"We Will Not Be Used" by Georgetown law professor Mari Matsuda

[hooligan]

Originally Posted by haplesshobo

Yes, I do not get the difference between the two. Perhaps, if you were to verbalize them, I would be able to understand your argument. I might not end up agreeing with it, but at least I would understand where you're coming from.

Why is it okay to have one school exclusively one minority, but its not okay for another minority to dominate another school?

Why is diversity so important in the later case that we need to have some limitations on the number of chinese students to make it more diverse, and yet you don't want to see the same diversity in the former?

I guess it's kind of complicated. Personally, I don't think I'd ever be against the idea of a historically and culturally Chinese American college, school or educational institution. However, I think Mari Matsuda was arguing that Lowell is not this sort of place, rather, it's become a sort of recreation of the systems of schools in which work against children from backgrounds of lesser advantages. In other words, Asians are being used to justify that system is not flawed while in actuality there are a lot of problems that the public school system must address. It's hard to think that this school will continue to be funded if they become all Chinese American.

The issue of the Hawai'ian schools is much different. We actually have a traditionally Hawai'ian school where the founder told that those who should have priority are people from Hawai'ian descent. And they are also funded by, I believe, a private foundation from the last Queen of Hawai'i. In fact, not only is it one of last institutions where native Hawai'ian peoples can find hope, but it is one of the most prestigious universities in the state. They emphasize cultural learning, history of their people, and probably an account of what happened in Hawai'i based on their peoples' views (which is starkly different than what we learn). Many things that will probably be lost as their generation lives in a "white-washing" US culture.

I have utterly no problem with these schools favoring Hawai'ian people. In fact, the two groups of people who are trying to get in are, once again, Whites and Asians. We are being used to justify that the system should be "fair", when it's obvious that the public education has never actually been "fair" to people of color. It's not as simple as one minority dominating a school and a minority dominating another. Mari Matsuda was talking about the reasons why such a system may exist. When you break down the reasons, I see that once again Asians are being used to justify racism. And that while Lowell is probably an awesome school, it really doesn't address the fundamental unfairness of the system.

Now I have to go back and read what i wrote.

[haplesshobo]

The issue of the Hawai'ian schools is much different. We actually have a traditionally Hawai'ian school where the founder told that those who should have priority are people from Hawai'ian descent. And they are also funded by, I believe, a private foundation from the last Queen of Hawai'i.

Not to further sidetrack this discussion, but that's an urban myth spread by the Kam advocates who want it to be ethnicially pure. First of all, the Queen stated in her will she wanted it to be a vocational school, and not a prep school for the Hawaian elites. The only time her will mentions race is when it states that part of the trust money should be used to support and educate orphans, with preference given to native orphans. The will never stated that this school was only going to be limited to native Hawaiians, just that there would be a preference, and only a preference, for orphans who may be attending the school.

And, to try to tie this tangent back to this discussion, one of my big issues with affirmative action is that it mainly benefits those already well-off, the children of the upper-middle class minorities. Kam is basically the plaything for the rich and powerful ethnic Hawians. Its starting to change cause of pressure, but with its endowement, Kam could have helped a lot more ethnic Hawaians but didn't do so cause some of that generorisity would have benefitted non-ethnic Hawaians.

I was reminded of this thread cause I was reading an interesting piece in the NYTimes that was looking at race and UCLA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/ma...l?pagewanted=1

It makes the interesting point that when you look at elite universiites, socio-economic background brought no advantage when it came to admissions. And, that by looking at Pell grants, you realized that most of those students were not from economically diverse backgrounds. But, the UCs, especially Cal and UCLA, bucked that trend where they were both academically elite as well as economically diverse. The article made the interesting observation that this was due in part to Prop 209.