[298] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Affirmative Action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Sat Apr 28 19:16:31 2001
Message-Id: <200104282315.TAA23110@gold.mit.edu>
To: Michael E Rolish <merolish@MIT.EDU>
cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 28 Apr 2001 03:39:27 EDT."
<200104280739.DAA03524@BURTON-CONNER-2.mit.edu>
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Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 19:15:40 -0400
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
> Nnennia:
>
> If I remember correctly, you had a letter published in
> the Tech accusing same of sexism for endorsing a Rao/
> Devereaux ticket. Honestly, I think you should relax.
Always think twice before doing what a man asks you to do...
particularly when it is "relax." Your letter was on mark,
Nnennia. The Tech has a history of being, shall we say,
less than sensitive to issues concerning women...
Mike should talk about relaxing... look how upset he got at
the mere mention that he *looked* like a skin-head... I
am sure he would take structural sexism against men
(if it existed in this country) with calm and patience...
> There will always be jerks who have problems with
> women/blacks/whoever for various dumbass reasons. But,
> unlike what leftist agitators like Aimee Smith would
> like you to believe, this is the exception, not the rule.
This "agitator" believes that actually the majority of men
are *extremely* sexist based on a study that found 51-60% of
college men said they would RAPE a woman if they knew they would not
be caught. I used to subscribe to the "most men are nice"
theory, then I read this and a few million other things...
Rape is the extreme expression of misogyny. What lesser
abuses are the remaining 40-49% ready to perpetrate?
Of course, many men and women *are* nice, we just tend
to perpetuate the stereotpyes that are all around us
inadvertently (even "leftie agitators" are not immune--
we do not have 100% control over our thoughts and
actions, much as we might like to think, I have also
been programmed by my socialization to be sexist against women
and have only partially unraveled that sickness...) Don't think
people at MIT are "above all that." (The best one I heard is
"MIT students don't have time to rape." Deep thinking, really...)
> I have lived in diverse communities my whole life, and I
> for one have not noticed any problems beyond the harmless
> actions of individual idiots.
Please don't confuse denial with truth. Many women fail to
"see" sexism (although it catches up with a good portion
eventually.) That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, that means
they simply store experiences in the "individual jerk" category
rather than recognizing the underlying structural bias
that makes so many such jerks act in such a similar
pattern...
and it is even easier to "miss" things when you yourself
are not the target, such as being a white man with a nice
conservative hair cut...
> As long as the gov't isn't sponsoring racism, and is
> otherwise protecting individual rights, one should feel
> free to carry on with his/her life without worrying about
> the irrationality of others.
>
The govt sponsors racism. 70% of people on death row are people
of color. Black people make up ~13% of drug users, 30% of
those arrested for drug related infractions, 50% of those *convicted*
for such infractions and 70% of those incarcerated. If this isn't
structural, govt sponsored bias, what is? Throw in the fact
that Black males (whether American or foreign) are MUCH more
likely to be summarily executed by police than another other group.
Driving While Black, walking while Black all seem to be offenses
in the US... I would be curious to know what "issues" folks
have had with mit police. They seem pretty relaxed to me, but
then I am a white woman, so I don't pretend to be able to gauge
their treatment of people who look different than me.
In summary, Gonna have to go with Zhe on this one, my TRUST is also a bit
worn thin... structural racism and sexism are alive and well. Doing
nothing to counter is AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR WHITE MEN. How
does that make you feel, white men, to know that you may very well
have gotten in to MIT and had many other opportunities opened to you
on account of being white and/or male? I am certain I have benefited
far more, and undeservedly, by being white, then through corrective measures
towards me on account of being female. I am not ashamed to be white, but I
am ashamed to be the recipient of unfair advantage on account of
the oppression dealt out to people of color...an injustice to one, is
an injustice to all...
The gentlemen of 1/8 Cherokee decent makes me laugh. He feels it would be
"unfair" to get into MIT on the basis of his ethnic background. Was
it "fair" of the white settlers to genocidally remove almost all of
the indigenous people of North and South America, thereby CLEANSING
the playing field, rather than tilting it? And indigenous
people who survived have the double burden of having to learn and
participate in their own culture as well as having to become proficient
at navigating the occupying culture in order to defend what tiny
fraction of rights and autonomy remains. Now, it is up to each
person of indigenous American decent to decide how much they identify
with either culture, but in general, it is a hard balancing act that
no Anglo-american has to face. I worked with a student who was Native
American, and she struggled with culture differences, world-view
differences, etc. Basically, she seemed to have more on her plate than
your typical white student... nonetheless, she did great work, just
more things to deal with that aren't "fair" in any sense... yeah,
let's talk about "fair" since certain white men are suddenly so
interested in being "fair." (My friend worked on the Navajo Nation
for several years in the high schools in Utah. He found that
these schools got systematically short-changed vis a vis mormon-
majority schools, Navajo parents had mistrust for the schools since
the previous generation had all been forcibly kidnapped from their
parents and sent to boarding schools where parents were not allowed
to visit, and that there are few jobs for folks who graduate college
on the reservation... this is just one white man's impressions, but there
is a lot of f%cked up shit that persists. I think people who think
racism is a thing of the past need to really look around at what
people are facing in this country, TODAY. These are not subtle small
side issues, and they are not irrelevant to the workings of MIT
admissions, peer dynamics, etc. Denying history can be extremely
hurtful - even when unintentioned. Imagine how you would feel about
a German who said the Holocaust didn't really happen or wasn't really
a big deal, or has no effect on the present dynamics between the Roma
people and Germans or Jews and Germans today. You might say they
were racists and excluding people by their denial... we do the same
when we fail to learn about post-reconstruction, mob-leveling and massacres
of successful African American communities, abhorrent discrimination
at every level of the criminal so-called justice system, the history
of exclusion of women from science/medicine by the witch-hunts in
Europe that left on the order of 1 million women dead and the rest
terrorized and silent, the prevalence of rape on our campus and
sexual harassment as not-so-subtle reminders of that past... ) If
their were no history or present pattern of racism and sexism in
academia, science and technology, then affirmative action would
be "unfair." The fact that vastly more harmful inequities exist
against women and people of color in this country makes calling affirm.
action "unfair" a pathetic joke...
By the way, Ayn Rand was also in denial... and she makes fiction that
depicts a woman who enjoyed her own rape... I have NO trust in her
view of humanity... and I don't have much trust who put all their faith in
*one* human being as their fountain of truth, but that's just me...
No gods, no masters!
Aimee
