Sotomayor says she was 'perfect affirmative action baby'

[Hacp]

I'm convinced the only thing a standardized test measures is ones ability to take a standardized test. I have plenty of real world experience with college students who scored 1400+ on the SATS (this is when it was a 1600 point scale) only to completely flounder in the real classroom. I've also met plenty of guys while I was an engineering student who constantly got As in the classroom, yet couldn't build an actual circuit to save their life.

Thankfully colleges are starting to come around and count standardized test scores as significantly less important than other more appropriate measures of performance. Real life experiences trump standardized test scores every time in my book.

There are a variety of factors that factor into one's performance in college. However, what a merit based system does do is allow anyone who works hard enough and studies hard enough to get into a top college.

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: babylon5

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

Italians never faced the equivalent institutionalized discrimination that african americans have faced. It's not even close.

Yes, you are correct. Italians never faced institutionalized discrimination. They faced regionalized discrimination...discrimination is still discrimination...now we can argue all day about degrees of discrimination, but some ethnic minorities in this country have managed to overcome discrimination without the assistance of government programs.

What kind of 'regionalized discrimination' are you talking about? The bottom line is that Italians did not face the same type of overwhelming racism, of any kind, that african americans faced.

Discrimination is still discrimination? Sure, but there are degrees of discrimination and the impact that it has on a group of people. It's laughable that you're trying to equate discrimination of Italians to an institutionalized discrimination of african americans in this country.

The rest of your post is irrelevant to my point.

In the areas where Italian Americans (and Irish) first immigrated, they were heavily discriminated against. The only difference is that they were not slaves, though they certainly worked for wages that pretty much made them that. Go look at late 19th/early 20th century Boston and NYC. Many of the same injustices that the African American community faced were shared by Italian and Irish Immigrants.

That said, I'm not going to argue AA helped or hurt. However it isn't fair to lump all white ethnicity together and assume none of them ever faced discrimination.

That's still nothing compared to the discrimination that AAs faced - from being slaves to preventing their political voice to segregation in modern times.

Jews had it worst. They have been slaves in the past, segregated, discriminated against, then terminated in mass numbers not long ago.

Not so much in the US.

 

[IGBT]

..the mediocre mama.

 

[wkabel23]

Originally posted by: JKing106

Originally posted by: wkabel23
I attended little rock central high school...maybe a few of you have heard of it. from my perspective, no student is discriminated against. all have the same opportunity. some choose to take it, others do not. does that fact that mostly white people took advantage of the tremendous teachers, AP classes, etc. indicate racism?

No. It indicates a group of people willing and desiring to further themselves. You can BS all you want about cultural shit...OMG PARENTS DONT SUPPORT HOMEWORK IN THE GHETTO!!!! Fuck that. You want to succeed? Do it.

At what point do you retards consider personal responsibility? I know plenty of rich kids working at pizza shops; i also know plenty working at law firms, as doctors, etc.

As for Sotomayor...fuck that shit. Too bad i didn't have an Admit One ticket to go with my law school applications. Boy, that would have been nice. I fucking even maintained a decent GPA in college for law school. Too bad my 170 on the LSAT was just another white kid being white. If only I was a minority...would turn that 170 into a fat, baller 180. But then again, I'd have to be a racist schmuck to accept entrance to law school based upon a "disadvantaged" race status.

You weren't good enough. Get the fuck over it. Poor white boy, my ass.

Sir,

You don't have to tell me I wasn't good enough to get into YLS. I had fun in college, oops! Decent LSAT score doesn't make up for a "low" GPA. And here I was thinking a B+ average was pretty solid. But there are people that work their ass off from Day 1 to get into HLS or YLS. I'm not one of them, nor would I ever claim to be any kind of academic. But a lot of people out there have that mentality and a lot of smart folks get screwed over every year in the name of diversity. Was I slightly frustrated that I couldn''t select the +10 LSAT score/+1 grade point on my application? Of course. But that's only when I sit and think about it. Only a re-tard (just saw the Hangover) would dwell on the past like that.

If I was actually that nuts about it...I probably could have got my rich white doctor parents to pay for a study course. But that takes all the fun out of a test!

As for academic honors...really? Join in on the circle-jerk and you're set.

But at least Sotomayor took advantage of a wonderful opportunity. That, my friends, is the American dream. It's not a house with a 2 car-garage, it's the fact that we live in a land of opportunity. Some people think they can squander the astounding freedom and opportunity we have in this nation and still get paid.

Doesn't work like that. Black, white, brown, blue, polka dot...work hard and you will succeed. Or maybe you don't. But that's life. And I shouldn't need to remind everyone of the fairness of life.

 

[Starbuck1975]

The rest of your post is irrelevant to my point.

Your point is irrelevant to the discussion, as you continue to quantify discrimination. Anyone who ever faced or is currently facing discrimination will tell you they had/have it worse than the other guy.

But let's assume for a moment that you are correct in that discrimination/racism against African-Americans is the worst that any cultural group has ever dealt with since the dawn of man. What does that entitle them to?

The bottom line is that Italians did not face the same type of overwhelming racism, of any kind, that african americans faced.

It's an Italian thing, you wouldn't understand.

 

[Phokus]

Thus, Sotomayor got into Princeton, got her No. 1 ranking, was whisked into Yale Law School and made editor of the Yale Law Review ? all because she was a Hispanic woman. And those two Ivy League institutions cheated more deserving students of what they had worked a lifetime to achieve, for reasons of race, gender or ethnicity.
This is bigotry pure and simple. To salve their consciences for past societal sins, the Ivy League is deep into discrimination again, this time with white males as victims rather than as beneficiaries.

One prefers the old bigotry. At least it was honest, and not, as Abraham Lincoln observed, adulterated ?with the base alloy of hypocrisy.?

Oh Pat Buchanon, what won't you say? Republicans.txt (they're not racist, i swear!)

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: Phokus
I know from personal experience... i got a 1280 SAT (1600 scale) back in '96 studying only by myself and taking a shitty 1 week course at my high school... My friend, whose parents were quite wealthy, spent obscene amounts of money on a personal tutor from Kaplan or Princeton Review and he got around 1400 and he was a fairly mediocre student. He was never interested in learning shit, but he got a great education on how to game the SAT's.

Similar story here. Pothead who was a mediocre student scored a 1400+. No joke.

In my friend's defense though, he turned himself around in college and he's now a lawyer, but he was dumb as fuck in high school.

Having rich parents gives you a shit ton of opportunity.

Yeah, but has Ron White says "You can't fix stupid"

 

[Shuxclams]

fail... next



SHUX

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: Phokus
I know from personal experience... i got a 1280 SAT (1600 scale) back in '96 studying only by myself and taking a shitty 1 week course at my high school... My friend, whose parents were quite wealthy, spent obscene amounts of money on a personal tutor from Kaplan or Princeton Review and he got around 1400 and he was a fairly mediocre student. He was never interested in learning shit, but he got a great education on how to game the SAT's.

Similar story here. Pothead who was a mediocre student scored a 1400+. No joke.

In my friend's defense though, he turned himself around in college and he's now a lawyer, but he was dumb as fuck in high school.

Having rich parents gives you a shit ton of opportunity.

Yeah, but has Ron White says "You can't fix stupid"

You mean "as" Ron White says?

 

[QuantumPion]

The Pittsburgh Steelers have won six Super Bowl titles, seven AFC championships and hosted 10 conference games. No other AFC or NFC team can match this record. By contrast, the Arizona Cardinals' last championship victory was in 1947 when they were based in Chicago. In anyone's book, this is a gross disparity. Should the referees have the empathy to understand what it's like to be a perennial loser and what would you think of a referee whose decisions were guided by his empathy? Suppose a referee, in the name of compensatory justice, stringently applied pass interference or roughing the passer violations against the Steelers and less stringently against the Cardinals. Or, would you support a referee who refused to make offensive pass interference calls because he thought it was a silly rule? You'd probably remind him that the league makes the rules, not referees.

I'm betting that most people would agree that football justice requires that referees apply the rules blindly and independent of the records or any other characteristic of the two teams. Moreover, I believe that most people would agree that referees should evenly apply the rules of the games even if they personally disagreed with some of the rules.

It should not be up to a Judge to decide whether a law should be applied unevenly to different people because of their personal background. It's a ridiculous notion on its face.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
It should not be up to a Judge to decide whether a law should be applied unevenly to different people because of their personal background. It's a ridiculous notion on its face.

Who disagrees with that exactly?

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
It should not be up to a Judge to decide whether a law should be applied unevenly to different people because of their personal background. It's a ridiculous notion on its face.

Who disagrees with that exactly?

I do.

Structured sentencing is stupid. A judge has discretion - let them use it.



And standardized tests as the 'sez all' for anything is stoopid. Yes. They may be used for evaluation purposes.

Because someone scores well on a test is not the determinate factor in predicting future performance.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
It should not be up to a Judge to decide whether a law should be applied unevenly to different people because of their personal background. It's a ridiculous notion on its face.

Who disagrees with that exactly?

I do.

Structured sentencing is stupid. A judge has discretion - let them use it.

I was interpreting "personal background" as 'cultural/ethnic', not the circumstances of their life, like poverty, past criminal activity, etc. One can argue a judge should be able to modify sentencing based on their assessment of the defendant's chances at rehabilitiation, etc, but one cannot make an argument that a black defendant vs white defendant should be sentenced differently for the same crime based solely on race.

 

[QuantumPion]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
It should not be up to a Judge to decide whether a law should be applied unevenly to different people because of their personal background. It's a ridiculous notion on its face.

Who disagrees with that exactly?

I do.

Structured sentencing is stupid. A judge has discretion - let them use it.

I was interpreting "personal background" as 'cultural/ethnic', not the circumstances of their life, like poverty, past criminal activity, etc. One can argue a judge should be able to modify sentencing based on their assessment of the defendant's chances at rehabilitiation, etc, but one cannot make an argument that a black defendant vs white defendant should be sentenced differently for the same crime based solely on race.

Furthermore we aren't really talking about sentencing of a criminal trial here. We are talking about the interpretation of the law itself in an appellate court.

I'm not saying it is wrong for a judge to consider the background of the individual during sentencing (e.g. less harsh sentence for thief because he was poor and stole out of necessity). What Sotomayor and others advocate is interpreting the law itself differently (e.g. you are found not guilty of the crime of stealing because you are poor).

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
Furthermore we aren't really talking about sentencing of a criminal trial here. We are talking about the interpretation of the law itself in an appellate court.

I'm not saying it is wrong for a judge to consider the background of the individual during sentencing (e.g. less harsh sentence for thief because he was poor and stole out of necessity). What Sotomayor and others advocate is interpreting the law itself differently (e.g. you are found not guilty of the crime of stealing because you are poor).

I would ask you to substantiate this claim if I didn't already know it to be false.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
It should not be up to a Judge to decide whether a law should be applied unevenly to different people because of their personal background. It's a ridiculous notion on its face.

Who disagrees with that exactly?

I do.

Structured sentencing is stupid. A judge has discretion - let them use it.

I was interpreting "personal background" as 'cultural/ethnic', not the circumstances of their life, like poverty, past criminal activity, etc. One can argue a judge should be able to modify sentencing based on their assessment of the defendant's chances at rehabilitiation, etc, but one cannot make an argument that a black defendant vs white defendant should be sentenced differently for the same crime based solely on race.

Of course.

We've been having this debate in NC because of budget constraints and anticipated future prison over-crowding. We have something called 'habitual offender' laws with structured sentencing. Poor slubs with 3 petty larcenies end up getting twice the time of a goon who shoots you or commits an armed robbery.

Habitual offender laws are for the most part necessary to put away career criminals for a long time - not lock a guy up and throw away the key when he is trying to feed his family by shop-lifting food. But if it's his third strike ...

Boom! 12-15 years. Because of structured sentencing the judge can't do a thing.

 

[JKing106]

But them prisons are such good damn money.

http://www.dailytexanonline.co...vate-prisons-1.1268764

http://www.politicalaffairs.ne...icle/articleview/2024/

"Hot damn, Bubba! We goan get rich working them negros and wetbacks for pennies!"

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

The rest of your post is irrelevant to my point.

Your point is irrelevant to the discussion, as you continue to quantify discrimination. Anyone who ever faced or is currently facing discrimination will tell you they had/have it worse than the other guy.

But let's assume for a moment that you are correct in that discrimination/racism against African-Americans is the worst that any cultural group has ever dealt with since the dawn of man. What does that entitle them to?

The bottom line is that Italians did not face the same type of overwhelming racism, of any kind, that african americans faced.

It's an Italian thing, you wouldn't understand.

I don't know what it entitles at all, I'm simply discussing the tremendous amount of discrimination that African Americans have faced for hundreds of years in this country, even in recent times...all of which is overwhelming compared to whatever has happened to Italian Americans as a group.

It seems that you have some racial issues to deal with on your own considering how sensitive you have become and how you have responded.

 

[Starbuck1975]

It seems that you have some racial issues to deal with on your own considering how sensitive you have become and how you have responded.

Sotomayor is not African American. She is Puerto Rican, and I commented on the similarities between her experience and that of my family's, and the inconsistencies in terms of our society's cures for discrimination.

It seems someone else has racial issues that they felt the need to interject African American discrimination as a counter point to my observation on Puerto Ricans compared to Italians in terms of discrimination faced.