That’s part of a comment from reader stevewhitemd to my interview with Marisa DeFranco, who is challenging Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary:
If Harvard were better at having a diverse professorship, it would not have to put someone who appears as white as I am out there as minority.
That’s really it in a nutshell, isn’t it?
Many, many Americans support the idea of affirmative action. They understand that our country has a legacy of slavery, segregation and discrimination. They recognize a need to fix past wrongs that have been passed down to the present generation. They support helping people who have been wronged.
But most Americans won’t support affirmative action that is unfair, nor will they support those who game AA to score for themselves.
That last one is what the good Prof. Warren did. She gamed it. She claimed Cherokee background knowing, knowing that no university would call her on it….
She gamed it.
That’s what resonates. Americans don’t like cheaters, and they most especially don’t like people taking for themselves that to which they’re not entitled. It’s like taking money out of the collection plate on a Sunday.
Why aren’t liberals screaming about this?
Elizabeth Warren has done as much damage to the notion of affirmative action as anyone in memory. She made a mockery of it whether or not she received the benefit in any provable fashion.
If Elizabeth Warren can claim minority status for diversity purposes, then diversity as it is practiced at Harvard and elsewhere is a game of charades, in which “sounds like” is more important than “is.”
To make it worse, Warren did so, as Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes said, by “stepping on the backs of Cherokee” like Twila’s great-great-great grandmother, Polly Tadpole:
What kind of person does that, and refuses to acknowledge what she did and apologize?
And what kind of self-respecting liberal Massachusetts voter would vote for such a person?
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What kind of person does that, and refuses to acknowledge what she did and apologize?
A Massachusetts Liberal
And what kind of self-respecting liberal Massachusetts voter would vote for such a person?
All of them. Enough for Scott Brown to have a VERY close race despite being superior to Warren in just about every objective fashion. Oh, except for that R by his name.
I don’t generally like to comment when I agree with an article and have nothing to add, but “taking money out of the collection plate on Sunday” just sums up what Warren did so perfectly.
But most liberals spend Sunday morning with the New York Times or the Boston Globe, neither of which pass the collection plate. As a result, they just don’t “get” the concept.
And that lack of comprehension is further emphasized when one compares the charitable (not the political, but the charitable) contributions of liberals and conservatives.
Liberals prefer being charitable with other peoples money, after taking their fees off the top. (Come to think of it, that’s basically “taking money out of the collection plate.” And not only do they see nothing wrong with it, it’s their preferred modus operandi.)
Harvard has been at this little game for a long time. I went to a large high school (over 2400 students) outside of Boston. My senior year of high school, 10 students got into Harvard. Eight of them were workaholics who had been taking a full slate of honors courses plus doing tons of extracurricular activities (12-16 hour days) since the beginning of freshman year, one was a legacy admission who was also a grind but not in all honors courses, and one was….’Joan’. ‘Joan’ was a mediocre student whose only extracurricular activity was playing cello – no sports, no community work, no student government, nothing. So-so SAT scores. Her ethnicity was Sicilian.
People were shocked and wanted to know exactly ‘Joan’ (not her real name) had gotten into Harvard. This was a competitive school, and a lot of people with stronger applications had been rejected. They had questions.
At first Joan was like, “I just worked really hard and they saw my potential”. And people just weren’t having any of it – they were like, “No that’s BS. How did you get in?”
Finally, Joan admitted that she had claimed Native American status on her Harvard application. Never, in four years, had this person ever made any allusion or reference to her supposed NA status, and as far as ethnicity went, Joan was Sicilian.
When people were like “WTF?” Joan claimed that she was part Native American on her father’s side! She couldn’t say what percentage, she couldn’t name the tribe, she had no proof of anything. Yet she checked the box….and Harvard magically let her in without asking any questions, like say a tribal enrollment ID number. My workaholic friends were pissed. I was grossed out at Joan’s low, unethical behavior, and it permanently changed my opinion of her.
So I hadn’t thought about any of this in decades until this ridiculousness with Elizabeth Warren came to light. Just out of curiosity, I googled on Joan to see where she is now. Turns out she is a professional musician, and guess what the first sentence in her online biography says? “____ ____ is a graduate of Harvard College….”
How nice for her. (sarcasm)
This was 25 years ago.
Good story. But it wasn’t always this way. My father was the son of a German-American carpenter, no connections or money. His grades were middling, few extra-curricular activities. He was obnoxiously cocky but also enterprising and resourceful (when he was 14 he built an automobile out of junkyard parts). Harvard was the only college he applied to. He got in. He went on to lead an unusual and successful life.
I’ve always thought Harvard was unique in the Ivy League and America for finding and welcoming oddballs and “characters” into its fold — dynamic people who loved challenge — regardless of all other boilerplate “academic” considerations.
But through family and college connections over the years I’ve been hearing far more stories of how the admissions process has been misshaped by political correctness. Harvard, like many legacy institutions in our culture, has lost its unique and essential identity.
You ask, “Why aren’t liberals screaming about this?”
It’s an old story, encapsulated in the old adage. The left sees/has no enemy/enemies to its left; the right has no friends to its right.
The left will NEVER, EVER call out one of its own. When it comes to leftist politics, practiced well by the Democratic Party, the operating motto is No ethics, no morality, no standards, no problem.
A screaming example is Islam. This ideology is a total system; the concept of separating mosque from state is utterly alien to Islam. Islam is the state; the state is Islam; the individual exists only to serve Islam (with certain classes of individuals consigned to inferior status (non-Muslims certainly but also women, dhimmis, et alia). This ideology is completely at odds with the American system and if sufficient inroads are permitted to it Islam will destroy all Western systems.
Do Democrats and the left ever speak negatively of Islam?
I’m not certain she thinks she has done anything wrong. She obviously doesn’t think that her claim of Cherokee heritage has hurt any one; and to claim American Indian heritage seems to be rather common——at least I have known a number of people who have claimed it mostly as a throw-away line. It makes them feel special. And obviously, Ms. Warren is special.
As for voters, I have in-laws in die-hard-left Berkshire County (their town went 74 percent for Coakley). When confronted, they either wag a finger in your face (literally), or simply say “Oh, I have to vote democrat——I’m compassionate.”
“What kind of person does that, and refuses to acknowledge what she did and apologize?”
An obdurate liar.
I am not the king of crisis management by any means. But I would have advised her weeks ago to just say she honestly believed her family lore.
“It never occurred to me to fact-check my grandma.”
“I’ll look into this more closely, and when I learn something authoritative, I will let everyone know. If what I was told, and believed all these years, was wrong, well, I’ll be sad.”
DONE.
A sociopath does this. A narcissist does this. Democrat pols do this. Does that answer the question?
The last black born into slavery in the U.S.A., ELIZA MOORE, died on JANUARY 21, 1948, in Montgomery County, Alabama.
Isn’t 64 years enough.
The term “affirmative action” was first introduced by President Kennedy in 1961 as a method of redressing discrimination that had persisted in spite of civil rights laws and constitutional guarantees. From the outset, affirmative action was envisioned as a temporary remedy that would end once there was a “level playing field” for all Americans.
Isn’t 51 years enough.
Diversity was invented to obfuscate the many quota programs that were in place in the 1970’s. Since it was and is poorly defined, it can mean anything necessary.
No, it is not enough. It is too much.
Similarly, Obama gamed the system either by falsely claiming to have been born in Kenya when that served his purpose, or by falsely claiming to have been born in Hawaii when that was his preference. Maybe by both for all we really know.
This may be it, in a nutshell, but only from the standpoint of pro-affirmative action.
This idea was a bad one from the start, and any last vestiges of rationale for quota-like preferential treatment of people based on their ancestry is long past its prime.
America stands for individualism, and that each of us is “diverse” from each other.
How this offensive stereotyping, unequal treatment of individuals has not seen its final day baffles me.
“Many” Americans agree with affirmative action? How “many” and who and for what short-sighted, guilt-ridden or ignorant reasons. These are nothing short of disgusting practices.
1. This idea was a bad one from the start, and any last vestiges of rationale for quota-like preferential treatment of people based on their ancestry is long past its prime.
I agree.
2. The President…
That was President Bill Clinton. Seventeen years ago. And, gosh, here we are again. Who’da thunk it?
3. Our host asks, Why aren’t liberals screaming about this?
They believe the end justifies the means.
4. If government-enforced affirmative action is to exist at all—a point I do not concede—, it should be done on the basis of economic disadvantage, period. With very very few exceptions.
5. From donb | May 18, 2012 at 11:25 am:
This deserves a shout-out.
“And what kind of self-respecting liberal Massachusetts voter would vote for such a person?”
What makes you think they’re self-respecting?
You wrote “our country has a legacy of slavery, segregation and discrimination.” which another reader/commenter correctly pointed out; the legacy ended decades ago. Get it. You also wrote “Why aren’t liberals screaming about this?” Hell, they don’t have to, just use the above quote by a conservative experiencing a, what I hope is a, temporary case of white guilt. Liberals need puppets, ones who are dependent on them for their unearned prosperity; else how can they be the Masters of the undeserving. Are my children going to have to deal with this crap also. Enough already. As a nation, our legacy is to do what is right, we don’t always do it in a timely, rational or logical manner, but we have generally remained pointed in the right direction. How I know this is because millions are wanting to come to the US, still, to better themselves. They are going to other countries to escape. See the difference?
“Liberals need puppets, ones who are dependent on them for their unearned prosperity”
Or…”victims”.
The Collective gets to champion and rescue. Cheap self-righteous moral superiority.
Plus…divide and conquer, per the Frankfurt School.
That cycle will NEVER end until it is KILLED.
If all crimes were punished the way racism is through affirmative action the remedy for having your great-great grandmother raped would be to allow you to rape someone in the rapist’s family.
There is no such thing as tribal or inherited guilt. You cannot fix an offense committed against one by committing the same offense against another… but you can perpetuate the enmity forever and ever that way.
People understand that affirmative action is fundamentally flawed and unfair no matter how it is conducted. They understand that collective guilt is something that does not exist and they know people who insist otherwise are up to no good.
It is a very uncivilized and tribal thing to hold an entire group accountable for the actions of one of its members. This is a practice found only in primitive societies… like ours apparently.
Why aren’t liberals screaming about this?
Because Liberals are not (good) Americans. Nothing positive about the American spirit lives in a Liberal.
Ask Saul Alinsky how to win.
“… what kind of self-respecting liberal Massachusetts voter would vote for such a person?”
There are no liberal Massachusetts voters with any self-respect. Who could vote for the Kennedy clan time after time, getting richer and richer, thinking they would benefit the poor? Who would vote for the plagiarizing Deval Patrick? The cheap, wannabe Obama who mouthed the same platitudes and even recycled his exact words?
If you have any self-respect anywhere you aren’t voting Democrat.
Aren’t Obama’s fake claims that he was born in Kenya the same thing?
The insane part is that it may be a close race. We, as a Country, are in deep shit, and the liberal answer is to keep piling it on.