Let’s talk about the real affirmative action: Jamie Utt discusses white privilege, the American education system, and socioeconomic status.
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I notice that whenever I can do question and answer sessions with young people (high school and college students), the same questions come up every time. First, a White Man usually asks why Black folks are allowed to use the “n word” but he’s not (read my response here). Then a White young person usually asks, “How do you feel about Affirmative Action? Because from what I understand, White people (particularly White Men) are actually now at a disadvantage in college admissions because of Affirmative Action, and it’s not fair that I will have less of a chance of getting into college because of what happened in the past!”
Ask any White person how they feel about Affirmative Action, and you’re almost guaranteed to hear that it is “racist against White people” and that it is “unfair” or “reverse discrimination” and that they oppose it. Further, most White folks will tell you that they are, in fact, actually less likely to get a job or a position in a school than a Person of Color because of Affirmative Action policies.
This is not true. Not only are White people not being discriminated against actively, White people are still benefitting regularly from a system that was built from its inception by White people for White people.
You see, White folks will often tell me, “White people make up 72% of the American population, but they only make up 62% of those admitted and enrolled in degree-granting institutions.” And the tricky part of that statement is that it is not false, not in the slightest. It is, however, wildly misleading.
The Demographics of Success
Demographics are tricky. In the United States today, there are A LOT of older White people. Simultaneously, though, there are also A LOT of younger People of Color. Thus, while the percentage of the American public that are White hovers around 70%, the percentage of traditionally college-aged folks is much lower: 59.7%. The critics are right, though, that 62.3% of those enrolled in degree-conferring institutions are White.
Race | % of Pop. 15-24 | % of Enrolled |
White | 59.7% | 62.3% |
Hispanic | 18.3% | 12.5% |
Black | 15.6% | 14.3% |
Asian | 3.5% | 6.5% |
Indigenous | 1.5% | 1.0% |
Source for Population Demographic data, 2009.
Source for College Enrollment data, 2009.
White folks are STILL disproportionately likely to go to college despite formal Affirmative Action programs that attempt to recruit students of color. Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous students are disproportionately less likely to go to college, and the only other group with college-going rates that exceed their percentage of the population are Asian students. But even that is misleading because to understand Asian success in the United States is also to understand racism. After all, due to the Chinese Exclusion Act and similar policies that even continue today, for most of U.S. history, it was virtually impossible for someone of Asian descent to legally immigrate to the United States unless they had an advanced degree. Thus, there is a disproportionate number of folks of Asian descent whose parents are college educated, but when you break down the data by socioeconomic status and ethnicity, low-income Asians are, again, disproportionately less likely to go to college!
Predicting Success:
Where did your parents go to college?
Which brings me to the factors that actually act as predictors of success for students as they look to attend college. Two of the primary predictors of success for educational attainment and occupational earnings are, quite simply, your parent’s education and level of wealth. If your parents went to college, you are more likely to go to college. So what does that say for communities who, until the 1960s, were denied access to all but a few colleges and universities? If your grandparents didn’t even have the option of going to college, and your parents’ success in education was most easily predicted by your grandparents’ success, did your parents go to college? And if your parents didn’t go to college, are you as likely to go? This is one of the many ways that the system of racial oppression continues to be reinvented. Sure, we no longer live in a country where it’s legal to bar, say, Black folks from attending your college, but when the system values the skills and knowledge most easily acquired through a parent who went to college, the end result is the same when Black folks have been historically denied access to education.
Thus, whether it’s because of the policy of legacy admissions, whereby students are accepted because their parents went to the college (which, at the University of Michigan holds almost as much sway as race, income level, and athletic scholarship combined), or because of the skills and know-how that come from having a parent who went to college, the end result is that People of Color are actually at a distinct disadvantage when they apply to college.
Standardized Tests: Not so Fair After All
The problem is that this is a farce. One of the reasons that standardized tests are weighed so heavily in college admissions (upwards of 1/4 of the application at selective institutions) is that they are supposed to be, in fact, standardized, meaning that everyone who takes them should be on the same playing field, and it is meant to measure “objective” knowledge that is supposed to be available to everyone in our education system.
Despite the for-profit test-making companies crying foul, multiple studies have found that tests like the SAT and ACT are, in fact, culturally biased in favor of White folks. One of the more comprehensive studies, for instance, found that the SAT uses language that disadvantages students of Color and advantages White students. Essentially, on simpler verbal questions (ones that, in many ways, should be the “gimme” questions of the test), the SAT’s writers used White vernacular that was easy for White students to understand and difficult for students of Color to understand. The cream on top of this study, though, was that on more difficult verbal questions that did not use White vernacular, many students of Color actually out performed White students, but not by enough to overcome the distinct advantage given to White students on the simpler questions.
In essence, if the tests talks like all the people around you talk, you’re going to do better!
Now, does this mean that the writers of the SAT are a bunch of card-carrying members of the KKK? No! My guess would be that the test was simply written by White folks, so the White vernacular didn’t sound particularly exclusive to them. The end result, though, couldn’t be more White supremacist if the KKK had written the test themselves: students of Color are clearly disadvantaged on the so-called “standardized” tests that weigh so heavily in college admissions.
“Fair” Assumes an Equal Playing Field
What it all comes down to is a question of fairness. White folks will tell me time and time again that Affirmative Action is “unfair” because it discriminates against White people. What the term “fair” assumes here, though, is that we live in a society where there’s an equal playing field for all students, regardless of race or wealth. Unfortunately, we just don’t live in that society!
The students who ask me about Affirmative Action almost always start with, “If two students are applying for college and all of their qualifications are equal…” I always want to stop them right there and ask what that means. What does it mean when “all qualifications are equal?” Because in the system in which we live, there’s no such thing.
I mean, let’s talk educational spending, for instance. No matter how you slice it, when you get down into the data about education spending, there is a tremendous disparity between the amount of money spent on White pupils and on pupils of Color. This is because we still use the draconian system of property tax to fund our schools. As is pretty common knowledge, People of Color are disproportionately poor for a wealth of reasons (including but not limited to their disadvantage in access to higher education), and in poor communities, schools are funded terribly compared to in wealthier communities. The way I used to describe it to folks when I taught in a lower-income area of Chicago is like this: In Winnetka (a wealthy, mostly White Chicago suburb), your school might be drawing a 10% property tax on multiple million dollar homes; on the West side of Chicago, your school might be drawing a 10% property tax on empty lots and dilapidated buildings.
And whether or not we like to admit it, money buys a better education. When your school has money, you can hire more teachers and have smaller class sizes (which are directly tied to higher achievement), you can offer greater enrichment and tutoring programs, you can offer more courses in foreign languages or art and music (learning which stimulate brain activity), you can offer more access to technology, and so on. The benefits are almost endless. On the other hand, when your schools don’t have much money, your kids are kinda screwed.
And it’s not just in the classroom that extra money means more opportunity. Families with more wealth are able to afford their children more opportunities (tutors, cello lessons, sports camps, and so on) that not only look great on a resume and college application but that support and enhance cognitive development. Those kinds of opportunities are the exact things that give students with such privileges the edge in competitive college entrance environments. Now, do some students of Color have access to these kinds of opportunities? Absolutely! Are some White students denied these opportunities? Undoubtedly (which is why Affirmative Action programs often take into account family income for White students). The reality, though, is that students of Color are disproportionately denied access to these resources because of a simple thing called trans-generational wealth accumulation.
You see, though some gains have been made in the earning power of some People of Color, what matters more than income is wealth. Income refers to the amount of money someone might make in their work from week to week or year to year. Wealth, on the other hand, refers to the accumulated assets that a person or family has. Essentially wealth is everything a person owns minus their debt. And by that measure, there’s some pretty stark inequality:
If you’re anything like me, those numbers are a bit shocking in their simple disparity. So how is that the case? Well, consider that wealth tends to be passed down from generation to generation. Parents help their kids with buying property or with getting an education, and the wealth that is passed down grows for the next generation. And when it comes to trans-generational wealth accumulation, White people have a pretty long head start.
The REAL Affirmative Action
The point is that whenever we talk about how people of Color of low-income folks are receiving an unfair advantage with Affirmative Action programs, we having the wrong conversation. The conversation we should be having is about the real Affirmative Action programs that give White folks a leg up in overt and subtle ways. I don’t have to worry if I get a spot in college because of the advantage I had on the SAT or because of the lessons my college-educated parents taught that people will say that I only got in because of the color of my skin. And post-college, I can rely on the fact that my name sounds White, which is going to increase my chances of being hired over a Black person by 50%.
We don’t have that conversation because it’s not in the best interest of those who are in control. Think about it. White folks are in the top positions in most colleges and are the heads of most large corporations. White people want their kids to have access to the best jobs and educational opportunities just like every parent, so we’re sure as hell not going to give up the game and admit the ways that we benefit from informal, unstated Affirmative Action programs every single day.
That’s the real Affirmative Action that we should be discussing.
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This article originally appeared on Change From Within.
Photo credits: Courtesy of original article.
I’m with Steve. If you’re white and you really think marking the “African American” box on a form gives a person a huge advantage in society, then you should mark it, too. If you really think it’s that simple and that easy, then what’s the big deal? Check that box yourself.
Especially if you’re one of those people who says “I don’t see color.” Well, if you don’t see color, then there’s no such thing as the “wrong category.” So, what are you waiting for?
The truth is that in terms of college admissions, affirmative action admissions based on race is mostly gone now. If AA was ever a powerhouse in admissions, it’s not anymore. The effect of racial or ethnic preferences for nonwhite people is much smaller than most angry white people think. It still goes on, but it’s not the big monster so many people think it is. If you’re white and you didn’t get into a public college or university, by FAR the most likely culprit is not affirmative action. Most likely the school has restricted admissions because the state has reduced… Read more »
@Tom My son just got hired as a fire fighter for Oakland ,Ca. For over one hundred years these jobs and police jobs and plumbers and other staple middle class jobs were the property of straight white males, period. They passed these jobs down to their sons and nephews, etc for generations. This gave them yet another head start, a leg up on minorities.. Once again, we have a clear example of how and when white men were afforded exclusive opportunity to acquire wealth and build stable communities for generations while others could not. All the while, even though he… Read more »
@Hi Tom. I hope all is well. The Asian question is always one that raises an eyebrow or two when this subject is broached. On the surface, it would seem logical to compare the progress of minority groups in America.. However, there are problems comparing immigrant populations with each other and with African Americans. Obviously,Asian Americans did not begin their journey in America as slaves. While blacks were slaves in America the Chinese were, at least until the discovery of gold in California. and the subsequent invention of the racist doctrine Yellow Peril Discourse, were free to own businesses, live… Read more »
I do not know why folks STILL, CONSTANTLY mistake Affirmative Action with a Quota System; AA only Enhances OPPORTUNITIES for Minorities, NOT GUARANTEES Anything. The Rooney Rule of the NFL IS Affirmative Action, and yet How Many Head Coaches are there really???
Right in this article, it clearly states Bad and Poor Funded/Performing Schools typically are of the Urban Kind-where there are Mostly Black and Latino Kids, AND, if One’s Name is “ethnic”, REGARDLESS of Qualification, they are Dismissed Anyways…..
So Again, just How much has AA really HELPED/HARMED with the Actual Facts staring us ALL in the Face(s)????
I do because I experienced it many years ago in the business world. Because the company I worked for had several government contracts, we were required to have %’s of minority employees as well as %’s of minorities in management. What made it difficult is that our services were provided contracted medical delivery systems, accordingly we had to show that those contracted providers also met the criteria. No problem with medical groups in Chicago, but when half your medical delivery system in in the collar counties …. what do we do?
Hi ogwriter, all is well with me, having a great time with two grandsons, they are awesome! I understand what you’re saying and I will consider that history has some impact but then again I have to go back to situations similar to what my wife and her brother experienced. Mom was a green card holder, after settling into the city as former migrant farm workers, with the odds clearly set against them, how is it they made it work, how is it they made the grades? That being said, I did a quick search for “white” scholarships …. mmmm… Read more »
@Supra duluca I don’t know that what you write is true or how one could even know such a thing. I do know from experience that many ,many, white people who cry foul at blacks because of AA and Civil Rights do in fact have power and lots of it. At the highest levels of our institutions,Civil Rights and AA have been under attack for some time now. Even the average white person compared to the average black person, has privileges the black person does not have. It seems to me there are other reasons why this anger at blacks… Read more »
This touched me deep. It makes me sad and angry at the same time.
Whenever I start to think someone else has an unfair advantage, I do the Envy Test: If I could wave a magic wand and become just like that person, would I do it? If the answer is Yes, then I envy them. If the answer is No, then I don’t envy them or don’t envy them enough to think they’re better off than I am. So, if you’re white or male and think black people or women have more advantages than you do, then ask yourself if you actually envy them. Theoretically, if being black has all the advantages and… Read more »
@ DVT “I do answer Yes once in a while. Switch places with a billionaire? Yes, absolutely. Switch places with a poor person living in a developing country? No, I think I’m extremely fortunate to be where I am now. Would I rather be a man instead of being a woman? No thanks, I feel sorry for you guys.” That’s because it’s better to dance with the devil you know. Would I trade places with Donald Sterling? He’s like 84 and I’m 46. Sure life would be easier at least what’s left of it, but I’d have to think about… Read more »
If you’re white and you really, honestly think that being a racial minority gives you an advantage when it comes to getting into college, then simply mark the “race/ethnicity” box differently. Put your money where your mouth is. For example, if you’re white and you really think black applicants get an unfair advantage, then mark the box labeled “Black” or “African American.” Easy peasy. The school can never prove that you’re not. If white people want to destroy affirmative action, they should organize a campaign to identify themselves differently. That would basically eliminate whatever advantage they’re afraid they’re missing. If… Read more »
That could actually backfire, or at least lead to even more complicated, even more absurd forms of discrimination. Nowadays in Brazil, for example, many applicants for university scholarships are essentially competing with each other to show who has the most African heritage. Having mixed heritage is simply not enough, because the schools simply find that uninteresting. Some of the applicants are actually inventing autobiographical information in order to seem “more African,” for fear that they will not be “minority enough” to get in.
If it is true that whites in power know full well of the silent advantages being white affords them and therefore keep quiet in order to keep their advantages,what does that say about them? If it is true, all the more reason for CR and AA.
There’s another big factor at work, at least at many public colleges and universities: international students. That’s a great example of the affirmative action of money, not of race. At the college where I teach, the school is heavily dependent on international students, because those students pay three times the tuition that in-state residents pay. Their tuition covers the full cost of teaching them plus a little extra, which means that they are essentially helping subsidize the education of in-state students. Ever since the state starting cutting back its higher education spending, these students have become the key to keeping… Read more »
Many International students are made up of the Few in their Nations that were/are Fortunate to even get an education, and they go to the Best Schools, taking Specific Classes that allow them to come to the U.S.; there is no “General Electives” for them to make them “Good Citizens” in Their Country, or else there would be More Schools and More Kids being Educated (epecially in China, India and African nations)
Please delete one of my posts above. Thanks.
It seems fairly clear that AA has been a great help to the white community.Certainly Civil Rights and AA have helped tens of millions of disabled whites(of course this includes men women and children) gay whites and white women to gain access to education, housing, job, facilities and other benefits of the franchise. Yet because it helps some blacks it is defined as ONLY helping blacks. I do not understand why white guys and too many white women, whine so much about being displaced when, by a great margin, whites are still in charge and in control of America. The… Read more »
It seems fairly clear that AA has been a great help to the white community.Certainly Civil Rights and AA have helped tens of millions of disabled whites(of course this includes men women and children) gay whites and white women to gain access to education, housing, job, facilities and other benefits of the franchise. Yet because it helps some blacks it is defined as ONLY helping blacks. I do not understand why white guys and too many white women, whine so much about being displaced when, by a great margin, whites are still in charge and in control of America. The… Read more »
“I do not understand why white guys and too many white women, whine so much about being displaced when, by a great margin, whites are still in charge and in control of America.”
Because these particular white people are not the ones in charge and in control of America. You know, just like when women say men are, by a great margin, still the ones in charge and control of America (and the world) and many men will feel attacked and whine because well, them in particular, are not…
First of all is 59.7 statistically different from 62.3? I would think not. The group with the highest discrepancy between their expected and actual enrollment rate is Asians. So a system should be put in place to discourage Asians from enrolling… “Thus, there is a disproportionate number of folks of Asian descent whose parents are college educated, but when you break down the data by socioeconomic status and ethnicity, low-income Asians are, again, disproportionately less likely to go to college!” You don’t say! I bet poor white people are less likely to go to college than their rich counterparts! “In… Read more »
This brilliant piece makes it clear why simple attention to economic disparity isn’t enough: White poverty is not the same as Black poverty (or indigenous poverty or Latino poverty and so on).
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
when you say “Racial preferences make people defensive and for a good reason” I think you mean to say it makes WHITE people defensive
If anyone wants to write a related article, there has been talk about affirmative action in college admissions for men http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/27/admit#sthash.Kay22mop.dpbs As far as affirmative action for white people is concerned, there may have actually been outright affirmative action at some schools rather than types of affirmative action that don’t show up in admissions. “n November of 1988, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced that it was investigating admissions procedures at Berkeley after receiving complaints that the school was capping admissions of Asian students. As far back as the 60s, the Asian presence on campus had… Read more »
Every floor is also a ceiling. Where I went to grad school, Asian American students were not beneficiaries of affirmative action in admissions or scholarships, because they were considered “over represented.” The Equal Opportunity Office basically considered the equivalent of white students. Never mind if you were a recent immigrant or the first person in your village to finish high school or if your parents were interned in WWII for being Japanese American. (Hell, even if YOU had been the one in the internment camp, by the 1990’s you were considered one of the privileged group, as far as the… Read more »
Those racists up in Michigan voted for Proposal 2 that amended the Michigan Constitution to ban public institutions from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race in public education.
How on earth can people be equal when we cannot prefer people based on race? We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
Both sides are missing an important point: college will not automatically guarantee you a more secure future. You are more likely to be saddled with student loan debts for years, working in a job you hate just to pay them off. A degree is not a magic wand that will open every door, regardless of who you are. Learn a skill or trade rather than a degree that can be rendered worthless by the economy.
But that’s a fact that’s true for ALL kids, not just kids of color. More white kids should be learning skills, too. More kids of minority descent should be earning higher education degrees, learning to code and other higher academic skills.
Affirmative action can balance that out.
The beauty of machines is that they do not care what color, gender or religion you are. That is true equality.
So true Wes. Many kids are sold a bill of goods regarding “higher education” and that they almost guarantee prosperity. A degree guarantees nothing other then a foot in the door. But then again when you have college graduates who are unable to perform complex literacy tasks, what should the graduate expect? My unit coordinator has me proof reading reports that are sent to the courts. I’m proof reading letters of people who have Masters Degrees. We have a “Doctorate” who works in our school as an Intervention Specialist. She makes $40K a year which includes a small bump in… Read more »
Its more a case of white women using the most of the benefits of AA and the civil rights movement at the expense of men and or minorities,
did some girl hurt your feelings?
Either that or they have a firm understanding of reality. In Illinois there was a huge argument over how the minority set aside program should be administrated. When they did an audit, I don’t remember the exact figure, but is was very high like 80 – 90% of all set asides were going to white women. What made it worse was many of these white women were minority contractors for their husband’s companies. The minority set aside programs essentially made it more difficult for actual minorities to compete.
The part of the article that discussed “vernacular” and ACT/SAT’s stood out to me. Kind of an insult to those students of color who have mastered the American vernacular. Expectations are that where kids should be able to be comfortable reading/comprehending the vernacular that’s being used in these tests. My wife is Mexican. She didn’t learn English until she started grade school. By the end of the 12 years, she’d been double promoted and graduated with honors. She is articulate (written and verbal) in English and Spanish. And I should note that she is a fanatic about proper use of… Read more »
One last thing, why aren’t these kids achieving the scores they should? Look at the educational system that’s lowered the bar. Schools that are more interested in social issues then teaching.
CNN – CNN analysis: Some college athletes play like adults, read like 5th-graders
Huffington Post – American High School Students Are Reading Books At 5th-Grade-Appropriate Levels
NBC – More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.
Is it “race” of is it our educational system?
To use White vernacular simply means to use examples that are more accessible to White students than to students of Color. For instance, the word “subdivision” is more likely to be used in a suburban or rural area to describe a neighborhood. However, in cities, houses are never organized into “subdivisions.” They are organized into “blocks,” “neighborhoods,” “wards,” and “parishs.” Considering that people of Color are far, FAR more likely to live in an urban area and far, FAR less likely to live in rural or suburban areas where “subdivision” is used, a word like “subdivision” could be considered White… Read more »
And if the word
And if the word Parish or Ward is used will white kids think of priests and orphans with rich caretakers? Or do some people expect less. At least subdivision is a word that can be understood conceptually just by looking at it
Why doesn’t this affect Asian children?
WOW,great point CW
Just living in reality Tom. If you and I didn’t who would? 😉
😉
Good article, though this doesn’t even touch on the gender aspect of discrimination; women make up the majority of college students, yet a female college graduate will make $8k less than her male counterpart; three times that difference if from a private school. “Affirmative Action” only seems “unfair” to people who don’t want the playing field leveled.
Quite a cavernous chasm between “Woman make less than men” and “Cuz discrimination/patriarchy!”, no?
What makes up this $8k gap is no simple question. For example, many economists attribute about a third of the pay gap to direct employer discrimination while the rest is beyond employer control. Women and men choose different college majors with more men in STEM fields and more women in social work and liberal arts. Gender roles are a factor in major choice, but so are personal preferences. As for women from private colleges having triple the gap, it’s notable that graduates of private colleges tend to earn more overall than public university grads. And the more a husband earns… Read more »
Women are often discouraged from pursuing science and science related careers from a very young age, most often by their own teachers. You can read more about it here: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2010/03/23/colleges-professors-discourage-women-from-pursuing-stem-careers.aspx
Also, the fact that women that have husbands with good income “choose” to have part-time employment or no employment at all to take care of the kids – while the opposite is rare at best – only serves to further demonstrate the gender gap and gender discrimination, not the opposite.
My son and I read the autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley) recently…when Malcolm was in middle school, he was discouraged by his teacher from pursuing a future career as a lawyer…his teacher put him down and told him that he shouldn’t be so “unrealistic” in his goals…he was told to go into carpentry instead…meanwhile, his white classmates were encouraged to go into lofty professions….
I wonder how much of that message gets transmitted to students of color nowadays….