[281] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Affirmative action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher D. Beland)
Sat Apr 28 12:38:19 2001
Message-Id: <200104281637.MAA12094@Press-Your-Luck.mit.edu>
To: "Pius A. Uzamere II" <pius@MIT.EDU>
cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: The events that comprise the history of the universe.
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 12:37:51 -0400
From: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
> Thus, it never asks for the color of your skin. What is does implicitly
> ask you is what your "cultural perspective" is, as Beland put
> it. Literally, every student has the prerogative to identify his or her
> own culture to MIT Admissions, irregardless of how much melatonin is in
> said student's skin.
But it seems to take a rather narrow and view of "cultural
perspective." It makes no differentiation between my Christian Mormon
upbringing and that of the boy down the street who was raised by two
drag queens, as long as we are the same "ethnicity."
And if what you say is true, for example, a white person who has grown
up in a minority neighborhood has some claim to ethnic diversity
(though personally, I feel I would be risking admissions fraud).
*But* a black person who was raised by white people in a white
neighborhood and who is culturally unremarkable from his white foster
brother, *would* be treated as if he has a "diverse" perspective.
We've decided that ethnicity cannot be used as a shorthand for
personal attributes like ambition or intelligence; why is it OK to use
it as a shorthand for diversity of anything other than itself?
-B.
===============================================================
Christopher Beland - http://web.mit.edu/beland/www/contact.html
MIT STS/Course 6 (EECS) - MIT Athena User Interface Project
===============================================================
MIT MAILING LISTS:
Add/remove yourself: http://web.mit.edu/moira
Add/remove requests: owner-LISTNAME@mit.edu
Moderated mailing lists: http://web.mit.edu/is/service/listserv.html
