10 Years After

Keep Hope Alive
In American Government we were talking about equal rights legislation and it included affirmative action. I think the whole notion of race is absurd. I tried to vocalize my disbelief in response to the notion that affirmative action helps minorities in poverty achieve potential which might be unobtainable due to economic hardship.

My suggestion? Forget race and go with the notion of allowing lower standards to economically disadvantaged kids (if one is inclined to keep affirmative action). It seems to me that the same argument that there might be some black kid who is an Einstein but unable to get into college because he went to a poor school applies to whites and any other race. The key component is not the race, but the economic situation.

I also tried to raise the issue of who qualifies as a racial minority? What sprang to mind was Mark Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson." How does one determine if one qualifies a race when it becomes dilluted to the point of 1/32nd? (Curiously, it seems to me that while race has been abondoned scientifically- there is no "black gene" - it lingers on in other parts of academia as a sort of anachronism or psuedo-science. Perhaps ethnicity would be a better phrase to include the concept of race.)

Well, then, to get back to my point, the last few minutes of class was taken up by a discussion of whether or not homosexuals should be protected by the equal rights legislation. This sparked some debate on whether homosexuality is a genetic trait or a mere preference/choice. This seemed to determine for most people if the legislation applied. Those in favor of coverage argued that homosexuality was innate and immutable and those in disagreement felt it was a choice, and those unlike race or sex.

Also, I received test 2 back in Spanish yesterday. I scored a 95% on the test and a 97% on the first quiz for Lession 3. So far, so good.