Student in my class: "Blacks should work harder"

[bluestateguy]

I teach government at the college level. This week I am discussing the issue of affirmative action. It's a sensitive issue that many people have passionate feelings about. I happen to support AA. Some people don't like AA. That's fine. Many students can make intelligent arguments against AA.

In my class yesterday a student said that government has been too deferential to minorities for too long and that AA was unfair. He then said that if blacks want to get ahead in this world they "should work harder" and "get off of welfare". I was floored; so floored that I was really unprepared to challenge him on such an outrageous statement. Fortunately, several other students called him out on this, which pleased me.

[sangh0]

1. I hope you told them AA is NOT a race-based program

It's a program based on discrimination and the disadvantages that discrimination causes, which is why the largest group that benefits from it is white.

[trumad]

2. I betcha a thousand bucks his parents are repukes...

[aquart]

3. Work harder? Like two full-time minimum wage jobs?

Which pay no overtime so bills are still late? Does your student have a clue how many minority family work ALL the time, and still get nowhere because the pay is so low? And what hard on your feet work it is?

Meantime, a stockbroker picks up a phone, puts the phone down. Makes money.

[skooooo]

4. Nothing surprises me anymore....

...I read a college (freshman) paper the other day on the topic of child labor during the industrial revolution in Great Britain. After minimal research, the student concluded that parents during the industrial revolution shouldn't have had so many kids if they couldn't afford them -- then there wouldn't have been so many children having to work. So, child labor during the industrial revolution was the product of irresponsible family planning by bad parents.

Brilliant, huh?

[LeahMira]

27. Truly!

I've read student papers as well, and this doesn't surprise me at all. Perhaps instructors should make it a policy not to accept student papers that have been written between the hours of 2:00 and 6:00 am the night before they are due in class!

[skooooo]

33. ..at least it was just a draft.

I suggested the student consult a book in the history of birth control.

[kiahzero]

35. Nah

I've written some great stuff between the hours of 2:00 and 6:00... then again, I'm a little nocturnal.

[MSgt213]

5. Where was he doing slavery? We were sure working then.

[ALago1]

6. Don't you hate that feeling of shock?

You spend your life constructing arguments that display the validity of progressive values yet when someone says something so rididulously untrue you are so shocked that you can't recall anything to rebutt.

It has happened to me before and mostly I just allow my jaw to drop and if time permits, engage in some form of intelligent conversation.

Glad to hear your students took this kid to task...

[Sandpiper]

7. I'm going to guess that this student

Was probably white.

If that's the case, you should ask this student if he is familiar with the concept of white privilege. If he's not, you should give him a synopsis of what white privilege means, and explain that as long as such a thing exists, Affirmative Action for minorities is necessary.

You should also point out that the biggest beneficiaries of AA policies have been white women rather than African Americans.

[tom_paine]

8. You CANNOT be shocked into silence by Orwellian Madness

of Bushevik Monsters. They have been programmed by Goebbels v2.0 to believe anything their Masters tell them, up to and including "1 + 1 = 3" (if their Bushevik Masters had anything to gain by obfucating the True Value of 1 + 1, which one day their grandchildren might).

Like their Spiritual Antecedents, the Nazis, they will use Orwellian Madness to shock Free Americans into silence.

WE MUST NEVER AGAIN ALLOW THEM TO DO THAT!

Listen, FULL DISCLOSURE: I was shocked into ilence by Orwellian Madness once or twice myself. NEVER AGAIN!

You made a mistake, which luckily didn't cost you thanks to your students. Now you know for next time.

NEVER allow yourself to be shocked into silence by Orwellian Madness! Respond VIGOROUSLY and throw their own aggression and phony self-righteousness back at them. Your righteousness will have the advantage of being honestly arrived at and genuine.

NEVER AGAIN!

:mad: :mad: :grr: :mad:

[HFishbine]

9. Or, blacks could work less, sit on their asses and

let white people labor for them - uh, wait, that wouldn't be right. Nevermind.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

10. back when i was a freshmen in college,

I chose as my research topic "how affirmative aciton hurts". as i have experienced more and tried to look at things through different perspectives my world view totally changed. i wonder what my english professor at the time thought.

so i guess, what i am saying is people change maybe there is hope. of course i was not of the opinion "black peole should work harder" i believed more that the AA situation only worked to divide people.

[XanaDUer]

11. I was in a Master's program...

with another student who could not figure out why an older black professor did not attend the HISTORICALLY WHITE college we were at (but she now taught there), but instead went to an HISTORICALLY black college!

Duh, Jim Crow, baby. And she was going to be a teacher. Duh.

[playahata1]

People don't know their history.

Rather, they have only been taught what passes for "history".

[guitar man]

12. I would have said

Why? *Bu$h hasn't worked a fucking day in his life,and look where he is.

[gonefishing]

13. Sounds like someone should be getting a "F"

[stopthegop]

16. for a differing opinion?

you're kidding...right?

[playahata1]

18. If that "opinion" is grounded in ignorance

he should NOT be rewarded for it.

[stopthegop]

19. "ignorance" can also be a different interpretation of events..

but it doesn't really matter... AA is here for the forseeable future...no matter who's in the White House or Congress

[playahata1]

20. We must ask our students, then,

how they have come to whatever interpretations and conclusions they hold. We must ask people like that if he/she knows any black people (and other people of color) personally, asked him/her to walk a mile in a black person's shoes. How did he/she come to the conclusion that black people are lazy?

Without sounding pompous or self-important, I feel that a significant part of my job as a teacher is to point out the holes in people's thinking, to challenge people's values and assumptions.

[stopthegop]

21. that may be...but there are differing opinions..

even among blacks

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060935936/ref=sib_rdr_dp/104-3006910-3082308?%5Fencoding=UTF8&no=283155&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&st=books

http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/people/facpages/mcwhorter.html

[playahata1]

25. I am aware of John McWhorter and his arguments.

That's another thread, though.

[Senjutsu]

22. It's college, not kindergarten...

Opinions are all well and good, but doggedly repeating stupid opinions with no grounding in reality is a valid reason to fail someone.

If they don't have the critical thinking skills to handle the issues rationally, they damn well should fail the course.

[Viking12]

32. Good point

I teach at the Unviersity level as well. I have a policy in my class that opinions are not allowed, positions are. Students must have reasonable justification for their position; if they can articulate a fairly rational argument, then their ideas are more than welcome no matter how much I disagree with them.

[playahata1]

34. Just make sure that your students understand the difference between

"position" and "opinion." In my experience, many students don't.

[leftyandproud]

36. question is...

would you treat a student the same if he agreed with you 100%, was a hardcore liberal activist/Kerry supporter and spouted lots of trash about the right wing? Would you challenge/fail him?
Or would you smile and be happy he was in your class?

[LeahMira]

30. Instructors have to walk a fine line...

for a differing opinion?...
you're kidding...right?

You're probably right, stopthegop. Some of the right-wingers would jump right on this and insist that freedom of speech and thought is non-existent on liberal college campuses. At least in this case the students responded, not the teacher. Otherwise, the right-wingers would claim that the anti-affirmative action fellow was afraid his grade would suffer if he stood up for his beliefs.

Instructors have to walk a fine line these days, particularly more liberal instructors. I've noticed that they make a serious attempt to NOT let their students know exactly where they stand on various issues. Interestingly, the one ultra-right instructor I've ever had for a class felt no such compunctions.

[gonefishing]

40. I hate it when I miss a good thread...

If this is what the student said in a Govt class:

"He then said that if blacks want to get ahead in this world they "should work harder" and "get off of welfare"."

He would be starting out with an "F" and have to dig his way out of the hole.

[playahata1]

14. And what was his reaction to having his butt chewed out?

This is what I have had to deal with, too, as a professor.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. For what it's worth...

a lot of successful black acquaintances of mine HAVE worked harder.

They had to in order to get over the one or two strikes they already had against them.

[LittleApple81]

17. What about MATERNITY?

Several years ago I was teaching a Human Resources course and we discussed maternity leave policies. One student (male) said there is absolutely NO reason to give women ANY maternity leave because MATERNITY is a choice. If women want to be mothers they shouldn't work! I countered saying that in some civilized countries both WOMEN and MEN get maternity leave so they can bond with the baby. That is what a country that CARES about its children does.

[Sandpiper]

24. Yeah, but that's in those loony countries that believe

You should work to live, not live to work.

[doni_georgia]

23. sounds like a college repuke to me n/t

[hamsterhuey]

26. geez

probably the most popular kid in the class =\ *sarcasm*

[mondo joe]

28. Could you teach them something about incremental advantage?

I dunno - maybe it's a good teaching opportunity.

Create a formula - for direct ancestor in a family who attended college you give 1 point. For every direct ancestor who earned a good living you get 1 point. And so on.

Then you can show that a black kid whose ancestors couldn't go to college and made a poor living isn't starting from the same place as a white kid whose family has been prosperous and college educated.

And you might even be able to show how some of that white prosperity was made on the backs of blacks.

Or you could show them the clip of Chris Rock's HBO show in which he talks about how in America there are a few really smatr people, a few realy dumb ones and a whole lot of B and C grade people --- but the difference is that if you're a black C student you can't become a McDonalds manager but if you're a white C student you can be the President of the United States.

[Cleita]

29. Blacks do work harder.

I worked in the mail room of a large university once. The staff was 90% African American. They were the hardest working people I had been among in a long time. Not only did they work harder, but they were passed over for promotions all the time in favor of white males.

[onethatcares]

31. everytime I hear the phrase"work harder"

it comes with certain caveats. "If you all just work a little harder and a little later, raises and bonuses are gonna make everyone happy". But no matter how hard you work, or how late for that matter, the upside doesn't.

[American liberal]

37. I have a story along these lines

I'm in grad school in a nonprofit management program. My all-time favorite professor assigned a textbook in my Law, Politics, and Govt. Relations for Nonprofits class called "Social Policy and Social Programs: A Method for the Practical Public Policy Analyst." Innocuous sounding. Because I like this teacher so much, I was actually looking forward to reading and discussing in class.

Well, after reading the first chapter and skimming the next two I e-mailed my professor and BCCed the rest of the class and told him that I'm boycotting the book! I refuse to read any more!

The author chose to use an essay written in 1979 by this black libertarian, ultra-conservative asshole named Walter E. Williams (I only learned all this after reading the essay and getting so upset about it I did some online poking around about him). His essay, which, by definition, was an opinion piece and did not back up his BS with ANY citations, his essay claimed that the unemployment rate for black youth was lower in the '50s than it is now (1979) and that MINIMUM WAGE was really to blame for high unemployment in the inner city black neighborhoods. And I quote: "When employers are required to pay a minimum labor price of $5.35 an hour, they have no incentive to hire workers whose labor value...may be only $4.00 an hour (suggesting that young black people's "skill set" is only worth $4/hour). Congress can legislate a higher wage, but it cannot legislate that workers be more productive (connoting that blacks are lazy).

And this asshole believes and feels he can justify every word! I've since learned that this Williams guy writes a weekly column called "Minority Viewpoint" in some conservative rag. This asshole probably has a picture of Bush, at the very least a picture of that infamous libertarian, what's his name, LaRouche, that he keeps by his bed and kisses every morning. And the rest of what I read was more of the same.

I mean, here's a book that is being used on college campuses across the United States, a book on an incredibly important topic, public policy and social programs, espousing all kinds of garbage about how blacks youth would be working if only they'd be willing to do it for less money and that's why they're in jail now. It was awful. I did my undergrad at a very liberal liberal arts college called Roosevelt University and am now at this really small Christian college that supposedly has this kick-ass nonprofit mngt program--as long as I'm willing to read crap in a book that turns my stomach! yuch.

Thanks for letting me vent.

[Skittles]

38. it is sickening that such bigotry exists

you could have started by explaining there are far more white people on welfare than minorities.

[bigbillhaywood]

39. Guy's an asshole, but Affirmative Action is a scam

A way to get a small minority of ethnic minorities and women into the upper class, where they promptly begin supporting the very economic system which underpins much (although not all) of the racist and sexist oppression in this country. Tank the fucking program. Good riddance. We need militant economic and community organization to combat race, gender and class oppression-- nothing less. Affirmative action and programs like it just encourage people to buy into the current economic, political and social system-- which is rotten to the core.

[Lithos]

41. Sounds similar to a freeper at my work

Who can't understand why there are homeless people given that there are so MANY programs which provide free housing... :eyes:

He of course lives in a fantasy world which doesn't understand the various traps and Catch-22's that exist.