic pain that isn't life threatening that you do care what color or gender your doctor is...

 

[BigRedPremed]

this thread has reached its annoying point. We already should understand and know the values BigRedPreMed, Chuckwalla, Ryo-Ohki, Instatewaiter, and EndSong. If there is ever a thread on AA, they are there, just do a search. Their minds won't change and reality won't change either. I'm bowing out my friends.

And what would those values be?

I have always maintained several points in regards to affirmative action (none of which I think are too radical):

1. AA confers significant advantages in admissions for minorities (eq. to 3-4 MCAT points). What amazes me is that all of these pro-AAers keep saying that the advantage is minimal but then lament how minority enrollment would drop drastically if AA is taken away. Which one is it?

2. My concern has always been how best to improve the representation of minorities in medicine. I'm not worried about some minority "stealing my spot." My mdapps is in my signature. I have decent enough credentials to get into medical school.

3. I firmly believe that the advantages of AA are outweighed by all of the disadvantages. While on an individual basis, AA confers significant advantages to minority applicants, there are so few qualified minority applicants that AA really does not increase enrollment that much as a group in terms of absolute numbers. Furthermore, AA elicts all of this controversy, all of this resentment and bitterness, all of this second-guessing of minority achievements, etc. Hence, disadvantages > advantages.

4. The best way to improve minority representation in medicine is to improve primary and secondary education. I attended elementary school (up to 6th grade) that was approx. 80% (and still is) black. The school underperformed so much that it had to be shut down and a complete overhaul of the administration staff had to be done. So I know what's it's like to attend a crappy school. The best way to combat educational inequality is not to simply lower our standards for minorities but to raise them up to our standards for ORM's. This will involve improving schools, educating minorities about the importance of education (I believe some of the achievement gap is cultural), and providing free/low cost test prep services to make minorities more competitive in college and grad school admissions. In fact, I currently tutor/mentor economically disadvantaged HS students (many of whom are URMs) in the SATs in hopes of providing them with a service my parents were fortunate enough to have been able to afford.

5. No one has ever disagreed with me on point #4. However, most pro-AAers say, "Well, in the meantime let's continue AA." As I noted before, I think AA is counterproductive and makes people complacent. Here are some solutions I believe we can implement right now until educational equality has been achieved:

a) If AA is truly about helping underserved areas, offer incentives for current med students (minorities or not) to serve for a period of time in an underserved area (kinda like Teach for America).

b) Encourage minority applicants to apply to DO schools. DO schools pump out a greater percentage of primary care physicians anyway so that would fill the need of underserved areas. Because MCAT and GPA requirements are lower for DO schools, minorities won't have to constantly face the question of whether their GPA/MCAT is up to par.

c) Provide free/low cost MCAT prep services. Provide more tutoring for minorities in college to raise their undergrad GPAs. As I noted above, I don't like the lowering of standards for minorities. I want to raise their MCAT/GPA to the level of ORM's. This way minorities work for their higher MCAT score or GPA. We just provide them with the opportunities.

d) Give more of an advantage to students who claim disadvantaged status. I have no problem giving GPA/MCAT breaks to students who've truly overcome adversity. Since minorities are stereotyped as "disadvantaged" anyway, this should still help out most of them. The rich blacks (who wouldn't be practicing in the inner city anyway) lose out.

and PLEASE stop calling anyone who's anti-AA racist, prejudiced, or worried about "minorities stealing spots." Disregarding someone's opinions like that would be like me disregarding Doctajay's pro-AA stance because he's black. It's ridiculous.

 

[Chuckwalla]

I guess that implies that if you have a mild, chronic pain that isn't life threatening that you do care what color or gender your doctor is...

I can't believe you are digging so hard to stamp me as a racist and a sexist. It is downright pathetic.

 

[DrHusky]

God forbid we actually find a way to recruit minority doctors(which we need) without premeds whinning about it. I really hope they change the policy so people that have been using that excuse to justify their medschool rejection could look for a new excuse. Seriously, one of the schools that accepted me only had 17 URMs in a class of ~200. Maybe we ought to try a healthcare system with no minority doctors so you guys could stop whinning.

I hear this a lot and I always wonder where this comes from.

Although I live in the north (not the once Confederate South), I find it troubling to think that minorities go without proper care because there are not doctors to treat them. I mean, from what I understand, the only issue that effects whether someone gets treated or not is insurance....which is an entirely different issue.

My main opposition to this generality about minorities being needed to treat minorities is that it is inherently racist. If I am Mexican should I choose a Mexican doctor just because he is Mexican? Also, if I have insurance, would a White doctor refuse to see me?

Although I agree that the population of doctors should be as diverse as the overall population, I resent the idea of promoting AA on the basis of needing minority doctors to treat the minorities. We need minority doctors to diversify the community of doctors to the same extent as the general population, sharing ideas, experiences and beliefs....not to treat only their particular race.

 

[Tired]

Normally these threads just make me laugh, but seeing as how there is finally a coherent argument from an anti-AAer, I'd like to chime in.

1. AA confers significant advantages in admissions for minorities (eq. to 3-4 MCAT points). What amazes me is that all of these pro-AAers keep saying that the advantage is minimal but then lament how minority enrollment would drop drastically if AA is taken away. Which one is it?

Fine, I'm more than happy to concede that the benefit is substantial, and that URM enrollment would plunge if it were removed. The experiences of the Cal system and Michigan seem to bear this out.

2. My concern has always been how best to improve the representation of minorities in medicine. I'm not worried about some minority "stealing my spot." My mdapps is in my signature. I have decent enough credentials to get into medical school.

Okay, I'll pass on the "stealing your spot" argument, although I do enjoy tossing that one around. What I will take issue with, however, is your first line. Do you really have an interest in increasing representation of minorities in medicine? Because if so, AA is clearly the easiest and most direct way to do it.

I'll leave that for later . . .

3. I firmly believe that the advantages of AA are outweighed by all of the disadvantages. While on an individual basis, AA confers significant advantages to minority applicants, there are so few qualified minority applicants that AA really does not increase enrollment that much as a group in terms of absolute numbers. Furthermore, AA elicts all of this controversy, all of this resentment and bitterness, all of this second-guessing of minority achievements, etc. Hence, disadvantages > advantages.

Ah, and now we get to the crux of your argument. The advantages, as you seem to suggest, are in fact real. Greater minority representation in medicine is, for most people, a tangible good. And the disadvantages are . . . and here's where your argument (in my mind) goes to pieces.

a) "so few qualified minority applicants that AA really does not increase enrollement much as a group" - really? I would strongly disagree, but even if I didn't, in #1 you just got through making essentially the opposite argument.

b) "elicits all this controversy" - the existence of a controversy is not an argument against a policy. And were we to do away with AA, the controversy would hardly die. Could we then make the opposite argument for reinstating AA?

c) "all this resentment and bitterness" - again, hardly an argument against the policy itself.

d) "second-guessing of minority achievements" - by who exactly? People opposed to AA? You? Certainly not me, and probably not most of the people I have met. And since when is some folks having "negative opinions" a reason to scrap a program that supports social justice?

The rest of your posts focuses on methods to achieve the same ends of AA without giving explicit preference to minorities. All of them are fine ideas that I would happily support. They are all also completely off-point, because the expensive, round-about methods you describe (which would take a generation to see results from), can be achieved just as easily and much more quickly by utilizing Affirmative Action.

The entire argument really only comes down to two questions:

#1 - Does increasing minority enrollment in higher education programs and presitigious careers constitute a "social good"? I happily answer 'yes' to this.

#2 - Does providing preference to generally qualified minority applicants in the form of Affirmative Action programs constitute an undue burden on non-minority applicants? Given that I am in medical school, and your numbers are good enough to get in, I can happily answer 'no'.

So if you're getting in anyway, why is this such a problem? We all know that the only people who are truly affected anyway are the "mediocre" applicants who were on the cusp of being rejected anyway. I feel no strong desire to stand up for such people.

 

[cgscribe]

I think minority status offers more than 3-4 MCAT points, but that's a mute point. I think the real selling point to admissions committees comparing a white applicant with 3.8 and 36 to a URM with a 3.8 and 31, is the fact that the minority PROBABLY had a much different life experience in gaining those numbers. When it comes down to the decision-making process for adcomms, so many people have similar numbers, that qualified URM's stand-out because there are so few of them. This is similar to what I said earlier, it's like having that outstanding extracurricular activity/research experience. I've been at places where applicants were all white, ivy-league educated upper-middle class, and it's not hard to see why an admissions committee takes a chance at interviewing/admitting those with unique experiences to diversify the class.

 

[Tired]

I think minority status offers more than 3-4 MCAT points, but that's a mute point. I think the real selling point to admissions committees comparing a white applicant with 3.8 and 36 to a URM with a 3.8 and 31, is the fact that the minority PROBABLY had a much different life experience in gaining those numbers. When it comes down to the decision-making process for adcomms, so many people have similar numbers, that qualified URM's stand-out because there are so few of them. This is similar to what I said earlier, it's like having that outstanding extracurricular activity/research experience. I've been at places where applicants were all white, ivy-league educated upper-middle class, and it's not hard to see why an admissions committee takes a chance at interviewing/admitting those with unique experiences to diversify the class.

This is so typical of left-leaning individuals, and incredibly frustrating. Why do you have to couch your point in terms of "life experience"? Do you really think that Affirmative Action is about pulling in people with "diverse life experiences"? Of course it's not! If it were, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. (In addition, the portion of your post that I bolded comes off as pretty racist.)

How about you just grow a pair and tell the truth: Affirmative Action is designed to increase the number of Black and Latino students in medical school. As a society, we have decided that we need more Black and Latino doctors, and Affirmative Action is designed to achieve this aim.

I hate the way people dance around this issue. Having a predominantly white population of doctors is not desirable; we want more minority doctors. Why is this so hard to say?

 

[aedelste]

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

2) Why would the AAMC desire to increase the amount of physicians underrepresented in medicine?

1) minority physicians are more willing to practice in underserved population areas 2) with an ever increasing minority population, more minority physicians are needed to serve them 3) patient satisfaction is integral to health care, and minority patients are more satisfied with minority doctors 4) more minority physicians yields more health care data from minority populations that helps in researching specific diseases plaguing these communities. 5) diverse medical school class creates culturally competent doctors 6)

It seems like this is an argument for segregation. I wouldn't feel comfortable if a white patient was more "satisfied" with a white doctor, and I don't feel like we should be encouraging "white population" doctors vs. "URM population" doctors.

I think people are also forgetting the ADCOMs expect URMs to qualify their "minority status," so to speak, by being actively interested in their community, for the reasons DoctaJay posted. They want people who genuinely have a vested interest in their helping their communities. I'd even go so far as to claim (or hope) that if a white person became passionate about a URM cause and worked throughout their college career to fight it, they'd have a similar advantage.

 

[cgscribe]

Don't get me wrong, Tired, I do think that there is a benefit to admitting and training black and latino doctors. I'm sorry if my post came off as me skirting the issue. Obviously, I'm very biased, but the research that has been continuously repeated on these threads supports that they return to their predominantly underserved communities. I think this shouldn't be underplayed.

Also, I didn't mean to sound racist. But I think most, if not all, would agree that minority communities are more underserved vs. white. Obviously there are exceptions, but I was just making a general statement earlier.

 

[Tired]

Don't get me wrong, Tired, I do think that there is a benefit to admitting and training black and latino doctors. I'm sorry if my post came off as me skirting the issue. Obviously, I'm very biased, but the research that has been continuously repeated on these threads supports that they return to their predominantly underserved communities. I think this shouldn't be underplayed.

Also, I didn't mean to sound racist. But I think most, if not all, would agree that minority communities are more underserved vs. white. Obviously there are exceptions, but I was just making a general statement earlier.

Sorry I sounded a little angry, I have just been continually frustrated with the unwillingness of liberals to stand up for their principles (not specifically you, more the *****s on CNN).

So as a general appeal, let me just throw this out there for all the anti-AA posters: Do you really see no value in increasing the numbers of Black and Latino doctors? Would you be comfortable if our admissions process produced an all-white physician population?

 

[mecute]

Lol, sorry I was rushing off to class and typed something that was not what I meant. What I meant was that if you count them up then you will see that a significantly large portion of African Americans for example are concentrated at these 3 schools with lower avg stats which would bring down the overall avg for African American matriculants.

According to the AAMC data, there were 1187 blacks matriculating into medical school last year. Are you saying that the 300 or so that matriculate into Howard, Meharry, and Morehouse substantially bring down the overall stats for the the overall 1187 when AAMC data supports that the average MCAT and GPA scores for blacks is on par with the averages we see at the three Historically black schools anyway?

 

[Chuckwalla]

So as a general appeal, let me just throw this out there for all the anti-AA posters: Do you really see no value in increasing the numbers of Black and Latino doctors? Would you be comfortable if our admissions process produced an all-white physician population?

The lack of minority doctors is because of poverty. You help the poor and there will be more minority doctors. By doing this you also help whites in poverty become of doctors.

Instead of doing it this way they take the easy way and promote racist policies. Racism is wrong no matter who it focuses on, whether it discriminates or shows favor.

 

[BigRedPremed]

According to the AAMC data, there were 1187 blacks matriculating into medical school last year. Are you saying that the 300 or so that matriculate into Howard, Meharry, and Morehouse substantially bring down the overall stats for the the overall 1187 when AAMC data supports that the average MCAT and GPA scores for blacks is on par with the averages we see at the three Historically black schools anyway?

Bingo. The MCAT scores of minority students in HBC is about the same as for the overall population.

 

[BigRedPremed]

Do you really have an interest in increasing representation of minorities in medicine? Because if so, AA is clearly the easiest and most direct way to do it.

I do agree with you on this point. Affirmative action is the easiest and the most direct way of increasing representation of minorities in medicine.

But that doesn't mean that it's the best way.

Sure, it's easy. Medical schools don't have to do anything except accept the URM with a 3.5/25 over the white applicant with 3.7/34. Minorities don't have to do anything. They keep on getting subpar GPA and MCAT scores and med schools keep letting them in with subpar GPA and MCAT scores.

And it's also the most direct obviously. However, it's only a stop gap measure. It only increases minority enrollment artificially and not by very much in terms of absolute numbers. Instead of 1% African American enrollment, you might get 4% with AA. But to achieve 12% (or a number close to the actual proportion of African Americans in the general population), you need to take the measures I outlined in my original post.

And then there is all of the side effects which aren't necessarily reflected in the statistics of minority enrollment. These include all of the lawsuits by ORMs over "reverse discrimination," the questioning of whether a URM got into med school by his own merits or by AA, the higher percentage of incompetent doctors produced by schools with higher percentages of URMs (namely, HBC's), etc. It's a lot to sacrifice just to get a couple of extra URM's into med school.

 

[Tired]

The lack of minority doctors is because of poverty. You help the poor and there will be more minority doctors. By doing this you also help whites in poverty become of doctors.

I love this argument, because it sounds so altruistic, but really has zero substance whatsoever.

Why choose poverty as the underlying cause? Why not pick, say, poor public schools, or institutional racism, or culture-biased tests? How about higher crime rates in minority communities?

And if poverty, or any other underlying cause you want to look at, is disprportionately impacting minority communities, wouldn't projects targeted at these causes be necessarily "racist" by your reasoning, since they are specifically designed to improve the lot of one race over another?

Or is your argument just a more palatable way to deny minorities admission to medical school ("Sorry about the racism 20 years ago, but letting you into med school now would be racist.")

Instead of doing it this way they take the easy way and promote racist policies. Racism is wrong no matter who it focuses on, whether it discriminates or shows favor.

Really? You think that just because you attach a trendy word (racism) to a policy, it is inherrently unjust? In the words of my ancestors, poppycock.

I could sit here all week and argue over whether AA is an appropriate response to past and present insitutional racism or historic injustices. But really, I don't need to, because the truth is that yes, AA is a somewhat "easy" way to achieve the goal of increased minority representation in higher education and medicine specifically. This is a good thing. The fact that a couple mediocre white students don't get into med school, while a couple mediocre minority students do, is really of no consequence in my mind.

The fact remains: All-white doctors = bad, increased minority representation = good. We, as a society, have generally agreed that Affirmative Action is an appropriate way to achieve this goal, your pseudo-principled & jingoistic arguments not withstanding.

 

[Tired]

However, it's only a stop gap measure. It only increases minority enrollment artificially and not by very much in terms of absolute numbers. Instead of 1% African American enrollment, you might get 4% with AA. But to achieve 12% (or a number close to the actual proportion of African Americans in the general population), you need to take the measures I outlined in my original post.

This is true, of course. But in the mean time that we attempt to alter the underlying fabric of our society (educational improvements, anti-poverty measures, etc), we need more minority doctors now. AA helps with that. Also consider the beneficial effects of more minority role models in medicine for potential future doctors.

And then there is all of the side effects which aren't necessarily reflected in the statistics of minority enrollment. These include all of the lawsuits by ORMs over "reverse discrimination," the questioning of whether a URM got into med school by his own merits or by AA, the higher percentage of incompetent doctors produced by schools with higher percentages of URMs (namely, HBC's), etc. It's a lot to sacrifice just to get a couple of extra URM's into med school.

Again, I hate this argument. The "backlash" effect will occur regardless of the state of the law. A lack of AA will also spawn lawsuits with charges of discrimination. And questioning the achievements of minority students is a non-issue in my mind, and I fail to see a "negative" in this.

And I take a little issue with this notion that AA policies produce a higher proportion of "incompetent" doctors. These students, regardless of how they got in, are still subject to the same licensing examinations and academic hurdles as anyone else. In my mind, the only difference between the students who barely get in under AA policies, and those who are excluded, is their race.

 

[Lests55]

This country has an enormous disparity in opportunity and healthcare. Look at Sandra O'Connor's arguments in the supreme court case (sorry, don't know which one). She says the best scenario is not to need affirmative action because all ethnicities have equal opportunities. This is clearly not the case, and this is one manner to solve it. This problem needs fixing. It worked for inequality between men and women's rights...

 

[Chuckwalla]

I love this argument, because it sounds so altruistic, but really has zero substance whatsoever.

Why choose poverty as the underlying cause? Why not pick, say, poor public schools, or institutional racism, or culture-biased tests? How about higher crime rates in minority communities?

Poverty is the source of pretty much all of those, genius.

Or is your argument just a more palatable way to deny minorities admission to medical school ("Sorry about the racism 20 years ago, but letting you into med school now would be racist.")

Really? You think that just because you attach a trendy word (racism) to a policy, it is inherrently unjust? In the words of my ancestors, poppycock.

You dare support your racist policies by demonizing me? Holding me responsible and associating me with the discrimination by other whites because I happen to be white is pure racism. If you debate that than you are just an opportunist fighting racism when it is convenient for you.

 

[Chuckwalla]

I always find it ironic when attempts to correct past injustices are labeled as "racism" by those attempting to keep minorities out of certain fields.

Let me be clear, I am not impressed by your charge that I am "racist" or that I am supporting "racist policies". In fact, let me go one step further: Feel free to describe Affirmative Action as "racist policies", I am happy to embrace that label.

You see, your lack of nuance is blinding you to my real point. I'm not interested in fighting racism; I'm interested in increasing minority representation in medicine. This is a tangible social good for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to): providing role models for minority youth, reflecting our social makeup in prestigious fields, bringing a diversity of cultural viewpoints into medical practice, correcting historical injustices that resulted in our current majority-white physician force, etc.

It requires little thought to spout off catch phrases ("Racism is bad in all circumstances"), as you have adequately proved. And please recall, I am not holding you responsible for the injustices other whites committed, I'm just saying you may have to pay the price for it. Oh well, too bad so sad, guess you should have had a higher MCAT score.

You may be comfortable with a "fair" admissions system that results in a lilly-white med student corps. Fortunately, I and most others are not, which is why race will continue to play a role in the admissions process.

Never had someone confirm what I was saying so easily. At least you admit to being a racist. While you are at it just admit you just as bad as the people who blamed Japanese Americans for the actions of Japan during WWII or the ones who discriminate against all Muslims because of the actions of a few. It's the same ideology, if you think otherwise you are just fooling yourself.

 

[Chuckwalla]

Not the brightest crayon in the box, are you?

Generally, issues of importance require more thought than mindlessly bandying about catch phrases and making inappropriate historical comparisons. Unfortunately, you seem to have missed the boat.

Congratulations on your complete inability to grasp a coherent argument.

Somewhere a bunch of intelligent anti-AA SDN users are shaking their heads, thinking, "Good God, why couldn't this kid have been pro-Affirmative Action?!"

Personal insults and unfounded dismissal of my arguments? Nice, at least I had substance. You are pulling stuff out you learned when you still used crayons. Heck maybe you still do, it wouldn't suprise me.

 

[heathen]

I'll just draw from my own experiences. I immigrated to the US about 5 years ago, and I am Asian Indian (Technically, I am not from India). I am financially disadvantaged. But, I am not a URM and I am not complaining. Because, often it is not about financial resources, but "motivational resources."

As someone already has pointed out, URM that later on to become physicians can become role models for the youth which is very important. Because, my friend from HS who is black and currently applying to dental schools, has not had the same resources in terms of family support, proper motivation, and role models. Naturally, his GPA is not as high as me. It's not because he's not as smart or he doesn't work as hard, but because he hasn't had a strong educational background. He wanted to be a basketball player... There must be precedence that motivated the young generation and shows that something can be achieved through hard work, by overcoming whatever obstacles. Someone who opposes A.A. has mentioned why not just strengthen our primary and secondary education? Well, it is being done. But, at the some time, we need to have a fair representation of people from all backgrounds in all facets of life.

I'll try to put a different (maybe, unrelated) perspective on these issues. If you look at third world countries around the world, you'll find that almost all these countries were colonized at one point or another, where higher education was denied to the natives. And, the consequences are still as evident as ever - they are third world countries...

You have to level the playing field. And, as people have already mentioned, if you believe you are truly underprivileged, you can always declare yourself as such on AMCAS (I haven't, because I don't believe I am). Maybe after 400 years of A.A., you can complain...

I am not a very good writer, so I ramble a lot. Hopefully, I'll try to put my thought more coherently in my next posts

 

[Noeljan]

George bush being white has done NOTHING for me I wish it would

 

[BarrySanders]

According to the AAMC data, there were 1187 blacks matriculating into medical school last year. Are you saying that the 300 or so that matriculate into Howard, Meharry, and Morehouse substantially bring down the overall stats for the the overall 1187 when AAMC data supports that the average MCAT and GPA scores for blacks is on par with the averages we see at the three Historically black schools anyway?

Well, let's break this down. Statistically speaking you cannot say that the average MCAT and GPA scores for blacks is on par with the averages at these 3 schools because the matriculants at these three schools are Included in the national data for average MCAT and GPA scores for blacks. The only way that you could prove this would be to compare the averages for those that matriculated to these three schools vs. those that matriculated to all the rest of the schools. This is why I'm saying that including the matriculants to these three schools Lowers the average. In statistics, if you have 1187 participants, removing 300 participants from the data will significantly change the data. Since the average scores at these three schools are around 24 and 25, then that means that a bulk of scores are around the avg, some scores are lower (22s, 23s), some scores are higher (26s,27s, 28s which are still lower than national avgs), including these matriculants Will indeed lower the national average. Am I saying that if you remove this data then the avg for the rest of the black matriculants will shoot to 30? No. But that is not my point. Im just saying that the inclusion of the scores of the matriculants at these 3 schools lowers the national avg for Black matriculants.

 

[Cirrus83]

I don't want to get into this AA debate (yet again btw). But as a matter of principle I don't think the concept of race is a good idea at all. For one thing, you do realize that the races are completely arbitrary right? As in, someone basically just made up the races just based on how people sorta look similar.

And back in the day the English would trash the Irish race as inferior dirty pigs, so where you draw the line for race is really up to you.

Anyways, that said, obviously people have similar cultural heritages, but I don't like the concept of race itself. Plus, as you all well know, it would lump a Nigerian immigrant into the same race as someone descended from African-American slaves, whereas a more cultural heritage based system wouldn't.

In reality, I don't think we should acknowledge the flawed concept of race at all. It's arbitrary crap, and to use race at all as a criteria is inherently racist, as every person should be considered for their own merits and their own background. This is not to say that we shouldn't value our cultural heritage though, but that doesn't mean you have to have a race to value it.

Furthermore, if people actually have "interracial" marriages (yes I put it in quotes because I refuse to give the idea of race even that much credibility), over the next hundred years or so you'll have many many many people that don't belong to any particular current category of "race". So you can either stick with this *****ic concept and start making up new races (see US usage of Hispanic) for every combination, or maybe GIVE UP THE WHOLE STUPID IDEA.

Seriously when there's 1/8 east asian, 1/8 south asian, 1/8 eastern european, 1/8 anglo-saxon, 1/8 american indian, 1/8 east african, 1/8 persian, 1/8 atlantean people everywhere you'll feel like a total tool trying to use your idea of race. On top of which you'll make people feel like crap anyway if you insist on continuing to put so much weight on race.

Funny thing is that my extended family is pretty much a stellar example of this coming into play...we're Chinese and so far I have one cousin who married someone who's Chinese, one cousin who married someone who's a caucasian American, one cousin who married someone who's Korean, one cousin who married someone who's Indian (of the Asian variety), and then another 2 cousins who are Thai married a caucasian Canadian, and an African-Canadian. (yes I know it sounds like a contradiction that they're Thai, but it's not and no I will not elaborate)

Point is, get over the idea of race, it's nonsense.

P.S. Seriously, I almost want to go marry someone who's an American Indian, just so our family will have even more insane amounts of diversity. Then all I really need is my brother to marry someone from the middle east or something, and I think we'll pretty much have all our bases covered, woohoo. Seriously that'd be one dope family reunion if I could somehow swing it, lol.

And yeah maybe I'm a little bit of an idealist, but screw it. There's just too much hypocrisy in continuing to use the idea of race in trying to combat racism. Really, without race there can't even be racism, only cultural heritagism, which one could argue wouldn't be as serious simply due to the diffusion of power (as there would be more differing cultural heritages).

Plus, we can finally have some new american ethnicities for people who've lived in some state for the last bazillion generations. Really, even by town. Then we could make up cool new names for all our new ethnicities. It'd be quite fun really.

 

[BarrySanders]

And also while Im at it, ill repost this again since many people arent reading it or simply chose not to respond to it the first time around:

Why doesnt everyone just stop rambling off their opinions and actually go ask your local friendly dean of medical admissions or admissions committee member about the subject. They will tell you that unless you are talking about the HBCU medical schools, JUST being an URM does not give you that large of an advantage. Everybody is so quick to point out the stats about the discrepancy between Black scores and White scores but the Majority of the Black applicants with these lower scores are matriculating to the HBCU medical schools, which are schools which most of you who argue against urms would never think of attending. Everyones always talking about well you should put things in your personal statement, or non-urm students who are disadvantaged should also receive a boost. Well, from my own experience and after talking to my local friendly dean of medical admissions, there is a section on the AMCAS where ANYBODY and EVERYBODY who feels that they were disadvantaged may say so, and if it is sincere than they will indeed be given extra consideration (whether you are white, black, hispanic, indian etc.) That said, Please stop giving the example that if you're a white applicant who grew up underserved in an inner city that you won't receive extra consideration because you are not an urm, that is FAlse. You have the opportunity like everybody else to mark down that you are disadvantaged. If you are in the admissions process you have probably heard a million times that committees try to look at more than gpa and mcat. So why is there a question of whether not urms will go back to underserved or not? More than likely adcoms are not assuming that, the applicant has clearly showed his/her dedication to working with underserved populations through the personal statement and other activities, which a white applicant has the same chance to do. But since people are so caught up on merely stats, why don't we just ask the aamc to come out with stats for applicants who claim disadvantaged status versus those that don't. The reason that people blow up about urms is because that stat is available while the disadvantaged stat is not available. But like i said before, many urms are attending schools that many closed-minded people would never consider. Then lets look a little deeper. Black or white, even if you are disadvantaged (and you deserve extra consideration like most people say), there are still some in that category who have stellar stats regardless and we really need to stop assuming that they got in with lower stats. If a White applicant gets in with lower stats than you are you going to say they stole your spot as well?

 

[xylem29]

I don't want to get into this AA debate (yet again btw). But as a matter of principle I don't think the concept of race is a good idea at all. For one thing, you do realize that the races are completely arbitrary right? As in, someone basically just made up the races just based on how people sorta look similar.

And back in the day the English would trash the Irish race as inferior dirty pigs, so where you draw the line for race is really up to you.

Anyways, that said, obviously people have similar cultural heritages, but I don't like the concept of race itself. Plus, as you all well know, it would lump a Nigerian immigrant into the same race as someone descended from African-American slaves, whereas a more cultural heritage based system wouldn't.

In reality, I don't think we should acknowledge the flawed concept of race at all. It's arbitrary crap, and to use race at all as a criteria is inherently racist, as every person should be considered for their own merits and their own background. This is not to say that we shouldn't value our cultural heritage though, but that doesn't mean you have to have a race to value it.

Furthermore, if people actually have "interracial" marriages (yes I put it in quotes because I refuse to give the idea of race even that much credibility), over the next hundred years or so you'll have many many many people that don't belong to any particular current category of "race". So you can either stick with this *****ic concept and start making up new races (see US usage of Hispanic) for every combination, or maybe GIVE UP THE WHOLE STUPID IDEA.

Seriously when there's 1/8 east asian, 1/8 south asian, 1/8 eastern european, 1/8 anglo-saxon, 1/8 american indian, 1/8 east african, 1/8 persian, 1/8 atlantean people everywhere you'll feel like a total tool trying to use your idea of race. On top of which you'll make people feel like crap anyway if you insist on continuing to put so much weight on race.

Funny thing is that my extended family is pretty much a stellar example of this coming into play...we're Chinese and so far I have one cousin who married someone who's Chinese, one cousin who married someone who's a caucasian American, one cousin who married someone who's Korean, one cousin who married someone who's Indian (of the Asian variety), and then another 2 cousins who are Thai married a caucasian Canadian, and an African-Canadian. (yes I know it sounds like a contradiction that they're Thai, but it's not and no I will not elaborate)

Point is, get over the idea of race, it's nonsense.

P.S. Seriously, I almost want to go marry someone who's an American Indian, just so our family will have even more insane amounts of diversity. Then all I really need is my brother to marry someone from the middle east or something, and I think we'll pretty much have all our bases covered, woohoo. Seriously that'd be one dope family reunion if I could somehow swing it, lol.

And yeah maybe I'm a little bit of an idealist, but screw it. There's just too much hypocrisy in continuing to use the idea of race in trying to combat racism. Really, without race there can't even be racism, only cultural heritagism, which one could argue wouldn't be as serious simply due to the diffusion of power (as there would be more differing cultural heritages).

Plus, we can finally have some new american ethnicities for people who've lived in some state for the last bazillion generations. Really, even by town. Then we could make up cool new names for all our new ethnicities. It'd be quite fun really.

This is way too idealistic and even if you think that race is arbitrary crap - isn't almost everything that we've created fake, meaningless, and crap???

For the most part, even if something is meaningless and fake - such as race - it is still "real" and still affects our society. Thai is not a race and neither is Korean. These are ethnicities - if you want to talk about race, you can talk about negroid, caucasoid, and mongoloid races.

And it doesn't matter what will happen over generations of mixing - because race as a social construct depends entirely on how you look, not on what is in your blood. So you are correct in assuming that society will just end up labelling new "races" in the future if there are any.

Saying that without race there would be no racism is true - but it is also impossible. There are superficial differences amongst human beings - and we've decided to categorize these differences as "race"...so in order for your idea of "without race there would be no racism" to work, there would have to be essentially no physical diversity amongst the human race.

And not to sound cynical - but just as there is diversity in physical appearnaces amongst us, there is also diversity in intelligence levels - face it, the masses and what we call "society" is too dumb to understand your ideas about how stupid race is...some people need to have "race" in their lives...

 

[1Path]

take AA away and there will be no minority doctors because you haven't realized yet that the problem begins in KINDERGARTEN.

I volunteer at my daughter's school in one of the wealthiest counties in the US. Yet, minority kids at her so called "good school" suffer in some cases far WORSE problems than those in inner city schools. Dress it up, put perfum on it, it doesn't change the stink of educational racism which begins in Kindergarten. By the time a good number of minority kids reach high school, their potential to do well enough in school to get into college and med school without AA has long sense be destroyed.

Among my educated friends the majority of which like myself also have graduate and professional degrees, we jokingly say that the public school system tells us that gregarious minority kids are labelled as needing ritalin and quite ones are "slow". And from that "background" which begin 16 years ago, comes a future 3.9 GPA and a 34 MCAT? Yeah right!

 

[Ryo-Ohki]

I volunteer at my daughter's school in one of the wealthiest counties in the US. Yet, minority kids at her so called "good school" suffer in some cases far WORSE problems than those in inner city schools. Dress it up, put perfum on it, it doesn't change the stink of educational racism which begins in Kindergarten. By the time a good number of minority kids reach high school, their potential to do well enough in school to get into college and med school without AA has long sense be destroyed.

Among my educated friends the majority of which like myself also have graduate and professional degrees, we jokingly say that the public school system tells us that gregarious minority kids are labelled as needing ritalin and quite ones are "slow". And from that "background" which begin 16 years ago, comes a future 3.9 GPA and a 34 MCAT? Yeah right!

So what did you say to those teachers when you stopped their harmful educational racism?

You did stop their racist abuse of children, right?

 

[1Path]

So what did you say to those teachers when you stopped their harmful educational racism?You did stop their racist abuse of children, right?

What I did besides being VERY vocal about the "issues" on school committes, was write an article to the Washington Post which WAS followed up on and resulted in an examination of a few school systems in the DC area in regards to the glaring disparities in education even in wealthy communities. And irronically ~ 1 year later, my daughter's school principle SPECIFICALLY created programs whereby the unique issues of minority kids were/are addressed by his staff.

The result? This school now has more minoirty kids placed on the educational track that leads to college ie advanced classes in middle school, than it has EVER had.

So here's what people like YOU need to know. I you screw around with MY babies, and all minority and/or underprivilidged kids are "mine", you'd better damn well be prepared to not only have my foot up your arse about it in the form of my very vocal participation on school committees. But you'd better also be ready to deal with the political backlash of such taking such a position.

Bottom line is that "the racist abuse of children" will never stop as long as people lile YOU are still around.

 

[Chuckwalla]

I volunteer at my daughter's school in one of the wealthiest counties in the US. Yet, minority kids at her so called "good school" suffer in some cases far WORSE problems than those in inner city schools. Dress it up, put perfum on it, it doesn't change the stink of educational racism which begins in Kindergarten. By the time a good number of minority kids reach high school, their potential to do well enough in school to get into college and med school without AA has long sense be destroyed.

Among my educated friends the majority of which like myself also have graduate and professional degrees, we jokingly say that the public school system tells us that gregarious minority kids are labelled as needing ritalin and quite ones are "slow". And from that "background" which begin 16 years ago, comes a future 3.9 GPA and a 34 MCAT? Yeah right!

It's not so much minority kids that are thrown on ritalin but boys that are. Males are falling behind in education and it is worse among minority males. Some colleges are actually using a sort of affirmative action for men to try to keep some sense of balance.

Do I believe in affirmative action for men? No, it is a treating a symptom and not treating a problem.

Whether you agree with affirmative action or not you should have the goal. To get rid of the problem the problem affirmative action is trying to address. Minorities are generally disadvantaged and we should try to get them to the point that they don't need it. Affirmative action should just a temporary fix until the actual problem can be addressed. Now I am not saying it is in anyway easy but progress can be made.

 

[Ryo-Ohki]

What I did besides being VERY vocal about the "issues" on school committes, was write an article to the Washington Post which WAS followed up on and resulted in an examination of a few school systems in the DC area in regards to the glaring disparities in education even in wealthy communities. And irronically ~ 1 year later, my daughter's school principle SPECIFICALLY created programs whereby the unique issues of minority kids were/are addressed by his staff.

The result? This school now has more minoirty kids placed on the educational track that leads to college ie advanced classes in middle school, than it has EVER had.

So here's what people like YOU need to know. I you screw around with MY babies, and all minority and/or underprivilidged kids are "mine", you'd better damn well be prepared to not only have my foot up your arse about it in the form of my very vocal participation on school committees. But you'd better also be ready to deal with the political backlash of such taking such a position.

Bottom line is that "the racist abuse of children" will never stop as long as people lile YOU are still around.

That's terrific. I'm glad to hear that your daughter will have the future ability to score a 34 on the MCAT. Since their potential to do well enough in school to get into college and med school without AA has been restored, I gather your daughter and her minority classmates will not be participating in Affirmative Action in college admissions.

I dare say that your parental attitude is not unique. Any parent, minority, non-minority, rich or otherwise wants the best for their children. The wealthier ones have more power to change the educational system. For example, the wealthy minority parents of Shaker Heights, Ohio hired a consultant to find out why their kids were scoring so much lower than their peers.

If there is "educational racism", parents can and have stopped it before it did irreparable harm to their children. You have not presented a compelling reason why wealthy minority students should receive Affirmative Action in college admissions.

 

[Cirrus83]

Saying that without race there would be no racism is true - but it is also impossible. There are superficial differences amongst human beings - and we've decided to categorize these differences as "race"...so in order for your idea of "without race there would be no racism" to work, there would have to be essentially no physical diversity amongst the human race.

Of course, I also pointed out that we'd keep cultural heritages.
And yes, I know the major "race" categories as used today, I just don't care for them so I didn't bother pointing them out.

Anyways, there is a theory though, that there wouldn't be sexism if there were more sexes that took into account all sorts of gender/sex combinations or something. Basically you'd make there be more categories, so that no particular category could be enough of a majority to discriminate against the others. I dunno if it would work but it does seem to have some intuitive sense to it.

So if you got rid of the race categories, yes people would still clump together, but if it wasn't as broad then there wouldn't be as much power concentrated in any one group's hands, since there simply aren't as many people of Polish descent in the US as there are "caucasians".

But anyways, I don't know if your idea that people will simply make new race categories as the look of people changes is going to happen. I sincerely hope not lol.

 

[1Path]

You have not presented a compelling reason why wealthy minority students should receive Affirmative Action in college admissions.

And I'm not trying to. Wealth is no guarentee is ANYTHING for a person of color in the US and it's especially NOT a "cloak of protection" against racism, never has been and NEVER will be.

More than that, I simply don't have time to waste explaining it. I have an affirmative action Cancer Pharm exam to study for. But I'm curious, how many extra points do you think I'll get on it for being black?

 

[Cirrus83]

The fact is that our American culture and socioeconomic institutions continue to employ traditional notions of "Black", "White", "Asian", and "Latino". It remains a factor in every facet of life in this country, regardless of whether or not you want to acknowledge reality. As long as this fact remains true, attempting to ignore race is tantamount to accepting its negative impact on large segments of our fellow Americans. This is no less true just because you choose adopt pseudo-scientific language in your analysis.

You may want to consider yourself an "idealist" for dismissing it out of hand, but I consider you willfully blind.

lol, I never said that I don't acknowledge reality, but I'm pointing out that the reality is based on arbitrary crap. And the fact that you prefer to continue the current system is what's really continuing the negative impact on people.

Your views just gives the real racists strength (I mean the real nutjob kind you'll find at stormfront, the national alliance members, the KKK members, etc.).

There's no psuedo-science in my language, race is the real pseudo-science here. There's nothing scientific at all about categorizing people based on their skin pigmentation, then making broad generalizations about people using it.

It just leads to ridiculous generalizations about everything from IQ to how much tears your tear ducts create. Point is, it doesn't MATTER what the average IQ of your "race" is, or how many tears the average person in your "race" produces a day, because there is SO MUCH OVERLAP that you should ALWAYS treat everyone as an individual.

Seriously, that's like telling a 6' tall person that the average height for their race is 5'9". How in the world is this information helpful?

So fine, the average black person in the US today may not have as many resources as people from other races tend to, but that's just the AVERAGE. There's also plenty of poor whites, asians, half-white half-hawaiian, etc people who also lack resources, and using race is a lousy way of dealing with these problems that only promotes racism.

Just look at how much anger AA can stir up in a predominantly upper-middle class filled forum like SDN. Maybe you can't see it, but amongst people who AREN'T from such nice backgrounds it just plain stirs up racism, not just heated forum debates.

If you think you can honestly fight racism by continuing to reinforce the idea of race through things like AA, you're the delusionial one, not me. Maybe I'm being an idealist, but my way also happens to be the only real way that racism would ever go away-when we stop supporting it at an institutional level.

Did you ever think that maybe the educational gap for poor white males is actually quite ridiculously large too? Perhaps unsurprisingly they're also the ones that you'll find making up the majority of the hardcore racists. Yeah I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

You take away race and you take away this divisive bull****. And I'm *NOT* saying that we shouldn't help people who are disadvantaged overcome their backgrounds. Not at all.

I once told Iris Chang that she was being a hypocrite in drawing a race line between asians and caucasians, because she had just prior blasted the Japanese for considering the Chinese a separate race, right before making it sound as if the current racial groups had any more logic or credibility to them. They're both equally stupid and arbitrary, just happens that the Japanese took it a little further. And I respected her for most other things, but I still had to call her out on it.

Calling me willfully blind is a little unneccessary-I obviously know how race is used in our society, just because I don't want to continue supporting such a harmful concept doesn't make me an idiot.

When not absolutely neccessary, I always make sure not to bother checking off any racial categories on forms (or I'll check Other). Seriously, why do they need to know if I'm an "Asian/Pacific-Islander" when I'm filling out my Resident Adviser's evaluation?!? If s/he was a racist I'd either have complained already or just written it in the comments, how does me checking off my "race" help anybody?! Plus there's only like 8 people who live on a hall anyway, how the hell does this racial data help anybody? On a more humorous note, I bought a T-shirt with a checkbox checked off next to the word Other, although most people end up thinking the checkbox with a check in it is an M, and ask me why I have T-shirt that says MOther, lol.

Since so many people are going to be Others soon anyway (unless you believe the races shouldn't intermarry...in which case you have serious problems), you might as well join in on the fun now and declare your non-belief in race.

 

[Ryo-Ohki]

And I'm not trying to. Wealth is no guarentee is ANYTHING for a person of color in the US and it's especially NOT a "cloak of protection" against racism, never has been and NEVER will be.

More than that, I simply don't have time to waste explaining it. I have an affirmative action Cancer Pharm exam to study for. But I'm curious, how many extra points do you think I'll get on it for being black?

Well, since you favor Affirmative Action, how many extra points do you think you should receive?

I have the formula sheet for the University of Michigan undergrad admissions, if you want to derive a calculation for that particular school.

 

[xylem29]

I don't want to get into this AA debate (yet again btw). But as a matter of principle I don't think the concept of race is a good idea at all. For one thing, you do realize that the races are completely arbitrary right? As in, someone basically just made up the races just based on how people sorta look similar.

And back in the day the English would trash the Irish race as inferior dirty pigs, so where you draw the line for race is really up to you.

Anyways, that said, obviously people have similar cultural heritages, but I don't like the concept of race itself. Plus, as you all well know, it would lump a Nigerian immigrant into the same race as someone descended from African-American slaves, whereas a more cultural heritage based system wouldn't.

In reality, I don't think we should acknowledge the flawed concept of race at all. It's arbitrary crap, and to use race at all as a criteria is inherently racist, as every person should be considered for their own merits and their own background. This is not to say that we shouldn't value our cultural heritage though, but that doesn't mean you have to have a race to value it.

Furthermore, if people actually have "interracial" marriages (yes I put it in quotes because I refuse to give the idea of race even that much credibility), over the next hundred years or so you'll have many many many people that don't belong to any particular current category of "race". So you can either stick with this *****ic concept and start making up new races (see US usage of Hispanic) for every combination, or maybe GIVE UP THE WHOLE STUPID IDEA.

Seriously when there's 1/8 east asian, 1/8 south asian, 1/8 eastern european, 1/8 anglo-saxon, 1/8 american indian, 1/8 east african, 1/8 persian, 1/8 atlantean people everywhere you'll feel like a total tool trying to use your idea of race. On top of which you'll make people feel like crap anyway if you insist on continuing to put so much weight on race.

Funny thing is that my extended family is pretty much a stellar example of this coming into play...we're Chinese and so far I have one cousin who married someone who's Chinese, one cousin who married someone who's a caucasian American, one cousin who married someone who's Korean, one cousin who married someone who's Indian (of the Asian variety), and then another 2 cousins who are Thai married a caucasian Canadian, and an African-Canadian. (yes I know it sounds like a contradiction that they're Thai, but it's not and no I will not elaborate)

Point is, get over the idea of race, it's nonsense.

P.S. Seriously, I almost want to go marry someone who's an American Indian, just so our family will have even more insane amounts of diversity. Then all I really need is my brother to marry someone from the middle east or something, and I think we'll pretty much have all our bases covered, woohoo. Seriously that'd be one dope family reunion if I could somehow swing it, lol.

And yeah maybe I'm a little bit of an idealist, but screw it. There's just too much hypocrisy in continuing to use the idea of race in trying to combat racism. Really, without race there can't even be racism, only cultural heritagism, which one could argue wouldn't be as serious simply due to the diffusion of power (as there would be more differing cultural heritages).

I find it hard to believe that you can actually be completely blind to "race" - and these statements in bold demonstrate that. Are you telling me that you will concisouly make an effort to marry someone who is not Chinese? Doesn't that contradict your ideals? How can you say things such as seeing people as individuals and then say things like this?

Furthermore, can you tell me with 100% certainty that you can control your sub-conscious (which is supposed to be uncontrollable, since you're not supposed to be "aware" or "conscious" of it) and NOT see Jimmy (who would be considered "black" for instance) as black? I mean, I too see others as individuals but I find it very difficult to break free from my social conditioning and see Jimmy as merely Jimmy the guy instead of Jimmy the black guy. You say that you refuse to follow society's silly notions of race but I find it hard to believe that anyone can do that - the only time I recall myself as being completely oblivious to race was when I was a child - but part of growing up in our society, is becoming race conscious - I have NO CLUE how this happens, I don't know if it is a natural thing or a social thing, but I know that it happened right around the time I was in grade 6-8.

 

[xylem29]

Of course, I also pointed out that we'd keep cultural heritages.
And yes, I know the major "race" categories as used today, I just don't care for them so I didn't bother pointing them out.

Anyways, there is a theory though, that there wouldn't be sexism if there were more sexes that took into account all sorts of gender/sex combinations or something. Basically you'd make there be more categories, so that no particular category could be enough of a majority to discriminate against the others. I dunno if it would work but it does seem to have some intuitive sense to it.

So if you got rid of the race categories, yes people would still clump together, but if it wasn't as broad then there wouldn't be as much power concentrated in any one group's hands, since there simply aren't as many people of Polish descent in the US as there are "caucasians".

But anyways, I don't know if your idea that people will simply make new race categories as the look of people changes is going to happen. I sincerely hope not lol.

Not a good example dude/dudette - in your example about sexism, you said that more categories would eliminate sexism b/c it spreads the influence and reduces the amount of influence from one particular category (this is the same idea behind pluralist society's and democracy btw)...so wouldn't a multicultural and multiracial society serve to reduce racism? HO HO - you missed that one!! lol

 

[Instatewaiter]

Im just saying that the inclusion of the scores of the matriculants at these 3 schools lowers the national avg for Black matriculants.

Honestly not that much.

I don't know the average for the HBCs but let's assume they are very low (a 22). Let's also assume that combined they have 400 students/year.

So crunching the numbers you realize that the scores jump all the way up to a 26.5. WOW. The argument that the HBCs really bring down the nat'l black average is bunk. Stop using it.

 

[1Path]

Well, since you favor Affirmative Action, how many extra points do you think you should receive?.

You ASSume because I'm a minority, I must need points in the first place which makes you a racist jerk in my book.

But that's OK. Success TRULY is the best revenge!!

 

[turkleton]

...I'm a big first amendment supporter, so as far as I'm concerned folks can think and say whatever the hell they want.

That's why I put zero stock in this "AA stirs people up" argument. That's not an argument against Affirmative Action at all, any more than it used to be an argument against civil rights. The backlash against a policy is not an argument against a policy itself. All positive movements have naysayers; their existence has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of the movement itself.

What I am interested in, and the true point of Affirmative Action, is increasing minority representation in higher education and professional careers. You think race is "pseudo-science"? Maybe you're right, but again, I don't really care. Race, whatever its basis or lack thereof, continues to be a powerful force in society, and as such, we have to acknowledge its existence. The fact that even the anti-AA folks talk about alternative strategies to increase minority representation in medicine is, in my mind, a tacit acknowledgement that (1) Race is operative in our society, and (2) Increasing minority representation in fields like medicine is a good thing.

That being said, nothing works better than Affirmative Action. All the other "ideas" to get more minorities in medicine are really just vague generalizations, and things we should be doing anyway (better education, etc). As long as students admitted under these programs are held to the same standards of licensing examinations and graduation requirements, they are qualified physicians. So what's the problem?

Thank you for a reasonable post amongst a myriad of confusing ones and some asinine ones. In general, I typically avoid SDN threads which use solely inflamed emotions to unravel unbelievably complex socioeconomic issues tied to a past and future which the great majority are unaware of. Most unnerving is the singly, unimpressive overhyped, overused, but rarer than an albino zebra scenario of "I'm not a minority/I'm also under-privileged/I'm in a very competitive minority, had similar scores as a URM and didn't get in... it's not fair."

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Far and away those who deserve to get into to medical school do (perhaps not on the first shot), and those who don't do not- and it is these who replay the same hackneyed scene from above to an audience which is tired of hearing it. While everyone acknowledges the necessity of having a physician community which at least in part has the diversity to make comfortable and reflect a extremely diverse population there are a great many threads up in arms as to why/how this is done and why it screwed up their lives. If you didn't get into your dream school, but got in to a school, shutup. If you didn't get in to any school it's not because the black/hispanic kid down the street played coy with his race card- it's because you didn't deserve to get in- this time. So many blame URM's for using AA as a crutch to get in. I'm sick of hearing those who were denied use AA as a crutch as to validate their rejection.

 

[Instatewaiter]

You ASSume because I'm a minority, I must need points in the first place which makes you a racist jerk in my book.

But that's OK. Success TRULY is the best revenge!!

I might be confusing you with someone else here but, aren't you in an MD/PhD program with a 29 MCAT?

 

[JohnMadden]

I might be confusing you with someone else here but, aren't you in an MD/PhD program with a 29 MCAT?

Is this statement implying that they don't deserve to be in the MD/PhD program with this score? I think that's rude. The MCAT is only one component of one's application. A 29 still means that they scored higher than 2/3 to 3/4 than all test takers.

I propose that all 1st and 2nd year med students wear a t-shirt with their MCAT scores. After that, everyone should have scrubs or white coats with their MCAT and Step I score embroidered on the chest.

 

[BarrySanders]

Honestly not that much.

I don't know the average for the HBCs but let's assume they are very low (a 22). Let's also assume that combined they have 400 students/year.

So crunching the numbers you realize that the scores jump all the way up to a 26.5. WOW. The argument that the HBCs really bring down the nat'l black average is bunk. Stop using it.

...Yeah,i guess u just did the math huh? Pick up a stats book.

 

[1Path]

I might be confusing you with someone else here but, aren't you in an MD/PhD program with a 29 MCAT?

This is actually an interesting comment because the fact is that AA/URM discussions are very rarely mentioned in the MD/PhD forum. And in my 5 years on SDN, I can only recall one that was negative. So I guess it must be true that people who are VERY smart, confident, talented, and intelligent, don't worry themselves over the credentials of others because MD/PhD type applicants? Well, their **** is almost always tight like that! Yeah!

And FYI, I don't think you have me mixed up 'cause we all LOOK alike. I'm just the same ol, typical minority MD/PhD applicant (there are literally THOUSANDS of us on the interview trail every year) trying to get a break from "da man"!

 

[Ryo-Ohki]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Far and away those who deserve to get into to medical school do (perhaps not on the first shot), and those who don't do not- and it is these who replay the same hackneyed scene from above to an audience which is tired of hearing it. While everyone acknowledges the necessity of having a physician community which at least in part has the diversity to make comfortable and reflect a extremely diverse population there are a great many threads up in arms as to why/how this is done and why it screwed up their lives. If you didn't get into your dream school, but got in to a school, shutup. If you didn't get in to any school it's not because the black/hispanic kid down the street played coy with his race card- it's because you didn't deserve to get in- this time. So many blame URM's for using AA as a crutch to get in. I'm sick of hearing those who were denied use AA as a crutch as to validate their rejection.

People do not want something they have had no control over to be used against them in the admissions process. Is that not a valid complaint?

 

[Ryo-Ohki]

...Yeah,i guess u just did the math huh? Pick up a stats book.

Please enlighten us. What is the difference between the average with HBCs and without?