The Blatant Racism Behind Affirmative Action Opposition

[random1234]

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Why are you confusing Japanese Americans with the Meiji Japan? I like how you criticize the stereotyping of blacks yet you're stereotyping Japanese Americans as militant saboteurs. Irony at its finest.

You seem to flaunt your history knowledge cheerfully, but you may need to refresh your knowledge.

Sorry I meant to say Japanese, not Japanese Americans. That was a typo. Why would Japanese Americans bomb America?

By that logic, you're saying every Muslim person in American should be accountable for 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing?

No, how does that even work? Where did I say Muslim in my post? How did you arrive at that conclusion?

According to the great historian random1234, Americans should despise Britons and Germans, because the former were enslaving us during the colonial era "no taxation wothout representation", and because the latter was cruel to Jews.

No, Britons and Germans did not prevent Americans from going to school, graduating as valedictorians, or attending college.

Edit: British didn't enslave Americans, Americans were already British/European etc who came for religious freedom, run away from their debt, etc. No white American was really forced into slavery...indentured servitude had an end and was a lot more humane than slavery...to compare the two is so ludicrous I don't even have words.

Edit 2: I never said anyone should despise anyone, I am simply stating that Asians were not enslaved and prevented from going to school for 200 years, unlike Africans. You are putting words into my mouth.

 

[dvishh]

Just to throw things around a little bit more. White Irish people were also enslaved in America at one point in time...

 

[midnight0il]

No, how does that even work? Where did I say Muslim in my post? How did you arrive at that conclusion?

You implied that Japanese Americans were responsible, or at least accountable, for what their counterparts in Japan did during Pearl Harbor. (I'm not quite sure since you mixed up Japanese Americans and Meiji Japanese).

Regardless, by your logic, then Muslim Americans would also be responsible for what Muslim extremists have done.

 

[487806]

Sorry I meant to say Japanese, not Japanese Americans. That was a typo. Why would Japanese Americans bomb America?

I don't know. You tell me. You're the one who said it.

No, how does that even work? Where did I say Muslim in my post? How did you arrive at that conclusion?

I take it you're not so good at inferring things. A member was criticizing your argument by structuring a similar argument in regard to Muslims. Your argument is flawed either way.

No, Britons and Germans did not prevent Americans from going to school, graduating as valedictorians, or attending college.

Again. You completely missed the purpose of my statement.

Edit: British didn't enslave Americans, Americans were already British/European etc who came for religious freedom, run away from their debt, etc. No white American was really forced into slavery...indentured servitude had an end and was a lot more humane than slavery...to compare the two is so ludicrous I don't even have words.

Wrong. Before slavery were white indentured servants who worked under contract (and it's not less humane than slavery). Things changed after Bacon's Rebellion. Read more about it if you will.

Edit 2: I never said anyone should despise anyone, I am simply stating that Asians were not enslaved and prevented from going to school for 200 years, unlike Africans. You are putting words into my mouth.

As I mentioned before, Chinese immigrants were discriminated in the 1800s and 1900s when they were in the US offering cheap labor. Chinese Exclusion Act and the increased nativism prevented Chinese (and other Asians) from enjoying education and other benefits that white Americans enjoyed.

Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps in World War II. The conditions are best to be mentioned as slavery, even though it's a forced rehabilitation.

Blacks aren't the only ones deserving sympathy. Native Americans deserve more praise than anyone else, and that's self-explanatory.

See bolded.

 

[deleted393595]

Team Wealthy URM checking in.

Jeeves, go get me Mocha Chai Cappuccino...and don't forget that I have a meeting with the head of admissions at HMS this afternoon to get my underachieving, but fortunately dark-skinned, child entrance into his school. Thank God for affirmative action.

And the guy whose profile photo is of racist White-hating Black terrorist returns.

 

[ichor]

The article forgot to mention the third type of racist prevalent on SDN. Those people who, you know, agree to AA in theory but believe that it's implementation overwhelmingly benefits rich black and Hispanic kids at the expense of poor white applicants. Because, you know, there is an army of wealthy black families routinely having their "less capable" children get accepted while poor white children who worked so hard to get accepted are left in the dust.

That's racist? I have this one friend from high school. His college resume was pretty comparable to mine. We proofread each other's essays as well and I can say they were pretty on-par. His parents and his grandparents were all born in this country and his parents make twice as much money as much money as my parents, immigrants who had to start from scratch in this foreign country.

I'm Asian. He's black. We applied to a similar pool of colleges and he got into a lot more. It's racist for me to claim that it's unfair that he gets an affirmative action preference over me while I grew up a lot more disadvantaged?

No, the system is racist. The system is racist for saying that just because my friend's skin color is black, that he must be disadvantaged in some way. The system is racist for saying that just because my skin color is yellow, that I must be advantaged in some way.

The only logical form of affirmative action is one based on socio-economic status--the strongest indicator of one's success later in life.

This is something that makes the racism blatantly clear to me. It ignores the unique struggles of every ethnicity, and "yellow-washes" all asian applicants into being "probably chinese with a tiger mom". It ignores the fact that groups like Laotions, Hmong, and Cambodians often live in poverty and have a smaller percentage of their population in higher education than even blacks. Remember that the majority of them came to America as refugees only a few decades ago with literally nothing more than the clothes they were wearing.

Yeah, this one definitely sucks big time. I guess it's just another part of the ignorant "all Asians are the same" mentality.

Asian Americans tend to score higher on the SATs nationally and the stereotype

Being Asian on an adcom is also the equivalent of about -200 SAT points. Not even kidding. White is neutral, and you can just guess how many SAT points being black or Hispanic adds.

 

[Lamel]

Uh, if I recall, Japanese Americans bombed the US first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

And they're not that innocent either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

lol WHAT.

How does that make it okay for innocents to be sent to internment camps?

 

[ChemEngMD]

And the guy whose profile photo is of racist White-hating Black terrorist returns.

Bro, do you know anything about Malcolm X? Or do you just talk out of your ass? I'm going to bet that it's the latter. Go read, my brother. Educate yourself before you go labeling Malcolm X as a terrorist...or is it that all Muslims are terrorists to you? 🙄

Side note: I'm mixed race, I love all people 🙂

 

[487806]

Bro, do you know anything about Malcolm X? Or do you just talk out of your ass? I'm going to bet that it's the latter. Go read, my brother. Educate yourself before you go labeling Malcolm X as a terrorist...or is it that all Muslims are terrorists to you? 🙄

Side note: I'm mixed race, I love all people 🙂

Malcolm X is a man of mystery. Support black self-determination and separate blacks from whites. Then after a trip to Mecca, he realized his views were inaccurate, so he decided to support the integrationist philosophy of MLK and Du Bois.

It's pretty sad when today's black culture follows Malcolm X's initial separatist philosophy.

 

[BlackBox]

Just to throw things around a little bit more. White Irish people were also enslaved in America at one point in time...

I honestly didn't know this

 

[SunsFun]

That's racist? I have this one friend from high school. His college resume was pretty comparable to mine. We proofread each other's essays as well and I can say they were pretty on-par. His parents and his grandparents were all born in this country and his parents make twice as much money as much money as my parents, immigrants who had to start from scratch in this foreign country.

I'm Asian. He's black. We applied to a similar pool of colleges and he got into a lot more. It's racist for me to claim that it's unfair that he gets an affirmative action preference over me while I grew up a lot more disadvantaged?

No, the system is racist. The system is racist for saying that just because my friend's skin color is black, that he must be disadvantaged in some way. The system is racist for saying that just because my skin color is yellow, that I must be advantaged in some way.

The only logical form of affirmative action is one based on socio-economic status--the strongest indicator of one's success later in life.

Your "story" is not what usually happens and it's not how affirmative action works. The application is reviewed holistically. Hispanic and black applicants get a boost because: we need more Hispanic and black doctors who can relate better to underserved communities of the same ethnicity, to account for disparity in wealth (not income), and profound cultural stereotyping that makes many black people of all income levels feel less able . The last one is also how many other people of all ethnicities subconsciously look at Hispanics and blacks.

 

[KnowFace]

This has nothing to do with Americans. Africans were directly targeted, enslaved, and had the crap beaten out of them on US soil, by Americans. What other countries do to each other is not a basis for Affirmative Action in the US.

Is the purpose of Affirmative Action to give everyone an equal opportunity for success and prevent discrimination based on race, or is Affirmative Action just meant as a way for white people to apologize to blacks? This may seem like an odd thing to say, but Asian Americans are Americans too. Unfortunately, Asian Americans have for a long time been kept in a perpetual outsider status. An Asian American kid can be born and raised in America, but still be widely regarded as a foreigner.

It might be weird to hear for you, but Spanish speaking Latino patients will feel more comfortable with a Latino physician regardless of how well the White or Asian physician speaks the language (we can tell the difference) and Latino physicians can understand the culture better because we are a part of it. Same thing goes for Black physicians and Native American. You can make the same argument for a Southeast Asian physician returning to his/her community to practice and conducting the majority of his/her business with people of their similar culture/language.

Maybe we should take into consideration that white people feel most comfortable being treated by a white physician. Too many Asian physicians might encroach on their comfort level. It may be a little demoralizing for them to enter a hospital in search of expert counsel, but to only be greeted by a foreign looking face.

 

[ChemEngMD]

Maybe we should take into consideration that white people feel most comfortable being treated by a white physician. Too many Asian physicians might encroach on their comfort level. It may be a little demoralizing for them to enter a hospital in search of expert counsel, but to only be greeted by a foreign looking face.

Dude, you're right....I had never thought of that 🙄 ....last time I checked white people didn't have a history of being used as unknowing test subjects by the medical community.

 

[SunsFun]

Maybe we should take into consideration that white people feel most comfortable being treated by a white physician. Too many Asian physicians might encroach on their comfort level. It may be a little demoralizing for them to enter a hospital in search of expert counsel, but to only be greeted by a foreign looking face.

Yeah because you can't find a white doctor anymore. Asians took all the spots.

 

[deleted393595]

Bro, do you know anything about Malcolm X? Or do you just talk out of your ass? I'm going to bet that it's the latter. Go read, my brother. Educate yourself before you go labeling Malcolm X as a terrorist...or is it that all Muslims are terrorists to you? 🙄

Side note: I'm mixed race, I love all people 🙂

So you're defending a black supremacist then?

The black part of you must hate the other part then. How do you even live with yourself?

 

[ChemEngMD]

So you're defending a black supremacist then?

The black part of you must hate the other part then. How do you even live with yourself?

People change. As Agent B posted...the man may have started out as a black supremacist due to his early life experiences watching his father killed by the klan and what not, but later in life he changed and realized the err of his ways. He was instrumental in making the civil rights movement work...if it wasn't for him being so extreme people wouldn't have gravitated towards MLK...he's important to our country's history.

Y soy Boricua y tengo orgullo por mi sangre de los negros, los espanoles y los tainos.

(I'm Puerto Rican and am proud of my black, spanish and taino blood.)

 

[dreamschool18]

Is the purpose of Affirmative Action to give everyone an equal opportunity for success and prevent discrimination based on race, or is Affirmative Action just meant as a way for white people to apologize to blacks? This may seem like an odd thing to say, but Asian Americans are Americans too. Unfortunately, Asian Americans have for a long time been kept in a perpetual outsider status. An Asian American kid can be born and raised in America, but still be widely regarded as a foreigner.



Maybe we should take into consideration that white people feel most comfortable being treated by a white physician. Too many Asian physicians might encroach on their comfort level. It may be a little demoralizing for them to enter a hospital in search of expert counsel, but to only be greeted by a foreign looking face.

um okay. i also think it would be "demoralizing" for a patient to not get the medical care s/he needs regardless of the physician's race/ethnicity.

i'm sure there are also many Asian patients who "feel most comfortable being treated by" an Asian doctor.

"This may seem like an odd thing to say, but Asian Americans are Americans too." lol wut

 

[LizzyM]

i'm sure there are also many Asian patients who "feel most comfortable being treated by" an Asian doctor.

Well, they are in luck because there are hundreds of Asian doctors to choose from; Asian-Americans are the ultimate in "over-represented in medicine" (ORM). Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[dreamschool18]

Well, they are in luck because there are hundreds of Asian doctors to choose from; Asian-Americans are the ultimate in "over-represented in medicine" (ORM). Not that there's anything wrong with that.

actually, they are the OverRepresented Minority in medicine

but patients don't choose their physician based on race, or race alone, at least

otherwise the whole admissions process would be about matching demographic criteria, eg, since there are X number of __ race, then we should have X number of physicians, because patients of __ race all prefer their own

 

[slopes23]

People change. As Agent B posted...the man may have started out as a black supremacist due to his early life experiences watching his father killed by the klan and what not, but later in life he changed and realized the err of his ways. He was instrumental in making the civil rights movement work...if it wasn't for him being so extreme people wouldn't have gravitated towards MLK...he's important to our country's history.

Y soy Boricua y tengo orgullo por mi sangre de los negros, los espanoles y los tainos.

(I'm Puerto Rican and am proud of my black, spanish and taino blood.)

Were you born in PR or just through you parents? Have you ever lived there?

p.s. - grammar police btw boricua isn't capitalized.

 

[ChemEngMD]

Were you born in PR or just through you parents? Have you ever lived there?

p.s. - grammar police btw boricua isn't capitalized.

Parents...my grammar is horrendous, bro. I'm currently studying so that I can speak more professionally and utilize the Spanish once I get into the clinics in med school 👍

 

[slopes23]

Parents...my grammar is horrendous, bro. I'm currently studying so that I can speak more professionally and utilize the Spanish once I get into the clinics in med school 👍

Awesome, good for you! Put it to good use.

 

[link2swim06]

Race shouldn't even be on the application.

It has nothing more to do with your potential to be a doctor than your shoe size.

If you want to get more of one group in medicine give them the resources in K-12 and through college. Don't fudge the entry standards.

Not fair to anyone.

 

[LizzyM]

Race shouldn't even be on the application.
It has nothing more to do with your potential to be a doctor than your shoe size.

If you want to get more of one group in medicine give them the resources in K-12 and through college. Don't fudge the entry standards.

Not fair to anyone.

That policy, combined with in person interviews, or even photographs, would make it possible to discriminate against certain racial groups with no way to prove it. Do you want to eliminate discriminiation by race? Leaving race off the application is not the way to accomplish that goal.

We have far more qualified applicants than we have seats. Unqualified applicants are not being admitted as evidenced by the very high graduation rate and board exam pass rates. Life experiences, including living in America as a minority, are factored into the decisions for a variety of reasons.

 

[RocDiva4040]

But it's true. URMs are disproportionately represented in the lower or lower-middle class, which is why AA exists in the first place (it was supposed to fix that). Unfortunately, a fact that was left out while planning AA is that low SES high school students usually don't even apply to college, either because their school system failed them so badly that they don't have a prayer of succeeding in college, or because they've been led to believe by everyone around them that college isn't for them. As a result, the URMs that do apply tend to be from middle or upper class families where opportunities were ample and college education is encouraged if not expected.

Furthermore, AA in its current form is actually fairly racist. AA lets schools discriminate against the legions of Asian applicants to free up more seats for other races. However, since few URMs actually apply there aren't many seats that get taken by them, meaning that a disproportionate amount get reserved for white applicants.

AA also ends up hurting URMs too, albeit less directly. There's not much of a push to address the issues that result in few URM applications to schools thanks to the existence of AA. Most people assume that AA is a fix-all for the problem, not realizing that easier admissions isn't going to help you out when you school system is so pathetic that half its graduates can't even read at a third grade level, or everyone in your community tells you that "college isn't for people like us".

I believe Harvard did an experiment where they eliminated tuition and board for URMs, and found that the number of URM applicants didn't increase at all. Then they sent out promotional materials to inner city schools aimed at high achieving students in those schools and the following year the number of URM applications soared. The problem isn't that URMs can't get accepted to college, it's that they're not even applying. Encouraging them to apply would go a long way, although the underlying societal issues still need to be addressed which is currently not happening (one example: public school systems need to be funded equally by the state, not by school zone taxation, since it results in public schools in wealthy white areas being very good but public schools in poor minority areas being abysmal). AA could still be kept as well, but as SES-based. This would still overwhelmingly benefit URMs until they became equally well represented in the middle and upper class, at which point it could still be kept around to continue giving a leg up to disadvantaged students in general.

😍

It literally tears me apart when I see people opposed to AA. It sickens me that people aren't educated on the reasons why this (and so much more) is necessary. Everyone should be required to take a class on how America has ****ted over so many minorities and the lasting effects that are around today because of the slavery and discrimination. Nobody is being let into med school who isn't smart enough. Period. AA actually benefits mostly white women if you want the truth.

And at least with the black community, it benefits African immigrants more so than African Americans that grew up in this country and were actually affected by slavery, segregation and what not. That to me is a bigger problem.

AA is basically America trying to make up what they did to us, but really they should have given us 40 acres and a mule way back when because AA falls short in so many ways. Only a few of the people that it's trying to help are actually getting helped.

I'm a poor black kid, but I would also like to add that I don't see the big deal about middle class or rich URMs getting the benefits. They have still suffered as a minority in this country and like ChemEngMD, most are only a generation or two removed from poverty.

Race absolutely matters. It can't all/only be based on SES.

 

[midnight0il]

And at least with the black community, it benefits African immigrants more so than African Americans that grew up in this country and were actually affected by slavery, segregation and what not. That to me is a bigger problem.

I'm not exactly disagreeing with your post, but I think you ignore (or fail to mention) the struggles that African immigrants have faced, which are often just as bad or even more atrocious than what African Americans have faced in recent times. Think Darfur, Rwanda, etc. An African immigrant who came from that and excelled while in the US to be competitive enough for medical school should absolutely benefit from AA.

 

[RocDiva4040]

I'm not exactly disagreeing with your post, but I think you ignore (or fail to mention) the struggles that African immigrants have faced, which are often just as bad or even more atrocious than what African Americans have faced in recent times. Think Darfur, Rwanda, etc. An African immigrant who came from that and excelled while in the US to be competitive enough for medical school should absolutely benefit from AA.

Yea let me be more clear. They have definitely struggled no doubt, but their struggles in the US/because of America aren't the same nor as intense as African Americans' in the US.

I'm not saying I don't want African immigrants to benefit. I'd rather them than white women. But we gotta think about who's benefiting the most. My experience from the #1 college in the US is that the majority of the black population in Ivy League schools are African immigrants, which I don't think is exactly fair.

 

[midnight0il]

Yea let me be more clear. They have definitely struggled no doubt, but their struggles in the US/because of America aren't the same nor as intense as African Americans' in the US.

I'm not saying I don't want African immigrants to benefit. I'd rather them than white women. But we gotta think about who's benefiting the most. My experience from the #1 college in the US is that the majority of the black population in Ivy League schools are African immigrants, which I don't think is exactly fair.

I also went to an Ivy. Granted, not Harvard, but in my experiences African Americans far outnumbered African immigrants. However, I think both of our experiences are anecdotal and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

My disagreement lies in how you want to apply AA. I always thought that the purpose of AA was to account for past and current discrimination. African immigrants may not fit the "past" criteria, but they would certainly fit the "current" criteria, facing the same kinds of daily discriminations that African Americans face. So if we're going strictly based on the "past" criteria, then why don't other races/ethnicities qualify for AA: Asians, ethnic Caucasians (Irish, Italian, Jewish), white women?

I think if you're going to argue for AA, you can't complain about the success of other groups. It just seems a little self-serving.

 

[ChemEngMD]

I just want to say that I don't think you can paint all African immigrants with a broad brush. Someone who is a rich immigrant from a country like Nigeria is far different than someone who is a refugee from Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, etc.

 

[RocDiva4040]

I also went to an Ivy. Granted, not Harvard, but in my experiences African Americans far outnumbered African immigrants. However, I think both of our experiences are anecdotal and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

My disagreement lies in how you want to apply AA. I always thought that the purpose of AA was to account for past and current discrimination. African immigrants may not fit the "past" criteria, but they would certainly fit the "current" criteria, facing the same kinds of daily discriminations that African Americans face. So if we're going strictly based on the "past" criteria, then why don't other races/ethnicities qualify for AA: Asians, ethnic Caucasians (Irish, Italian, Jewish), white women?

I think if you're going to argue for AA, you can't complain about the success of other groups. It just seems a little self-serving.

Naw I agree it's for both. But seeing as African Americans have both and African immigrants have one, I just feel like something is off about most blacks at college, I guess I'll just speak for Harvard, being African immigrants opposed to African Americans. I wish AA affected more African Americans.

 

[BlueLabel]

Naw I agree it's for both. But seeing as African Americans have both and African immigrants have one, I just feel like something is off about most blacks at college, I guess I'll just speak for Harvard, being African immigrants opposed to African Americans. I wish AA affected more African Americans.

This article is pretty long but the author offers some interesting observations about AA policy and how it's been implemented in UC system schools. It's also fairly entertaining and well-written.

http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_2_multiculti-university.html

 

[Lamel]

One of the worst reasons ever against AA in medical school admissions is that "race has nothing to do with your potential to be a doctor".

Neither do half the things on your application. The difference between a 37 and a 32 on your MCAT has no more bearing on your ability to be a doctor than your race but nobody cries when top schools screen by MCAT.

I get what you're trying to say, but race isn't something you can change. MCAT is.

 

[metview]

One of the worst reasons ever against AA in medical school admissions is that "race has nothing to do with your potential to be a doctor".

Neither do half the things on your application. The difference between a 37 and a 32 on your MCAT has no more bearing on your ability to be a doctor than your race but nobody cries when top schools screen by MCAT.

You aren't born with a specific GPA and MCAT, but you are born with a specific skin color and ethnicity. MCAT and GPA are factors which you can control. Your comparison is not very good.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

You aren't born with a specific GPA and MCAT, but you are born with a specific skin color and ethnicity. MCAT and GPA are factors which you can control. Your comparison is not very good.

You and the guy above you are missing the point. The argument that "these are things you can control so they should play a factor in admissions" is a different argument than "race has nothing to do with your potential to be a doctor".

However, seeing as you two seem to want to divide things up according to what we can and can't control, I assume you would not be in favor of any advantage for students in a lower socioeconomic bracket as well, correct? After all, we can't control what circumstances we're born into.

 

[JustaUnicorn]

That policy, combined with in person interviews, or even photographs, would make it possible to discriminate against certain racial groups with no way to prove it. Do you want to eliminate discriminiation by race? Leaving race off the application is not the way to accomplish that goal.

We have far more qualified applicants than we have seats. Unqualified applicants are not being admitted as evidenced by the very high graduation rate and board exam pass rates. Life experiences, including living in America as a minority, are factored into the decisions for a variety of reasons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAryFIuRxmQ

 

[ichor]

Your "story" is not what usually happens and it's not how affirmative action works. The application is reviewed holistically. Hispanic and black applicants get a boost because: we need more Hispanic and black doctors who can relate better to underserved communities of the same ethnicity, to account for disparity in wealth (not income), and profound cultural stereotyping that makes many black people of all income levels feel less able . The last one is also how many other people of all ethnicities subconsciously look at Hispanics and blacks.

Because a lot of blacks and Hispanics earn below the average income, affirmative action based on socio-economic status would accomplish the same goal of getting blacks and Hispanics up there...without benefiting those who don't need it.

I never said anything about getting rid of AA completely.

 

[Medstart108]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/14/affirmative-action/

"A group of white adults in California were split in two and asked to rank what they consider to be important criteria when evaluating college applications for the University of California. The first group placed a lot of weight on SAT scores and GPAs. Two areas where black people under-perform compared to whites. But when the second group was informed of the fact that the percentage of Asian American undergraduates at the university is double their percentage in the general population, suddenly, grades and test scores weren’t so important. Asian Americans tend to score higher on the SATs nationally and the stereotype of the “smart Asian” is widespread and well known.

Instead, this group that would have sworn on a stack of bibles they were all in favor of a meritocracy just a short time ago, became far more interested in intangible characteristics like “leadership”

Discuss.

Wow lol looks like they are just selfish pricks who would vote for a law that says: Your boy Johnny gets to go to whichever school he pleases, gets whatever job he wants upon graduation and is paid a tax free sum of 1,000,000 for passing every test in school.

 

[Medstart108]

That policy, combined with in person interviews, or even photographs, would make it possible to discriminate against certain racial groups with no way to prove it. Do you want to eliminate discriminiation by race? Leaving race off the application is not the way to accomplish that goal.

We have far more qualified applicants than we have seats. Unqualified applicants are not being admitted as evidenced by the very high graduation rate and board exam pass rates. Life experiences, including living in America as a minority, are factored into the decisions for a variety of reasons.

It always confuses me what the definition of minority is.

Asian-Americans are a minority, but what do you do with their experiences? Do you say, oh Asian-American minority, minus 300 SAT points.

We have far more qualified applicants than we have seats. Unqualified applicants are not being admitted as evidenced by the very high graduation rate and board exam pass rates.

That doesn't mean you should replace people who had better applications with people who had poorer applications because the one with the poorer application was of the "right" race.

 

[music2doc]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/14/affirmative-action/

"A group of white adults in California were split in two and asked to rank what they consider to be important criteria when evaluating college applications for the University of California. The first group placed a lot of weight on SAT scores and GPAs. Two areas where black people under-perform compared to whites. But when the second group was informed of the fact that the percentage of Asian American undergraduates at the university is double their percentage in the general population, suddenly, grades and test scores weren't so important. Asian Americans tend to score higher on the SATs nationally and the stereotype of the "smart Asian" is widespread and well known.

Instead, this group that would have sworn on a stack of bibles they were all in favor of a meritocracy just a short time ago, became far more interested in intangible characteristics like "leadership"

Discuss.

...And the whole idea behind AA to begin with WASN'T essentially racism? Give me a break. 🙄

The fact of the matter is that medical schools have a responsibility to produce a group of physicians who will best serve the public. Part of that -- whether you like it or not -- involves rate. People prefer to be treated by people perceived to be of a similar background. Since Asians tend to be way overrepresented and URMs tend to be underrepresented (by definition....), we need to make adjustments. The fact is there are plenty of "extra" qualified candidates, so you really aren't sacrificing anything quality-wise.

 

[487806]

I don't think people here (except for the adcoms and smart med students) know the original purpose of affirmative action. Basically, AA was created as a way to minimize de facto segregation and discrimination (i.e. Occurring in public places, employment, education etc.). Legalized discrimination was killed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the society wasn't willing to abandon its longstanding support for discrimination if blacks, women and other minorities.

FDR essentially was the first president to initiate this AA policy through New Deal and his support for pluralism. All his successors followed his path. Nixon was the first president to actually create AA and enforce the ban on discrimination in society. Nixon's AA, which was embraced by his successors, killed overt discrimination to minorities in public areas.

This type of AA is ok. The problem with the current AA is it's using race as a basis of decision making policy as to who to hire, under the subtle disguise of diversity and URM. Fortunately, race-based quotas were destroyed in around 1980.

AA serves the essential role in banning discrimination. But favoring a specific race, gender etc. defeats the purpose entirely. Instead, the solution is to make K12 accessible to pooe minorities, not to change the system of professional schools to favor the minorities.

 

[ChemEngMD]

Because a lot of blacks and Hispanics earn below the average income, affirmative action based on socio-economic status would accomplish the same goal of getting blacks and Hispanics up there...without benefiting those who don't need it.

I never said anything about getting rid of AA completely.

The issue with this is that income based AA would allow for the already majority White admissions committees to only accept lower income White students and (if they chose to) could completely cut Latino and Black applicants out of the system.

Don't think that just because you do SES AA that URMs will still benefit. In my eyes all it would do is set up the system to allow for discrimination based upon race. (If you think racism is gone then I won't even begin to argue with you because it would be a waste of time.)

 

[theSmurfette]

So white people, who grew up in Appalachia or the deep rural South or <insert name of predominantly poor, uneducated area>, should not have any thought as to the factors that surrounded their childhood? There are many areas where there are many white people who are poor with no high school diploma and no chances for pulling themselves out of that. People, that for generations, have been poor and uneducated. Where do these people get the opportunities? Why should they be discriminated against just because our skin is white? I promise that their ancestors were not the planter class who enslaved people. They were the sharecropper and backwoods trapper who did what they could to make ends meet. Where's the equality for those kinds of people? The person who finally pulled themselves out of the abject poverty that has continued for decades. But, because their skin is white, they get no special considerations.

 

[ChemEngMD]

So white people, who grew up in Appalachia or the deep rural South or <insert name of predominantly poor, uneducated area>, should not have any thought as to the factors that surrounded their childhood? There are many areas where there are many white people who are poor with no high school diploma and no chances for pulling themselves out of that. People, that for generations, have been poor and uneducated. Where do these people get the opportunities? Why should they be discriminated against just because our skin is white? I promise that their ancestors were not the planter class who enslaved people. They were the sharecropper and backwoods trapper who did what they could to make ends meet. Where's the equality for those kinds of people? The person who finally pulled themselves out of the abject poverty that has continued for decades. But, because their skin is white, they get no special considerations.

For medical school there is a disadvantaged status that you can claim and explain your background. Also, some medical schools in Appalachia and other such places (DO and MD) attempt to cater to students who are from rural counties as a means of providing more physicians to these underserved areas.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

The issue with this is that income based AA would allow for the already majority White admissions committees to only accept lower income White students and (if they chose to) could completely cut Latino and Black applicants out of the system.

Don't think that just because you do SES AA that URMs will still benefit. In my eyes all it would do is set up the system to allow for discrimination based upon race. (If you think racism is gone then I won't even begin to argue with you because it would be a waste of time.)

I won't argue that racism doesn't still exist, but saying that college adcoms are racist is like saying that Tibetan Buddhists are warmongers.

 

[ChemEngMD]

I won't argue that racism doesn't still exist, but saying that college adcoms are racist is like saying that Tibetan Buddhists are warmongers.

I just feel no need to open the doors up for the POTENTIAL for racism in admissions decisions. Once again, in medical school admissions, ADCOMs are trying to find qualified and dedicated minority applicants in order to serve an ever diversifying patient population that is often underserved. Would replacing race based AA (even though medical school admission aren't technically AA) with SES based AA solve this problem? I'm going to argue that no, it won't, and if the majority of the Disadvantaged/URM slots in a medical school class all started going to lower income White applicants, how likely are we to improve health in lower income minority communities?

I think that lower income Whites and Asians should be given some sort of boost via the Disadvantaged status, but eliminating the consideration of race would not only affect the future physician demographics, it would lead to negative impacts in communities of color.

 

[dreamschool18]

If you break Asians down by S, E, and SE etc., is it a particular group that is overrepresented, or "Asians" as a whole? If it holds true that S Asian patients prefer S Asian physicians (as opposed to SE or E Asian), then why are ALL Asians clumped into the same category? S Asian physicians can be further broken down into Indian, Pakistani, etc...

To the notion, "People prefer to be treated by people perceived to be of a similar background": Again, keep in mind background also implies geographic/ethnic origin, language, religion, or gender even (eg, one's OB/GYN), not just race/skin color.

Rather than focusing so much on whether patients look like you, Cultural, professional, and interpersonal competence is what ultimately lends to healthy patient-physician relationships. Part of why patients may feel uncomfortable in the FIRST PLACE is because their physicians lack such competence dealing with people who look different from them and, as a result, fail to garner their patients' trust.

Community service and volunteering among underserved populations are not just boxes to check off. They actually expose us to people who are very different than us, and help us to build that competence early on.

 

[music2doc]

If you break Asians down by S, E, and SE etc., is it a particular group that is overrepresented, or "Asians" as a whole? If it holds true that S Asian patients prefer S Asian physicians (as opposed to SE or E Asian), then why are ALL Asians clumped into the same category? S Asian physicians can be further broken down into Indian, Pakistani, etc...

To the notion, "People prefer to be treated by people perceived to be of a similar background": Again, keep in mind background also implies geographic/ethnic origin, language, religion, or gender even (eg, one's OB/GYN), not just race/skin color.

Rather than focusing so much on whether patients look like you, Cultural, professional, and interpersonal competence is what ultimately lends to healthy patient-physician relationships. Part of why patients may feel uncomfortable in the FIRST PLACE is because their physicians lack such competence dealing with people who look different from them and, as a result, fail to garner their patients' trust.

Community service and volunteering among underserved populations are not just boxes to check off. They actually expose us to people who are very different than us, and help us to build that competence early on.

This is a throwaway notion. It is literally impossible to be "culturally competent." Period. It's a throwaway phrase people use to make themselves feel good at night. (Every single person is different and culture is constantly changing; you cannot even be fully competent in your own culture, much less someone else's; cultural humility would be a better goal.) That said, the research I am familiar with doesn't support your idea. Yes, those things are important but people really do prefer being treated by others who are similar to them. People also tend to generally prefer people who are similar to them.

As for grouping "Asian" groups together, you would want to have people representing the specific culture(s) in a given area. Several different Asian cultures tend to be overrepresented in medicine. However, just as we tend to group together all European/Anglo groups, we tend to do the same with Asian groups. It should seem just as odd to you that no one questions why we don't give Italians or Englishmen or people of German ancestry special consideration apart from their "white" heritage. The fact is that we group them together for ease of description. Categorization is a part of the human condition, whether it is a positive thing or not.

 

[dreamschool18]

This is a throwaway notion. It is literally impossible to be "culturally competent." Period. It's a throwaway phrase people use to make themselves feel good at night. (Every single person is different and culture is constantly changing; you cannot even be fully competent in your own culture, much less someone else's; cultural humility would be a better goal.) That said, the research I am familiar with doesn't support your idea. Yes, those things are important but people really do prefer being treated by others who are similar to them. People also tend to generally prefer people who are similar to them.

As for grouping "Asian" groups together, you would want to have people representing the specific culture(s) in a given area. Several different Asian cultures tend to be overrepresented in medicine. However, just as we tend to group together all European/Anglo groups, we tend to do the same with Asian groups. It should seem just as odd to you that no one questions why we don't give Italians or Englishmen or people of German ancestry special consideration apart from their "white" heritage. The fact is that we group them together for ease of description. Categorization is a part of the human condition, whether it is a positive thing or not.

The reason "people really do prefer being treated by others who are similar to them" is probably because cultural competence is a "throwaway notion" to some physicians.

Categorization exists for ease of description, but that doesn't mean there aren't deeper implications of a perceived "category."

 

[SunsFun]

Because a lot of blacks and Hispanics earn below the average income, affirmative action based on socio-economic status would accomplish the same goal of getting blacks and Hispanics up there...without benefiting those who don't need it.

I never said anything about getting rid of AA completely.

Do you believe that URM applicants, when controlled for income level, do not face any additional challenges comparing to ORM applicants?

There are tons of studies that show the opposite to be true. I feel like almost everyone who argues against AA always fails to address this point.

 

[music2doc]

The reason "people really do prefer being treated by others who are similar to them" is probably because cultural competence is a "throwaway notion" to some physicians.

Categorization exists for ease of description, but that doesn't mean there aren't deeper implications of a perceived "category."

If you had any idea who the physician I was essentially quoting is or what he does, you would feel very foolish right now. Cultural competence is a misnomer. It doesn't exist because of your second statement.

Cultural humility is the response to that misnomer. It is the recognition that no matter how much I try to understand your culture, your heritage, your beliefs, I will never be able to do that fully. Consequently, I actively seek to understand who you are and the context in which your personal culture and cultural spheres have developed while simultaneously realizing the assumptions I make about you and actively expecting to be wrong about things. In other words, it's about being adaptive and dynamic and minimizing assumptions.

Cultural competence assumes a given individual can be assumed to fit into the "box" of his/her presumed culture. Cultural humility adamantly states the opposite.

Nevertheless, someone who is perceived to be from the patient's culture (e.g., due to the color of their skin) is going to be more readily accepted and trusted. S/he will also likely be more naturally "forgiven" for cultural mistakes w/o the pt even realizing s/he is forgiving the physician (since the assumption is made by the pt that the physician is in the "in-group" already).