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All a black student has to do is have a B average and slightly above average SAT scores and he will get a full scholarship to almost any of the top schools in the nation.

And that's the problem that I see today. My children can compete with any of the other students across the nation today, but because of the bedwetting poverty pimps and race warlords, my kids are left with having to prove themselves further yet. Not only do they have to excel, but they have to excel above and beyond even the high achievers from the remainder of the mainstream students in order to prove that they did not get where they were because of someone's sick sense of tokenism.

God, that makes me furious!

Not only that, black kids are cheated by the "passing along" syndrome. The lack of challenges reduces their scores. I went to school with a black kid who was very smart and the teachers treated him like a freak. If he had been white, he would be just another smart kid.

If you are a black parent and your kid can't read, don't expect any help teaching him to read. They will just pass him along rather than help him.

God, that makes me furious!

Me too...and the people that will dumb-down your children's education so that when they get out they are unprepared I consider vile. I do not understand how adults can do that to children. One of my friends from Jamaica talks of when he was younger and was getting "A"s without trying in a NYC school, and then his parents moved to NJ and he was totally lost. The realization of how much of his time and mind had been wasted still brings him to furious tears today. (It torques me pretty good too). This guy is normally pretty calm - but when this subject comes up, he just goes ballistic.

Indeed. Proving that those of us in the '60s who argued against the form of affirmative action we have today were correct. Then many of us argued for a form that would identify kids with talent (through testing and recommendations of teachers), send them to community/junior college for whatever remedial work was necessary until they could meet the University (of California's) standards for admission, and then send them on scholarship (if needed) where they would compete on an even, color blind footing.

As a black woman law school classmate of mine put it over 20 years ago: I wouldn't be here without affirmative action, but I want my daughter to get in here on the numbers!

On first appearances, you are right. It is easy and often correct to assume a black kid in a good college is there because of a quota-like system.

But my experience as a college interviewer leads me to think that once you get past that first thought, the student's real worth becomes apparant in the course of time, and the quota cases soon self-select out of truly competitive situations.

What is telling, from my experience, is that US-born blacks, or those here from very early childhood, lag way way behind recent immigrants from the DR in terms of mental agility, energy and preparation. It is chilling.

This type of attitude kills me, too, MHKING. Liberal programs like affirmative action do promote racist stereotypes. They hurt more than they help. So do stupid articles like the one above in Time magazine. Unfortunately, there are many bigots on both the Right and the Left. My husband is African-American (I'm not). He earned a scholarship to a university on his own merit, but once there white students assumed he was admitted due to his skin color. African-Americans do have to outperform everyone else to be taken seriously. You also have to dress better and speak better than everyone else. My sons are young, but our oldest is smart as a whip. Taught himself to read at age 4. He was reading astronomy books by age 5. Takes after his dad, not me.

Not only do they have to excel, but they have to excel above and beyond even the high achievers from the remainder of the mainstream students in order to prove that they did not get where they were because of someone's sick sense of tokenism.

And then the sad thing is that even when they do graduate and start practicing a profession, they are continually handicapped by the stigma of affirmative action. For example, knowing what I do about affirmative action in graduate and professional schools, I doubt very much if I would ever hire a black doctor or a black lawyer. I don't like that state of affairs, but when your life or property is on the line, and you need the best doctor or the best lawyer, you can't risk that the person whom you've hired is not among the best and brightest.

This truly saddens me. I'm sure that all liberals (and maybe even some FReepers would cite my personal feelings as proof that I am a racist. I have these feelings because of my experiences with affirmative action, and wish that my experiences had been different. But as long as we have such discriminatory policies that prevent true competition and don't require people of color to meet the same standards as white folks, I and other good people like me will continue to view black professionals with a certain degree of caution and have reservations about hiring one for our personal needs. Like I said, it makes me sad.

Your complaint is the exact reason I have opposed affirmative action programs not specifically targeted on recruitment and discovery of talent.

No defender of a.a. (a form of apartheid imo) can truthfully answer when I ask them if they would go to a doctor knowing the he only got into med school because of a.a. (some of the hardcore black nationalist types/whackjobs would but none of their white allies would.)

The real tragedy is that the black professional who attained his education w.o. benefit of a.a. is also suspect which is the syndrome your children are facing. Thus, a.a. is one of the most insidious underminers of black success. Another brilliant Liberal program at work.