[477] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
RE: penn state
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Cornell)
Thu May 3 01:42:19 2001
Message-Id: <200105030537.BAA02358@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 01:38:00 -0400
To: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
From: Chris Cornell <cornellc@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <BNEILLLDMMFPOICJFKOBCEBJCEAA.smoove@mit.edu>
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I don't understand something... if you (you being no one in particular)
think that minority academics are being denied jobs due to their color or
nationality, that's one thing. Such things should never happen; job
hiring, ESPECIALLY in academia, should be based on capability and performance.
But if you think that, given a fair hiring game, that not enough minorities
are being hired, all you're showing by artificially raising the number of
minorities being hired is that you can get freebies if you make enough fuss
over it. It doesn't sound like knowing that you need to do less to get
more is anymore 'success motivating'.
And something else, too. I am half hispanic (my mother moved here when she
was a teen), and I either put down Hispanic or White AND Hispanic (I might
have only put hispanic because it said "White [not Hispanic]", I don't
remember) on my application. Every now and then I'll hear "My friend got
or did so and so, that's why he didn't get in" and I'll say "Well, I also
didn't get or do so and so, and I got in" and the response is sometimes
"yea, but you were listed as a minority". Do I know whether or not that's
true? No. I DO know that I worked my ass off to get into this school, and
I would much rather have been rejected than gotten in because I didn't only
check the White box. The very idea of such an sequence events makes me
shudder.
I want to *know* beyond all doubt that I am here because I deserve to be
here, and because of these kinds of activities I'll always wonder if I
deserved it or if I just "slipped by". And now, having been exposed to
this sort of activism and scrutiny, you better believe that I will never
mark myself as a minority in the future, because I don't want to treated
better or be given any more slack than the next guy (or girl). I can get
by without special treatment, and if I can't, then I didn't deserve to get by.
I, too, am all for race/nationality-blind admissions, employment, etc.
cc
At 12:24 AM 5/3/01 -0400, you wrote:
>What they are learning is that when you see a Black man standing in front of
>a lecture hall, the first assumption is that he's the janitor (speak to
>Prof. Calvin Mackie of Tulane University for numerous accounts). What they
>learn is that white males possess all of the knowledge in this world, and
>all those besides white males must again and again prove their worth. What
>they learn is that when students of color speak up for what they rightfully
>deserve in the 21st century on a college campus, their peers will look down
>upon them because the students of color's requests are unfounded.
>
>Now how about what we (as students of color) learn:
>
>We learn that it is acceptable to have lower standards of achievement. We
>learn that we must spend our college days in an uncomfortable environment,
>being second guessed by many of our peers and professors. We learn that it
>isn't as important for us to have mentors and role models by which we can
>shape our lives and career paths and understand their struggles. We learn
>that students like yourself tend to care more about maintaing the Pass/No
>Record system in tact than seeing a faculty and graduate community that
>mirrors the diverse undergraduate population.
>
>And what these ridiculous individuals who send the hate mail learn is that
>they have to hide behind a veil and not reveal themselves as cowards.
>
>jw.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Matt Craighead [mailto:craighea@MIT.EDU]
>Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 11:10 PM
>To: mit-talk@mit.edu
>Subject: penn state
>
>
>http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/02/penn.state.02/index.html
>
>I don't get it. What does a "plan to enhance diversity" have to do with
>threatening letters and emails?!?
>
>If people are getting threatening letters and emails, there is only one
>valid way to respond to that: to find who is sending them and punish
>them!
>
>This agreement is blatant racism: the university is setting a goal to
>"[increase] the number of full-time tenured black faculty members". Who
>_cares_ how many full-time tenured black faculty members they have?
>It's a university, and what matters is whether people are _learning_,
>not what the faculty's skin color makeup is.
>
>--
>Matt Craighead, MIT Class of 2002
>President, MIT Objectivist Club
>http://web.mit.edu/objectivism/www/
>
