Crucially, I couldn’t disagree more when you say “this situation is exactly the same as the quotas imposed on Jews.” When those quotas were imposed, the number of Black and Latino applicants was tiny, and there were no female applicants at all. The whole system was different. And that’s precisely my point. AA emerged before large numbers of Asians entered college in the US, as Asian immigration skyrocketed only after changes to immigration laws in the US in 1965. The Bakke case of 1978 was about a white man in the UC system, similar cases today would undoubtedly be about Asians.

To be clear, I support affirmative action in the US in terms of minority recruiting and considering race/ethnicity as a factor in achieving diversity in the student body. I also think that since American schools can look at applications holistically, they can to some degree determine which students suffered disadvantage at the individual level, be that from income, racism/sexism/discrimination, geographic isolation, high-crime neighborhoods, family circumstances, immigrant status, etc. etc. And this approach acknowledges that a 1200 SAT score from a poor kid is worth more than a 1300 from a rich kid. I said most of this in the post so don’t need to rehash it.

I think the Canadian system should remain mostly as it is, but maybe try to take a more holistic approach.

Basically, I think both system should try to find a middle ground, while still acknowledging demographic differences that should lead to somewhat different approaches.

I don’t see any irony. No one is talking about blacks, latinos and native americans here. In a study by Princeton researchers in 2005, it was showed that affirmative action benefited Whites by giving them a 50 SAT points advantage over Asian-Americans. Now, are Whites a “disadvantage minority”? Why are they benefiting from a quota that is supposed to help underprivileged groups? And let’s also not forget that whites have the highest proportion of legacy students.

A case in point would be the scrapping of affirmative action in schools in California. Right after that happened, enrolment of Asian-American students shot up while that of white students declined. This shows that AA clearly benefits whites, and not only disadvantaged minorities. And since college enrolment is a zero-sum game, there has to be a loser. Guess who?

This situation is exactly the same as the quotas imposed on Jews: whites versus an overrepresented minority. I find your attempt to confuse the issue by including other minorities to be disingenuous.

Thankyou

I agree that the problem is lack of coordination. Don’t get me wrong, there are, in many cities, a small handful of people who are inclined to act the way you describe – or even, a few who come close to being as narrow-minded and crazy as Hedges describes. Many of them do Black Bloc, when they do anything at all (which often they don’t, often they just sit behind their computers typing extreme things and insulting other activists). But for the most part, Black Bloc people will coordinate if they’re not excluded. That’s what we discovered back in 2000. At Seattle, as I remarked, it was kind of a disaster, nobody was talking to each other, we ended up having people like Medea Benjamin boasting about turning BB’ers over to police. So after that there was a process of reconciliation: one side said, okay, diversity of tactics, the other said, ok, we won’t do any property destruction during A16, just protect the blockaders, then in Philly, the BB tried to create a diversion to draw the police away from the blockaders, at the Bush inauguration, after that, the DAN people joined the BB, etc etc. But it’s all impossible until the demonization stops.

Anyway that’s the tactical discussion, it was secondary. What I said that you characterize as “hysteria” was my insistence that it was dangerous to demonize certain participants in a movement by creating non-existent ideological tendencies, claiming anyone who dresses in black is part of this ideological tendency, and declaring that all such people in said made-up group are irrational crazed fanatics who must be purged. I didn’t say it was outrageous to discuss tactics. I said it was outrageous to make up enemies within the movement and declare them irredeemably evil. If you think it’s “hysterical” to say that this kind of behavior is dangerous, well, I guess that’s your right.
DG