[244] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Richard's comments
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (justin nelson)
Fri Apr 27 13:55:12 2001
Message-Id: <200104271754.NAA21077@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 13:51:39 -0400
To: Zhelinrentice L Scott <zlscott@MIT.EDU>, mit-talk@MIT.EDU,
iguanatw@MIT.EDU
From: justin nelson <jmnelson@MIT.EDU>
Cc: marilee@MIT.EDU, larryben@MIT.EDU, paulp@MIT.EDU, merolish@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <200104271604.MAA16816@scrubbing-bubbles.mit.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>I agree with Richard. I am an african american woman who came from
>a high school where I was the top in my class. I had a perfect
>GPA with AP Chemistry, Biology, History, and other AP's under my belt.
>
>I was Long Beach's Young Woman of the Year, and I competed on the State
>level for California's Junior Miss(An intellectual version of the
>Ms. America pageants), I was an accomplished violinist, and track athelete.
>
>I also was very active in my community.
>
>Professors and students here at MIT have said many things during my
>MIT career that was racist and sexist. I find it offensive that my
>presence here at MIT is constantly questioned directly and indirectly.
>Especially after I am a double major, about to graduate successfully
>with 2 BS from MIT. This racist feeling and talk makes me upset,
>and drives me to work even harder. My mother was not lying when she
>said that, "A Black person has to work 10X harder than a white person
>to make it in this world". I have met white students who
>have a 3.0 average who feel that they have more right to be here than
>I do, a black woman with a B+ average at MIT. I find that although
>I love MIT and the opportunities it has afforded me, I find it
dissappointing
>that even individuals in the faith community feel that I, and others
>like me are "less motivated, and less qualified to be here".
Can you not see that you're making their point for them? Now I read the
pamphlet and there's a lot that i disagree on but I would also go out on a
limb and say that I don't find their comments racists. If you read further
"...we say we do not believe that there are any substantial innate
differences in intelligence based on race or gender"
You make a good case that you are a qualified individual to be here. You
obviously deserve to be here and have succeeded. There is another part in
the pamphlet which apologizes to all the women and underrepresented
minorities that deserve to be here. You say that you have caught hell
about not deserving to be here. Their point is that you catch that hell
because affirmative action exists. If it didn't, then noone in the back of
their mind would ever question you're deservingness of being here. Can't
you see you made their point for them?
As far as the blatant statement
"The average woman at MIT is less intelligent and ambitious than the
average man at MIT. The average `underrepresented' minority at MIT is less
intelligent and ambitious than the average non-`underrepresented' minority."
I believe that they chose poor words but that their basic thought was
indeed not racist. If affirmative action didn't exist, then one could make
the argument that the best possible attempt was made at making everyone
here equally worthy of being here, but since affirmative action does
exists, there exists certain groups which have an advantage in the
admissions office. In no way do I believe that one race or gender is
superior to another and because of this, I believe that affirmative action
could be removed and then everyone who was here would be undoubtly equally
deserving of being here. Their claim wasn't that noone who was female or
of an underrepresented minority group had what it take to belong here.
There are obviously many who would make it without special consideration of
race and gender and thus the reason why affirmative action isn't necessary.
I think the intent of the above statement was that certain people who are
here don't deserve to be here as much as others (from an academic sense).
If race and gender does indeed help one get admitted, then how can you not
see that there could be some cases that this is true? And if only one case
like this exists, then the average is brought down.
I also worked in the admission's office during IAP and I realize how
amazing 85% of the people that apply to this school are, but the term
amazing is a relative statement which is created by our context of the
average population. I believe that although not being perfect, there is a
way of determining the best out of the best. I realize that there are
flaws and how incredibly difficult it is to make such decisions based on
the limited information provided by an admission application. But left to
itself, (since the flaws aren't any way related to race or gender) the
flaws would balance out probabilistically and there is little need to
create extra factors which don't directly contribute to one's ability to
succeed here.
I am a white male which probaby makes all that I stated evil. I am a
freshman who barely got in off the waiting list and who is doing very well
in the advanced freshman classes. I am also 1/8 cherokee. That is enough
to claim yourself Native American on college applications and get away with
it. If you don't know, Native American is by far the most underrepresented
minority here, but I didn't mark it on any applications because I didn't
think that it was fair that I would have an advantage based on that. I'm
not just rambling on about affirmative action. I stuck to my principle
when it mattered.
I believe in cultural diversity in a college. I think one of the most
amazing aspects here is that you can see a lot of different cultures in one
place. It is truly amazing and is a whole dimension of education that some
people might not count worthy but I do. But I also believe in the equality
of intelligence across cultures which is why I don't see it necessary to
help out one culture over another. They all can make it on their own. We
should have enough respect for ourselves and the groups we wish to
associate ourselves with to see this.
Justin Nelson
