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Originally posted by madmax
I agree 100%.
Now what happens to the kids that don't have parents that stress education? Do you think they can slack off from grades K-12 and then suddenly turn on the switch and compete academically which will result in a higher standard of living. I don't think so, which is why I don't think affirmative action works.
If it was that easy your mom would not be spending $700 a week to send you sister to specialty camp.
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I don't think anybody's recommending sending a minority kid with a 2.0 who scored 1000 on the SATs to an Ivy League school simply for the sake that he's not white. That's why I'm saying that schools need to be careful in deciding how much influence race should have in the admissions process -- if the kid is too overwhelmed by college because he's not used to the work load and drops out, you've wasted a spot that could have gone to somebody else and the kid who got the spot via affirmative action is no better off. But if you think the kid can handle it, there's no reason why he shouldn't be in the school.
The point is that all of the advantages that white kids have -- each one gives them a subtle nudge in their favor. You might have kids of color who are at the same level as the priviledged white kids because they had the same advantages, you'd have kids of color who are at a level or two just below (and could handle college once they got there) because they got some advantages but not others, and you'll have kids of color who didn't get ANY advantages and are therefore way behind the privileged white kids. Any responsible affirmative action policy would recommend that the people of color in the first two groups should be accepted. I'm not saying that EVERYBODY should automatically be accepted into college.
The problem is that until we get more people of color into college, those people of color who aren't going to college will stay economically repressed. If they go to college, they'll have the skills to acquire better jobs, set their families up, and hopefully be able to afford "cultural currency" and better educational options for their kids -- which brings us to the point where we don't need affirmative action anymore.