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Old November 2nd, 2008 #11
notmenomore
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Quote:
Originally Posted by steve.diamond View Post

I want to point out here that I actually believe, as a legal scholar, that there is, in fact, some credible basis to argue that the current black American population, almost all of whom are descendants of slaves, and many of whom continue to suffer from the legacy of that experience as well the many years of discrimination that followed the end of slavery, should receive financial compensation for the impact of that experience. However, the argument faces significant hurdles, some legal, some intellectual and many that are political.

To extend the argument, as Ayers, Darling-Hammond and Ladson-Billings do, to a broad call for the repayment of an alleged educational debt, strains credulity if not worse. The logic of the argument itself escapes me. It obviously would not easily apply to many in the school system who suffer the same resource inequities as black students.

An interesting blog. The quote above seems to cut to the chase for me. After all, I'm about the same age as Ayers and Dohrn and many of their cohorts, and I remember all too well the youthful days of our rage and escapades.

I shared with them, in those days, much of the same outrage and angst, and it was over very many of the same issues. It would be many years, indeed, before I fully understood that the ideological basis of my agreement with them was almost diametrically opposed to theirs. Perhaps that's one of the few things that stayed my hand (in those days) from homegrown terrorism. I understood the concept well and was even somewhat sympathetic towards those who ventured into the fully active realm.

In those times I was a paid-in-full believer in the agenda of the egalitarian left. I fully supported the idea that black Americans deserved whatever was needed to bring them, finally, to par with Whites. I think that for this reason I can probably understand the ideas advanced by Ayers, Ladson-Billings, and others, specifically, that the "achievement gap" is a misnomer, and that "educational debt" more accurately describes the phenomena of interest. To see repayment of "educational debt" as devolving from reparations is, at least, ideologically consistent. But from that point I must return to Steve-Diamond's query of the logic of the argument - if for undoubtedly different reasons.

Lets' assume that [miraculously] general agreement is had that "African-Americans" should receive "financial compensation for the impact of that experience." Let's further assume that we are agreed on all the determinants: who will receive reparations, how much, how to be paid, etc. In other words that all Prof. Diamond's legal and political hurdles have been accomodated. Only the intellectual hurdles remain.

The first question then becomes the obvious impossibility of effecting any desired result (improving the lot of American blacks) by a lump sum payment. Once the bulk of those dollars have been quickly expended on Cadillacs and Beamers, big screen TVs, crack, ho's, and KFC, the result would be as if nothing ever happened. So we then consider annuity type reparations, perhaps paid in the form of free and appropriate public education, medicaid, WIC, food stamps, section 8, SSI, affirmative action, and set-asides. Well...

None of those seem to pass muster. As the proponents of "social justice" correctly insist, the holy grail of eguality continues out of reach. Do we merely add to the budgets for the above programs, and call that "reparations?" It would seem not. Even if the budgets could be increased exponentially, it seems that the "social justice" proponents have recognized that more funding will not yield the objective. Hence, "educational debt."

If "educational debt" describes the problem more accurately than does "achievement gap" (and I believe that it may do that), then it would seem to follow that efforts to "repay" this "debt" could be an actual road to achieve the goals of "reparations." But this must assume the classic "level playing field" and the reality of the "egalitarian" ideal. The absolute non-existence of these two entities, however, betrays the ultimate Bolshevism of the "social justice" proponents, just as their criminality did so many years ago.

Murray and Herrenstein demonstrated in a popular work what has been known to all honest "social scientists" for decades: that the biological bell-curve will not be denied. Regardless of any repayment of any "educational debt" the ability of African-Americans to perform academic (and academically related) work will remain at least a full standard deviation less than Whites, categorically. No study, no effort, no budget, and no expenditure has even been postulated - much less actually determined - that responsibly hopes to bridge this divide. In all likelyhood the best hope for educating Negroes would be a reversion to methods that had proved most effective before the successes of the 20th century social engineers: return them entirely to their own, segregated schools and teach them there a curriculum designed for their specific abilities and aptitudes.

IMHO the Ayers, Dohrns, and their ilk continue their disruptive course through academe primarily as the Red Wreckers that they have always been. With enough intelligence to garner PHds and write "repectable" journal articles, they are able to command a modicum of professional respect, and to intimidate where they may and obfuscate where they can to continue to bulldoze and bully an ideology whose prime and essential directive is the ultimate and utter destruction of White Western European culture and its replacement with a stupid, obesiant, and mongrelized population to be herded by a world government of cynical, bolshevistic elites.
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Last edited by notmenomore; November 2nd, 2008 at 07:50 PM.