Affirmative Action: Self Haterz and Irrational Women
NPR’s Talk of The Nation recently addressed the issue of affirmative action and how issues of race, class and sex can be negotiated under the Obama administration. Two of the featured guests included Shanta Driver, “chairperson and national spokesperson of By Any Means Necessary, who advocates affirmative action,” andJohn McWhorter, “an author and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who is against affirmative action”. The discussion was mediated/hosted by Neal Conan.
I listened to the pod cast on the subway and got angry when I starting picking up on the fact that Conan interrupts Driver 8 billion times and McWhorter treats her like naughty little infant.
Driver explained how racism only increases when affirmative action is eliminated (especially in higher education) and how she, the daughter of a black man and Indian woman personally benefitted from affirmative action as a Harvard graduate—as a woman and woman of color, she would not have been able to attend Harvard without affirmative action. Similarly, she adds, Obama benefitted from affirmative action, and look where he is today.
She goes on to state that she felt every bit and entitled and worthy of a Harvard education as white students and men. Students of color face challenges in their college application process and the SAT is a flawed system to use because it is bias. As her argument gains momentum, Conan cuts her off—“okay, we get your point there” and turns the discussion to McWhorter.
McWhorter scolds Driver (that bad, bad baby!) for suggesting the SAT favors upper class, white and privileged students—after all, you can search high and low but you will not find one section of the SAT that tests students on vacation homes in Cape Cod or Ladies Luncheon etiquette—the test itself cannot be bias because it doesn’t ask which type of wine to serve with chicken (only white students in their late teens/early 20’s know that answer, duh!) surely, it cannot be benefitting some and failing others. Sure, students of color tend to score lower on the test, but that’s neither here nor there, Driver!
Is it a coincidence that Driver is woman of color? Is it possible that as she started to get “emotional” and “personal” and “irrational” and began to “over-react” (as women ALWAYS do) she was intentionally silenced?
As for McWhorter, many have deemed him a “hater” and worse, a self hater because he is black. He admits to feeling bullied by other black kids growing up and preferred spending time at home and away from “them .” Simply put, McWhorter thinks African Americans are held back (or hold themselves back) because of "black culture"—they are not held back (by oppressors) because of racism. McWhorter, a man who entered college at the age of 15 after attending private schools and is the son of two Temple University employed parents did not “feel” the racism other people of color felt when “so-called black issues” came up in the 1990’s. And if he did not feel this racism (as he was playing the piano, listening to spanish language records and studying in his home) it probably did not exist.
As a professor at University of California-Berkeley, he has an insiders perspective on race in the classroom—he claims more black students than white students blithely turn in incomplete work and choose not to take their education seriously. Black students, according to McWhorter, tend to stretch the truth when it comes to racism--they even make up stories about the racism they face from professors and other students (who think they are stupid and are only there because of affirmative action).
Is McWhorter a hater? A self-hater? Or is he simply a victim of internalized racism and oppression???? A great book on this topic is Beverly Daniel Tatum’s book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
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