Here is an interesting article via TOWNHALL and Larry Elder:
…..This brings us to the Cornell University’s Black Students United and whether the organization is engaging in racism — against blacks. The BSU complains that the prestigious Ivy League school admits too many blacks — from Africa and the Caribbean. “We demand that Cornell Admissions to come up with a plan to actively increase the presence of underrepresented Black students on this campus,” the BSU student group said in its demands. “We define underrepresented Black students as Black Americans who have several generations (more than two) in this country.”
Hold the phone. Isn’t the mantra of modern higher education “diversity,” “inclusion” and “overcoming disadvantage”? If so, the black African and Caribbean students would seem to nail all three.
Maybe the problem is that it is tough to explain why so many black foreign applicants outperform America-born blacks on what some call “culturally biased” standardized tests. A 2007 study by Princeton and University of Pennsylvania sociologists examined the standardized test scores of black students enrolled at 28 selective universities. As to the SAT, the test most colleges use as an important factor in offering admission, the study found that foreign-born black college-bound students earned a statistically significant advantage on SAT scores, averaging a score of 1250 (out of 1600) compared to 1193 average points for their American black counterparts. This explains, in large part, why first- or second-generation black immigrants made up 27 percent of the black student bodies at colleges nationwide. In the Ivy League, black immigrants comprised 41 percent of black students.
What is the basis for the black students’ protest? Don’t black foreigners face even more obstacles? After all, America spends more on education, K through 12, than the top 34 industrialized countries save Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Luxembourg. New York City and Washington, D.C., annually spend approximately $21,000 and $15,000 per student, respectively.
BSU might want to consider the letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal written by a man from Congo:
“I grew up in the Congo and have numerous friends in the U.S. from the Congo and other African countries who are here for an education or a better life. Every one of them is grateful for the opportunity to secure an excellent education. … Most come here from different cultures with minimal money and limited English language skills. Interestingly, I’ve never heard one complain about discrimination, obstacles or being a victim. Rather, they are grateful. Juxtapose this with Cornell’s Black Students United (BSU) whose members feel they should be treated better than every other color or race if they have ancestors who’ve been here for more than two generations.
“The counterintuitive posturing of American blacks denying other blacks from Africa or the Caribbean is appalling. First-generation African or Caribbean students have more obstacles to overcome to get into any university, much less a prestigious one like Cornell. Furthermore, the liberal American blacks who worship at the altar of ‘diversity’ and ‘victimhood’ should welcome real Africans or Caribbeans versus seeking preferences for those American blacks who truly have the superior advantage of having grown up in the U.S.
“If my Congolese friends are grateful for their opportunities here and have more challenges to overcome, why should American blacks get special treatment? Call this action what it is: racism. And it’s being pushed and protected under the guise of alleged victimization and preferential treatment at the expense of others of all colors and walks of life. So I challenge the BSU folks to start focusing on the concept of succeeding in life instead of always dwelling on the idea that the system is rigged against them.”…
But this confuses me. If I can be whatever gender I want if I say I am, why can’t I be black if I believe myself to be? And then why isn’t everyone championing my choice?
SPOKANE, Wash. — Controversy is swirling around one of the Spokane region’s most prominent civil rights activists, with family members saying the local leader of the NAACP has falsely portrayed herself as black for years.
Rachel Dolezal is president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, chair of the city’s Office of Police Ombudsman Commission, and an adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University.
The Spokesman-Review reported Thursday that questions have arisen about her background and her numerous complaints to police of harassment. The story was first reported by the Coeur d’Alene Press.
Dolezal’s mother, Ruthanne, says the family’s ancestry is Czech, Swedish and German, with a touch of Native American heritage.
Dolezal has identified herself in application materials as white, black and Native American.
Police say they have found little evidence of racial harassment.
Its pretty funny until you get to the part where it starts to look like all of the hate crimes supposedly committed against her over the past decade were probably manufactured by her to stir shit up. Then we’re in mental illness territory.
In another comment via my LiveLeak account, one person noted:
So in a world where a man can become a woman and a white woman can become a black woman does that mean there really isn’t racism and sexism. Change your race , change your sex…
Dolezal, meanwhile, diminishes the seriousness of civil rights for blacks by suggesting that being black is as easy as changing your hair and hitting the tanning bed more often.
I posted the following in the comment section of Gay Patriot:
As I see it… the Left is devouring itself… they are taking away their tools to separate and conquer. Undermining their won arguments of race-class-gender, and wanting to throw things like the 14th Amendment away. Each layer of their thinking is built on a false perception… soon they have so many layers in this house of cards that it will topple. I hope sooner than later.
This theme of the Left destroying any foundation for grievances to be held against any minority or small grouping of people/person’s is picked up as well by Steven Crowder:
Gay Patriot is on the same page as well, noting the “fluidity” of these “protected” classes:
…As I read it, I could not help but wonder whether there is race fluidity in addition to gender fluidity? If a person can be whatever gender they want to be despite the biological reality of their genetic and physical make-up, then why can’t they be whatever race they feel they are? Why should those same rules not apply to race?
It used to be thought that a man claiming to be a woman had no more grip on reality than a man claiming to be Napoleon or a bunny rabbit. But the culture has evolved, and society has decided that for a man to be woman requires nothing more than hormone treatments, surgery, and make-up. (Which, as an aside, seems rather insulting to real biological women.) If race is an identity, than why should people have any less right to determine what their race in addition to their gender?…
I have been pointing this out for years, with the thanks to an author who wrote well on this topic of illiberal liberalism. Here is the idea in a nut shell that is expressed in his books:
“If homosexuality is really genetic, we may soon be able to tell if a fetus is predisposed to homosexuality, in which case many parents might choose to abort it. Will gay rights activists continue to support abortion rights if this occurs?”
Dale A. Berryhill, The Liberal Contradiction: How Contemporary Liberalism Violates Its Own Principles and Endangers Its Own Goals (1994), 172.
In other words… there are all these new “rights,” special rights — if you will — making “equal under the law” a thing of the past… thus, you have all these interest groups and new protections clashing. And they will eat each-other. But like I have said for years as well, this frustration of “Utopia Lost” makes the Left violent. Get ready, it will be a bumpy ride.
My prediction… just like with people who have GID (gender identity disorder), she may commit suicide, as, they do not find fulfillment for what they are trying to fill. I hope — instead — she finds some real Christian friends to hold her accountable and writes a book in a couple years… a great testimony on where our natural self brings us. OR, we will have a sad sideshow of the depths of self-delusion and “coming-out” of yet a new frontier of the craziness of leftist ideals.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool” ~ Richard P. Feynman.
What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself.