[303] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Affirmative Action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (justin nelson)
Sat Apr 28 20:16:18 2001
Message-Id: <200104290014.UAA09668@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 20:13:33 -0400
To: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>, Michael E Rolish <merolish@MIT.EDU>
From: justin nelson <jmnelson@MIT.EDU>
Cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <200104282315.TAA23110@gold.mit.edu>
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Aimee Smith
>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?
just for the record, ive never killed a native american and ive never been
genocidally removed because i had native american blood in me.
laugh all that you want, but it wouldn't be fair for me to beat out someone
more deserving because of an irrelevant factor. I don't need a crutch or a
handout based upon the skin color of my great-grandma.
i would be very interested to know about the handouts that i have received
because i am a white male. i come from a below-average economic
background. my older brother will be the first person in my entire
extended family to graduate college. i come from a small, rural, public
school in texas. it offered 3 AP courses (only the bio course was worth
credit here). i was taught by teachers who did not know their subjects
because good teachers are a but harder to attain by smaller schools with
smaller budgets and that are located in the middle of nowhere. i am the
first person in 5 years to leave the state for college and the first person
from my school ever to go to a school anywhere near this caliber. i would
venture to say a good deal of the people here have received more
opportunities with their education than i did in my high school. where's
my advantage?
now if you think that your education was short changed because of your race
or gender then i guess you have a case for affirmative action, but dont try
and convince me whether or not you were realistically held back
educationally because of race or gender. that is something that you should
ask yourself and not answer for the sake of others seeing the answer.
i applaud zhe's attitude (and her mom's advice) about working harder. i
have no basis for knowing whether or not the "10X hard work" factor exists
but thank god someone has abandoned the "i'm a victim" attitude. i still
believe that hard work can overcome any barrier. perhaps i am foolishly
ideal, but i shall never abandon this belief for it has served me well so
far. i also believe our entire american generation as a whole has been
softened by prosperity and are too quick to claim helpless, victim status.
a book that everyone should read "the ten things you can't say in america"
by larry elder.... ive just started it and it has some good points about
race relations and political correctness in america.
justin
"It is only through the struggle that I find the strength to be great"
"If life isn't fair to anybody, then isn't it being fair to everybody?"
