Posted on 02/25/2003 8:23:05 AM PST by twas
*note* original thread can be found below
This letter is in response to Jamie Lynn Perna's (column) on affirmative action. From the way you have put your (column) together, is it obvious that you are (an) average white girl and you are definitely special.
Let me let you know that you have just committed a gross sin, for you know nothing about what you speak. Through those minuscule eyes of yours, you have only seen the tip of the iceberg about what is it to be black or to be a person of color. Affirmative action will continue to be a "crutch" as you say, as long as every white man has two legs and every person of color has one.
Your (column) has not a single form of intelligence in it, because you(r) sources and your reasoning are just plain unjustifiable and in better words dumb. In this day and age you have the courage to believe that racism is dead? It is obvious that you are blind to what goes on around you. You complain about not being picked at your top choice, while a black colleague of yours did at another school you did not apply to? Now, I know you are a growing lady. Now, you use that brain of yours and think how does this prove affirmative action got this colleague into that school, and did not get you into yours? You then go on to complain about packing your stuff and coming to UB. If you are not happy about being here you should have stayed home; there is also a simple thing called transferring. Most students of color are happy we just even got here because there are still so many of us whom cannot afford to come to state universities.
You then commit another gross sin, babbling about reserve (sic) racism; a white man in the United States has not, and cannot even begin to understand what racism is. You think not getting into a school of choice is racism? Let's talk about not having a job for 11 months after graduating from college. What is the reason for not hiring a black woman who just graduated out of Baruch College (one of the most prestigious city colleges) with a bachelor's in business management? The answer is that the economy is doing bad and we are not hiring. Is the economy doing that bad that after countless interviews she is just getting a job? While her less intellectual colleagues got jobs in less than two months after graduating. There is not a young white man on this campus who would trade places with me or a young man like Allan Houston of the New York Knickerbockers, and he's rich.
I wish that was enough, but it is not, because there you go again and make another dumb or the most un-intellectual comparison known to man. How could you have possibly come to the conclusion that because only white students applied to the Student Association's romance series that this proves affirmative action is being used as a crutch? (Edit Note: Perna referenced The Spectrum's Experiment in Romance Series, which had no involvement with the SA.) There is no correlation between the two variables. Ask yourself this question: if only white people applied to this series, are you catering to the needs of everybody on this campus? Blacks are not the only minority on this campus; there are Indians, Asians, Hispanics, and so on. Were they catered to?
You feel affirmative action has overstayed its welcome? I wish for a day you could trade places with a young black woman and then we'll see whether you still feel the same way.
Again I ask you: do you seriously feel affirmative action has overstayed its welcome? Did you know that 75 percent of all who are helped by affirmative action are white women? Did you even know that the civil rights movements paved the way for the "White Women Right(s) Movement?" I obviously do not think you do.
Now to redeem yourself from all these gross sins, I challenge you and all the people of your thinking to come in any of the following weeks to a(n) NAACP meeting in room 145A of the Student Union. I want us to have a real conversation, human being to human being.
College Student Opposes Affirmative Action
Mail responses to: spectrum-me@buffalo.edu
Please make your opinion known. Please write a letter today.
Thank-you.
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.
Sounds like my son.
He always told me he was white...
Blah, blah, blah... Im black, you're not..... blah, blah.... blacks are oppressed, you're not.... blah, blah..."dumb analogies"....typical victimhood....blah, blah......
I was expecting the author to suggest donating money to some wackjob organization..
Her entire response to the original writer's letter consists of ad hominem attacks on the character of the writer and all whites, and an appeal to unverifiable authority (characterizing her views as "sin" without any scriptural or other religious evidence). Responses of this nature in my classroom (or anywhere else in the University of California), when I was a graduate teaching assistant over 30 years ago, would have not been considered legitimate arguments. Learning not to argue fallaciously, and to speak directly to the arguments one wishes to refute, are skills which were once learned in the better high schools, or in any event, in required freshman courses in English composition or philosophy.
At the risk of falling into ad hominem argument, I would suggest the writer demonstrates the lack of adequate preparation for university work that opponents of affirmative action cite as unfair to the unprepared students admitted themseleves, to the better-prepared students who are not admitted, and to the university community as a whole to the extent standards for all are eroded. I would suggest for the sake of her education, the writer take a basic course in English composition (what used to be called 'bonehead' English, or 'Subject A' at the University of California), and an introductory course in philosophy or logic. Perhaps then she will be in a position to argue her case more effectively.
Repeat after me, Mr. Laniyan- "Would you like fries with that? Would you like fries with that?"
A product of a public schools. Piss poor.
If the application process required any writing, I can guarantee I know why she didn't get the job. Maybe she could have spent some of those 11 months on a remedial English class. Maybe some of her "less intellectual" colleagues can actually write a coherent sentence.
"you are (an) average white girl"
"you have just committed a gross sin"
"you know nothing about what you speak"
"those minuscule eyes of yours"
"as long as every white man"
"not a single form of intelligence"
" "in better words dumb"
"use that brain of yours"
"you should have stayed home"
"You then commit another gross sin, babbling..."
"there you go again and make another dumb or the most un-intellectual"
"less intellectual colleagues"
"a white man in the United States"
"How could you have possibly come to the conclusion"
"are white women"
"White Women Right(s) Movement"
"Now to redeem yourself"
They then go on to propose this whooper.
"I want us to have a real conversation, human being to human being."
Right. I wonder if the respondent is the woman who had a tough time finding a job? After this screed, I can't possibly understand why. Who wouldn't want to hire an angry racist with poor communication and people skills?
Because maybe bosses see that entitlement mentality that this author wears on her sleeve and say NOPE.
Nobody owes you a job whether you're white, black, purple, green or blue.
Black people with this attitude REALLY piss me off. If you're willing to work hard, then you're ok in my book.
Correction: ANYONE with this attitude would piss me off.
What a judgmental person!
I lost my job many years ago becasue I'm a white male. The govt. forces govt. contractors to give tally sheets for race, etc. and slams them if their assigned quota hasn't been met. So don't go telling me about not knowing what it's like to be discriminated against.
Does UB have an affirmative action plan for idiots...
Why, yes - yes, they do. Poohbah, fourdeuce - fourdeuce, Poohbah ;)
IT'S A BLACK THING THAT EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS!
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