Blame Affirmative Action

Andrew says this whole topic wouldn't matter if the left would just get rid of affirmative action:

That policy asserts as an irrefutable fact that any racial discrepancies in college selection are a function of either college-imposed or societal racism. Once the left put the blank slate on the table, and actively supported racial discrimination as public policy as a consequence, they begged the question of whether they had the empirical data to back up their social engineering. Over to Will. Abolish affirmative action and these questions can and will become less salient. How about it?

So basically affirmative action proponents take the view that black people suffer from racial discrimination, thus leaving advocates of color blind admissions policies no choice but to argue for the genetic inferiority of black people? I'm not sure I see how that follows. Everybody agrees that African-Americans, on average, score lower on IQ tests than do white people. The question is whether we should see this gap as primarily driven by black people's allegedly inferior genetic stock, or by persistent economic and social inequities.

UPDATE: Incidentally, to restate the obvious, race science aimed at proving the innate intellectual inferiority of black people isn't something that originated in the 1970s and 80s as campaigners against affirmative action sought to bolster their arguments. Nor has it suddenly vanished in California and Texas where they got rid of affirmative action programs.

Comments

Is he willing to give up special anti-descrimination laws for homosexuals as well?

Posted by gregor | November 27, 2007 9:32 AM

I don't even buy the framing of affirmative action on offer here.

IIRC, real affirmative action (not the straw man Andrew points to) is when you have two applicants who are *both* qualified and then you choose the under-represented class. Thus, there is no issue of "inferiority" at all.

Posted by Joel | November 27, 2007 9:34 AM

The conservative position, 1965: "Shut up, ni**er."

The conservative position, 2007: "Stop talking about being black. It's your fault for being immoral, and inferior. Also, vote Republican, because Democrats take you for granted."

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | November 27, 2007 9:37 AM

I still don't understand your arguments about racial inferiority Matt. This post and your previous logs were pretty much nonsensical. What does affirmative action have to do with the scientific debate over what role genetics plays in intelligence?

Posted by freddiemac | November 27, 2007 9:42 AM

"real affirmative action (not the straw man Andrew points to) is when you have two applicants who are *both* qualified and then you choose the under-represented class. Thus, there is no issue of "inferiority" at all."

Not sure what alternate reality this "real affirmative action" inabits. The real world segment where AA is most used (college admissions) applicants of East/South Asian heritage end up getting the shaft, despite (on average) much higher grades and test scores. Were you to get rid of AA in college admissions, the percentage of East/South Asian students would increase significantly.

Posted by Adam | November 27, 2007 9:44 AM

Andrew Sullivan is at his worst when discussing African-American issues. He's totally tone deaf. The idea that the American discussion of the supposed inferiority of black people is something that came about because of Affirmative Action is absurd.

He should go back and read more Theodore Bilbo.

Posted by Ikram | November 27, 2007 9:47 AM

Freddie Mac it has nothing to do with it, that's Matt's point. Andrew's been on about the liberal oppression of the courageous and bold Galileo's who argue that black people tend to be dumb. Matt questioned why he (and Will Saleton, another author I like) are so focused on this position when it 1. is highly offensive, 2. puts them against the vast majority of scientific research and 3. has no policy implications whatsoever since even a real difference intellectual capacity between "average white man" and "average black man" wouldn't tell you a think about the guy standing in front of you. Sullivan responded that it's because of Affirmative Action.

Posted by aleks | November 27, 2007 9:48 AM

freddiemac,

Try actually reading the post. Matt isn't making the link between affirmative action and the debate over what role genetics plays in intelligence, Sullivan is, as a way of attacking affirmative action.

Perhaps your post was intended for Andrew who loves/is obsessed by these issues but of course doesn't permit the posting of comments to his blog.

Wonder why.

Posted by davido | November 27, 2007 9:51 AM

Not only does Andrew misuse the phrase "beg the question" (but I won't suggest it's due to any inherited lack of intelligence on his part), but he asserts a false premise, i.e., that the only purpose of affirmative action is to counterbalance disadvantages that are thought to be somehow unfair. But that's not the case. As the Michigan cases showed, the goal of affirmative action can also be diversity for it's own sake: i.e., college students attending a school that is -- for whatever reason -- all-white (or nearly so) would suffer from lack of exposure to people with different life experiences and/or from different cultures. That would still remain true even if all presumptively "unfair" disadvantages -- genetics, societal discrimination, etc. -- were eliminated.

Posted by Glenn | November 27, 2007 9:53 AM

> The real world segment where AA is most used
> (college admissions) applicants of East/South
> Asian heritage end up getting the shaft, despite
> (on average) much higher grades and test scores.

So do applicants from New York City. So do applicants from large high-achieving high schools in suburbs of major metro areas. Harvard will take at most one student from New Trier outside Chicago even if the next kid in line has an identical record with 1 pt lower on the SAT, but it will snap up a kid from rural Kansas with the same test scores as the New Trier reject. Whaddaboutit? The idea that college admissions is some sort of pure meritocracy is ridiculous. And that's not to even mention the kid with the 500 SATs and B- high school average who is admitted because his parents have the _potential_ to donate $20 million or more.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | November 27, 2007 9:56 AM

Andrew is essentially right, since affirmative action is the main public policy issue affected by this topic. If empirical studies demonstrate that black under-performance is due to something other than systematic racism and economic inequality -- and racism and inequality are the rationales for affirmative action -- than there is no rationale to continue the policy. You ignore two points here though.

The first is that there are some proponents of affirmative action who are in favor of it precisely because they think blacks are of "inferior genetic stock", to use your invidious phrase. Few share this view publicly, for obvious reasons, but the former president of my alma mater, Fran Lawrence, once let it slip:

"The average S.A.T.'s for African-Americans is 750," Mr. Lawrence said at the Camden faculty meeting, referring to Scholastic Assessment Tests. "Do we set standards in the future so we don't admit anybody? Or do we deal with a disadvantaged population that doesn't have that genetic, hereditary background to have a higher average?"

The second point you ignore is the question of who actually benefits from the current affirmative action policies? Let's set aside for a moment the reasons why there is such a huge gap between blacks and whites on average standardized test scores. Are the blacks liberals purport to want to help actually benefiting from this? That doesn't appear to be the case, for a few reasons, including:

Affirmative action often sets blacks up for failure, by putting them in elite schools where they can't keep up instead of lower-ranked schools where they can.

When affirmative action steers unqualified candidates into professional schools, the victims are usually blacks, e.g., the black female patients of Dr. Patrick Chavis

Affirmative action breeds resentment and doubt about the abilities of even highly-qualified blacks.

The blacks who get affirmative action spots are often half-white, affluent, or foreign (African or Caribbean).

Posted by Fred | November 27, 2007 9:59 AM

It's always very touching when those against policies that help the minorities couch their arguments in their concern that such policies will actually hurt those that they are designed to benefit. Always bring tears to my eyes when I hear a racist say that if you give opportunities to blacks on the basis of their minority status, the successful blacks will be tarred for life.

Posted by gregor | November 27, 2007 10:12 AM

If empirical studies demonstrate that black under-performance is due to something other than systematic racism and economic inequality

How on earth would you control for that?
You can't.
So you are left with a moral judgement.
I think the statis quo works fine. But I also have no issue freeing universities to make their own judgements. Let them test on ability to pay or admit for the sake of diversity. Decentralise and multiply the policy approach. There is no one right answer to this.

Posted by Northern Observer | November 27, 2007 10:16 AM

Oh, I disagree strongly with this bleak assessment of our nation's ability to blame problems on race.

I am fully confident that were all affirmative action programs to be completely abolished, Our Nation would fully be capable of moving on to a *new* way of making up obsessions over black people.

Posted by El Cid | November 27, 2007 10:22 AM

The question is whether we should see this gap as primarily driven by black people's allegedly inferior genetic stock, or by persistent economic and social inequities.

Or driven in good measure by something entirely different. Read John McWhorter's Losing the Race.

Posted by John-Paul Pagano | November 27, 2007 10:23 AM

"I am fully confident that were all affirmative action programs to be completely abolished, Our Nation would fully be capable of moving on to a *new* way of making up obsessions over black people."

If AA were scrapped, we could stop talking about how blacks score so low on IQ tests and just talk about how they commit crimes at 7 times the rate of whites.

Posted by Harry | November 27, 2007 10:24 AM

If AA were scrapped, we could stop talking about how blacks score so low on IQ tests and just talk about how they commit crimes at 7 times the rate of whites.

Posted by Harry

My faith is restored.

Posted by El Cid | November 27, 2007 10:29 AM

"Everybody agrees that African-Americans, on average, score lower on IQ tests than do white people. The question is whether we should see this gap as primarily driven by black people's allegedly inferior genetic stock, or by persistent economic and social inequities."

Hey, let's try changing a few words and see what this looks like:

Everybody agrees that Jews are under-represented in the NBA. The question is whether we should see this gap as primarily driven by Jewish people's allegedly inferior genetic stock, or by persistent economic and social inequities.

Since we're all the same in terms of genetic abilities, it must be those social and economic inequities (maybe Jews' schools have too few black students to sharpen their Hebrew classmates' skills in b-ball?).

Matt, as a Jew and an NBA fan, you should start advocating an affirmative action policy to get some kosher blood into the league.

Posted by Harry | November 27, 2007 10:30 AM

I think the point here is that, so long as you exclude a priori the possiblity that there are any inate difference between blacks and Asians, (AA is pretty much a wash for non-Asian whites.) that leaves only racism as an explaination for disparate numbers, and you don't have to prove racism anymore. You can just assume it.

Denying any possiblity of inante differences, then, is a way for advocates of racial preferences to avoid the inconvenience of having to actually prove discrimination, before demanding that something be done about it.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 27, 2007 10:30 AM

C'mon people. Societal discrimination went the way of the dinosaur back in the ... 1990s. Rendering innocent people to countries that engage in torture based solely on how they look does not count as societal discrimination. Nor does the Post-Katrina response. (How about all those casinos being built on the gulf coast - Atlantic City of the south).

While we're at abolishing affirmative action, let's get rid of hate crimes legislation and don't ask, don't tell, too.

Jackasses.

Posted by sy | November 27, 2007 10:32 AM

cranky obsever cuts right to the chase: the idea that colleges were sitting around in some edenic state, picking the absolute best students regardless of any other considerations, is complete and total crap.

which is a good description of the stupid blitherings of Fred at 9:59. i have no idea what fred's alma mater was, but it's clear to me that Fred didn't get in on intellectual merit, that's for damn sure.

Affirmative action reached colleges, of course, because the diploma is a ticket to higher-paying jobs, but affirmative action started as a means of making sure that good old boys didn't keep hiring good old boys on government contracts.

the need for affirmative action started when the "radical republicans" were undercut in their belief that the treasonous southern states shouldn't simply restore their old power structure after the civil war; had we actually provided 40 acres and a mule, we wouldn't need affirmative action.

Posted by howard | November 27, 2007 10:36 AM

And since there is no difference in poverty rates between blacks and whites, and we have pretty much equal schooling across the board, it becomes difficult to prove that black students face any disadvantages when compared with white students if one does not make the assumption that all races are exactly genetically equal. Certainly it is that assumption that leads people to think this country has a history of racial discrimination whose roots presist.

On a more serious note, Glenn, the fight over "beg the question" has been fought and those of us that like the old meaning have lost. While I doubt I would ever use the phrase in the new sense, the fact is that the new sense is the overwhelmingly acccepted sense, and philosophy professors and classicists do not have the kind of control over language to insist that to be correct people have to use the phrase like it was used in the past.

Posted by Lon | November 27, 2007 10:46 AM

davido and aleks,

I rarely click through the link, my apologies. Especially with Andrew Sullivan, as he is quite droll. All is clear now, thank you.

Posted by freddiemac | November 27, 2007 10:49 AM

Cranky Observer

"The idea that college admissions is some sort of pure meritocracy is ridiculous. And that's not to even mention the kid with the 500 SATs and B- high school average who is admitted because his parents have the _potential_ to donate $20 million or more.

Not claiming that it is. But the question remains, and related to Harry's NBA analogy above: the notion that every ethnic group evolved with precisely the same characteristics, and all have exactly the potential (on average)to achieve and succeed in any field of human activity strikes me as being empirically false, or at least there needs to be some empirical data to back it up if we're justifying state discrimination (however noble the goal). If there is relevant data that geographic, economic, racial, religious etc. diversity in education is a benefit to everyone, then AA certainly has some merit to it.

Posted by Adam | November 27, 2007 10:54 AM

> and related to Harry's NBA analogy above: the
> notion that every ethnic group evolved with
> precisely the same characteristics, and all have
> exactly the potential (on average)to achieve and
> succeed in any field of human activity

Harry's "NBA and the Jews" analogy might have more force if there hadn't been a time when (1) players of Jewish ethic origin dominated basketball (2) players of Jewish ethnic origin were discriminated against in what (meagre) professional and semi-professional opportunities basketball then offered. But there was, and they were. Oops.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | November 27, 2007 11:00 AM

Were you to get rid of AA in college admissions, the percentage of East/South Asian students would increase significantly.

This is too fuzzy to evaluate. It can be interpreted as, "Because of AA, a significant number of well-qualified Asians:

1. aren't in college at all
2. aren't at a college whose status is commensurate with their qualifications
3. aren't at their first choice of college
4. aren't at Harvard

It is dishonest to imply 1, when 3 or 4 are probably closer to the point.

Posted by apm | November 27, 2007 11:06 AM

Oh Harry, you look so foolish!

Posted by Mark | November 27, 2007 11:07 AM

"Harry's "NBA and the Jews" analogy might have more force if there hadn't been a time when (1) players of Jewish ethic origin dominated basketball (2) players of Jewish ethnic origin were discriminated against in what (meagre) professional and semi-professional opportunities basketball then offered. But there was, and they were. Oops."

Cranky, just so we are clear:

Are you claiming that there is discrimination against Jews in the NBA today, and that's why there are no Jews in the NBA? Is this discrimination policy enforced by David Stern (who of course is Jewish)? Or are you claiming that Jews are held back today by discrimination they suffered in the 1920s?

Your comment would have more force if you could answer any of those questions in the affirmative. But I'm guessing you can't. "Oops".

Posted by Harry | November 27, 2007 11:11 AM

apm,

You arguement would have more weight if the U.S. did not function under the assumption that the dumbest student at Duke University is smarter than the smartest student at NC State. As long as not getting into elite schools cuts off job opprotunities, then people are going to be resentful of AA.

Posted by superdestroyer | November 27, 2007 11:16 AM

The affirmative action question is largely academic. The Supreme Court barely upheld affirmative action with O'Connor as the swing justice, and Kennedy is against it. In other words: it's just a matter of time before it's gone.

I do agree that affirmative action has a somewhat corrosive effect, although not the way Sullivan contends. I think affirmative action justifies a lot of white racism, whining, and victimhood. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "he only got the job because he's black" from white people.

Assuming for a second that I am right, the next questions are:

(1) Does it make sense to toss out a potentially beneficial policy just because it makes whites more racist?

(2) Will getting rid of affirmative action actually mitigate white racism/victimhood, or will they just find something else to blame (illegal immigrants, etc.)?

The answer to both questions is probably "no." The reality is that affirmative action once got African Americans into the system that will now be excluded from the system. Its elimination might improve some part of the white working class pyche in this country, but I seriously doubt it will magically improve the mindset of African Americans to know that the road to success just got that much harder.

Posted by owenz | November 27, 2007 11:16 AM

"As long as not getting into elite schools cuts off job opprotunities [sic], then people are going to be resentful of AA."

Since college admission is an experiment without a control, this assertion cannot be tested.

Posted by Joel | November 27, 2007 11:23 AM

(1) players of Jewish ethic origin dominated basketball

Perhaps in an era where black American's were absolutely discriminated against in basketball, and in most other areas of life as well?

apm,

"This is too fuzzy to evaluate"

College application broken down by ethnicitiy measured against positions offered/scholarships awarded broken down by ethnicity vs. the admissions criteria broken down by ethnicity? Those numbers aren't fuzzy at all, nor especially difficult to come by.

"2. aren't at a college whose status is commensurate with their qualifications
3. aren't at their first choice of college

Not implying #1 at all, as people (in the US) of South/East Asian descent attend college (whether impacted by #2 or #3 as you described) at much higher rates than others, and make up a larger percentage of college students and graduates than their percentge in the overall population, and have much higher graduation rates than others, and much higher (again, on average) levels of academic success rates than others.

You are correct that #2 or #3 is the more likely impact of AA policies, rather than a non-trivial number of of South/East Asian descent not going to college at all.

Posted by Adam | November 27, 2007 11:27 AM

Harry my silly boy you're retort badly misses the mark. Here's the narrative knowledgable people propose: in the early to mid-century largely jewish teams from largely jewish schools based in largely jewish ghettos dominated American youth and sub-professional basketball. But the discriminatory policies of the era's professional leagues prevented jewish players by and large from playing, so interest waned. That and, more importantly, the jewish ghettos that had fostered jewish basketball dissolved, making basketball a far less prominent aspect of the modern jewish identity.

As to how you're questions apply it's not clear. Oops Oops Oops!

Posted by Mark | November 27, 2007 11:31 AM

Oh my, your not you're. Oops again!

Posted by Mark | November 27, 2007 11:34 AM

Adam,

Are you saying there's no empirical evidence that racial minorities in American society have suffered from inequities? Are you saying there's no evidence that at least some of the disparities between Blacks and Whites in IQ/SAT/ACT scores are driven by inequalities of opportunities? Justifying affirmative action in college admissions does not require that we prove that all races/ethnic groups have the exact same potential on average to succeed in any field of human activity. It does, however, require proof that ineqaulities of opportunity contributed in a significant way to an otherwise qualified applicant's relatively low test scores. That's why it makes more sense to use socioeconomic status as a basis for affirmative action, rather than race (unless diversity in the student body is a goal in itself).

Posted by eltoro | November 27, 2007 11:34 AM

eltoro,

Not at all. Discrimination certainly prevented generation after generation of blacks from getting the education opportunities they deserved, and that this had a snowball effect that we are still witnessing today

"That's why it makes more sense to use socioeconomic status as a basis for affirmative action, rather than race (unless diversity in the student body is a goal in itself)."

Absolutely true, and the economic point is the more salient one: Is there a huge difference between growing up white, dirt poor in, say, eastern Kentucky to uneducated parents of uneducated parents of uneducated parents vs. growing up black, dirt poor in Detroit uneducated parents of uneducated parents of uneducated parents? An AA policy that looked at economic disadvanteges would have more of a chance of a) passing constitutional muster and b) avoiding the kind of stereotyping that owenz mentions above that can often negate the positive effects of properly construed AA programs and c) maintaining a large measure of political support across racial lines.

Posted by Adam | November 27, 2007 11:43 AM

The affirmative action question is largely academic. The Supreme Court barely upheld affirmative action with O'Connor as the swing justice, and Kennedy is against it. In other words: it's just a matter of time before it's gone.

Your read of the Supremes might be true, although I think they think they're largely done with the issue and even Kennedy refused to do away with it altogether. But this largely also has to do with public institutions only; private employers/universities are not subject to the 14th Amendment. (Although there are federal-funding hooks that might -- might -- be used to extend any anti-AA rulings to the private sector.)

Posted by Glenn | November 27, 2007 11:46 AM

"Matt, as a Jew and an NBA fan, you should start advocating an affirmative action policy to get some kosher blood into the league."

Harry,

Matt is probably well aware that in the old days of the NBA, Blacks weren't allowed to play
in the league, and some of the white superstars in those days included Jews. Once Blacks were allowed to join the League, they were able to gain admission through their own efforts. Therefore, it would be hard to justify affirmative action for Jews to gain entry to the League, since there is no history of discrimination against Jews in the NBA to point to, and there is little evidence that current Black predominance in the NBA is due to unjust hiring preferences for Blacks. Moreover, there is little evidence that Jews suffer from ineqaulities of opportunity which prevent from being high achievers in professional sports like basketball. In fact, the more likely explanation for Jewish underrepresentation in the NBA (and other professional sports as well) is that Jews on average have a plethora of opportunities available to them in professional fields, which reduces the incentive for many fine Jewish athletes to choose professional sports as a career (at least as a player; there are some Jews who serve as team owners, executives, and agents).

Posted by eltoro | November 27, 2007 11:52 AM

Joel,

How many Duke graduates work at McKinsey or Bain versus North Carolina State graduates. My guess is that NC State is close to zero but Duke has several even though it is a smaller school. The same probably goes for Big Law or the residents at the Mayo Clinic.

Posted by superdestroyer | November 27, 2007 11:54 AM

"As to how you're questions apply it's not clear."

It's only unclear if you are being deliberately obtuse. My example was about the underrepresentation of Jews in the NBA today and so my questions were about that. Your sock puppet Cranky's comment was about an archaic irrelevancy.

"That and, more importantly, the jewish ghettos that had fostered jewish basketball dissolved, making basketball a far less prominent aspect of the modern jewish identity."

This is your explanation for the paucity of Jews in the NBA today? Jewish NBA fanboys like Matt and the author of the blog "Give Me The Rock" (see his "The State of Jews in the NBA" post where he points out that there actually was one Jew in the NBA last year) -- and the Jews who own a third of NBA teams -- demonstrate that there is still plenty of interest in basketball among Jews. So why only one (Black) Jew in the NBA? The pay isn't high enough?

Posted by Harry | November 27, 2007 12:04 PM

"How many Duke graduates work at McKinsey or Bain versus North Carolina State graduates. My guess is that NC State is close to zero but Duke has several even though it is a smaller school. The same probably goes for Big Law or the residents at the Mayo Clinic."

Ah, yes, the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

If your little Duke grads had gone to NC state instead (same ambitious personalities, same smarts), what is the evidence they would not have gone just as far?

As I said, these are experiments without controls.

Posted by Joel | November 27, 2007 12:10 PM

"In fact, the more likely explanation for Jewish underrepresentation in the NBA (and other professional sports as well) is that Jews on average have a plethora of opportunities available to them in professional fields,"

So Jews are turning down $1 million+ salaries as NBA point guards to become podiatrists and write for The Atlantic? No one who has the ability to be a professional athlete willingly turns it down for "other opportunities"; they play sports first and then go on to other opportunities.

Since one of the rationals for affirmative action is to increase diversity, it would make sense for a proponent of affirmative action in academics to be a proponent of it in sports too. Since another rationale, as you mention, is to make up for past discrimination, what sense does it make to give affirmative action spots to blacks from Africa? What sense does it make to not give preference to Irish, Jewish, or Chinese-American applicants, based on the previous discrimination they all suffered in America?

Posted by Harry | November 27, 2007 12:14 PM

Joel,

McKinsey etc would have taken one look at the application, seen the NC State and decided that the person was not smart enough for them. That is why the competition for the top schools is so great. It is the same with the top 14 law schools and all the rest. Just having a diploma from an Ivy League makes it much easier to get into medical school.

Are you arguing that where a person goes to college has no affect on the rest of the life?

Posted by superdestroyer | November 27, 2007 12:16 PM

Superdestroyer,

How many people work at McKinsey or Bain period? Or, for that matter how many Duke grads do they employ as opposed to say, I don't know...Harvard or Princeton grads? And have you ever been out of North Carolina or is that your frame of reference for everything? It's a really interesting world out here, you outta see it.

Is the question of who gets top consulting jobs really that big a deal anyway? My one genuinely rich close friend is a partner at Booze Allen and graduated from Thomas More College, THAT'S RIGHT HOMEBOY!!! Thomas More. And he turned down a job at Bain to take the one he has. Seems like a very happy fella too.

As for Race, IQ and Andrew Sullivan, Will Saletan et al: We tried for a long time in our country to make major public policy decisions on the basis of "innate" and irreducible differences between the races. It didn't work out well before the Civil War or for the hundred years that followed.

We will never again have a debate on public policy in this country that is based on the idea of inherent racial differences given that history. ANYONE who doesn't understand that simple fact, really, really does not understand our history or our politics and should be looked at with suspicion anytime they claim they do.

Posted by davido | November 27, 2007 12:17 PM

"No one who has the ability to be a professional athlete willingly turns it down for "other opportunities"; they play sports first and then go on to other opportunities."

Somebody tell Pat Tillman.

Posted by Joel | November 27, 2007 12:17 PM

Yes Harry, you're example "was about the underrepresentation of Jews in the NBA today" and since History begins today it has perfect pertinence. Never mind culture Harry, or the fostering effects of environment. If basketball is a cheaply played game ideally suited to the urban environment (look at all that macadem!), it must nevertheless be admitted that the inner city is hardly a basketball incubator, and that the "dissolution of jewish ghettos" would therefore have no effect on the sum of jewish basketball (playing that is, not merely watching and enjoying). No cause and effect here, right Harry? I mean, this is how we analyze the past? By totally disregarding it?

Look Harry, you made a deliciously ignorant comment. Just delicious. Now let it go and develop another analogy. Try wide recievers--so many black wide recievers! I've no retort to that.

Posted by Mark | November 27, 2007 12:29 PM

"Somebody tell Pat Tillman."

He actually did play pro sports first before joining the Army.

In any case, there isn't a large trend of Jews putting off more lucrative professional opportunities to serve in the U.S. military, so I don't think this explains the paucity of Jews in the NBA.

Posted by Harry | November 27, 2007 12:30 PM

Joel,

If you are stating that going to a lesser school has not adverse effect then are you also arguing that going to an elite university also has no effect.

If going to NC State instead of Duke will have no adverse effect on the middle class white guy then going to Duke instead of NC State should really have no beneficial effect to the underrepresented minority candidate with the lower SAT score.

It seem like the pro-AA crowd are making to conflicting arguments. That going to an elite school is a tremendous benefit for a black/hispanic student but of no benefit to a white or asian student.

It is sort of the same argument used during the UMich Supreme Court cases. White and Asian students need black and Hispanics students in the same class so that they can work with them later. But black students at Howard or Grambling do not need white students around to learn how to become leaders or managers.

Posted by superdestroyer | November 27, 2007 12:33 PM

Is the question of who gets top consulting jobs really that big a deal anyway?

Right. Almost nobody gives a shit.

Anti-AA measures get broad support for some reason even though the "damage" caused by race/gender preferences boils down to a tiny fraction of people having a slightly lower chance of getting into Princeton instead of having to settle for Berkeley.

Posted by apm | November 27, 2007 12:34 PM

"We will never again have a debate on public policy in this country that is based on the idea of inherent racial differences"

Really?

http://www.amazon.com/Avoid-Boring-People-Lessons-Science/dp/0375412840/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5097749-5284034?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193837252&sr=1-1

I mean, really?

And from what high office do you issue this papal edict?

Selected quote from the book:

“there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”.

It might be true, it might not be true, but let's not talk about it because our history makes it a difficult or emotionally charged subject?

Posted by Adam | November 27, 2007 12:41 PM

apm,

You have massively oversimplified it. Imagine two kids at T.C. Williams High School in Virginia (since it has been in the Washington Post recently) one white and one black. The white kid takes all AP courses, does the extracirricular and makes a 1300 on the SAT test. His chances are less than 50/50 to get into UVA. His black classmate takes fewer AP classes, has fewer extracirriculars, and makes a 1200 SAT. He is a lock for UVA. The white kids settles on Virginia Tech.

The black kids gets special oreintation at UVA, special tutors,and benefits from raced based mentoring. there is even a tax payer funded position at UVA to ensure the black kids succeeds. The kid at VT is just another white kids from Northern Virginia like a couple thousand other freshmen. No speical programs for him.

When they both apply to UVA law school four years later (or maybe five for the black kid), why should the black kid get a second round of AA over the white kid?

Say the white kid does good but not great on his LSAT but does not get into UVA law school but settles for George Mason. The black kid probably makes less on the LSAT but still gets into UVA Law School.

After they both graduate out of the top 10% of their class, the job prospects for the white kids are very limit. But many law firms will hire the black kid to increase their diversity.

In the end, how many times does a black person get to benefit from AA in their life? How many times does the white kids have to settle to being an also ran because of his race?

Posted by superdestroyer | November 27, 2007 12:49 PM

"So Jews are turning down $1 million+ salaries as NBA point guards to become podiatrists and write for The Atlantic? No one who has the ability to be a professional athlete willingly turns it down for "other opportunities"; they play sports first and then go on to other opportunities."

Harry,

Do you have any proof that this doesn't occur? Being an accountant,investment banker, physician, or professional writer can be very lucrative (I'm sure Matt makes at least a comfortable living as a writer for the Atlantic), and the risk of injury is far less in these fields than it is in professional sports. Therefore, as a result of family & cultural influences, many Jews with the raw athletic ability to be a professional player are probably discouraged during childhood from pursuing professional sports as a career, unless it is to serve as team executive or as a sports agent.

Posted by eltoro | November 27, 2007 12:58 PM

Like eltoro points out above(and ezra has a whole post on it), for Sullvan's logic to make sense, present inequalities have to be entirely genetic, with no (or at least, very little) relevent environmental/social/etc. basis. There is no scientific support for this, it's a bizarrely anti-common sense assumption, and there's a abundance of research confirming that there are indeed environmental, social, etc. factors involved - see, as a very bare minimum, studies involving otherwise identical resumes, job candidates, etc.

Also, I would recommend Andrew Olmstead's post It Was My Understanding There Would Be No Math over at Obsidian Wings:
"Responding to hilzoy's post on discrimination, in which I end up making a case quite different to what I expected. . . .There is a lot more to the world than math, and my figures are extremely rough in any case, but that's an awfully powerful argument for affirmative action. This is not the first time that I've made a case other than the one I expected to when I started, but that's part of what makes blogging interesting . . ."

Posted by Dan S. | November 27, 2007 1:03 PM

"When they both apply to UVA law school four years later (or maybe five for the black kid),..."

Ah superdestroyer, here's the problem with your example. It didn't take the black kid five years to graduate; why, he never graduated at all! In his first week on campus he raped a white girl and was summarily expelled. Later he was killed by rival drug dealers. I mean, with jungle bunnies, isn't this how it always goes? I mean, not merely in my imagination but in reality as well?

Posted by Mark | November 27, 2007 1:05 PM

The question, "does it help to go to Duke instead of NC State"? has been answered many times, and the answer is always, "no." If I didn't have work to do I'd find one of the studies. But they all say: your college is only useful in that it's usually a sign of your intelligence. People who go to Stanford generally do better than people who go to state schools, but just because they're smarter, more talented, harder working, etc. Stanford doesn't make them successful. If you have the ability to get into Stanford, you'll do well whether you go there or not. The fields where you "have to" have an Ivy League degree are few and far between, and statistically overwhelmed by the jobs in which it doesn't matter.

Posted by too many steves | November 27, 2007 1:09 PM

How many times does the white kids have to settle to being an also ran because of his race?

But you are also oversimplifying. First, most people wouldn't consider a law graduate from George Mason an also-ran in the broad scope of society. Secondly, you are looking at two individuals. I am contending that the number of white men in the situation you describe is overwhelmed by the number of white men who get into GVA - and - overwhelmed by the number of black men who don't get into GVA.

Posted by apm | November 27, 2007 1:10 PM

Like eltoro points out above(and ezra has a whole post on it), for Sullvan's logic to make sense, present inequalities have to be entirely genetic, with no (or at least, very little) relevent environmental/social/etc. basis. There is no scientific support for this, it's a bizarrely anti-common sense assumption, and there's a abundance of research confirming that there are indeed environmental, social, etc. factors involved - see, as a very bare minimum, studies involving otherwise identical resumes, job candidates, etc.

Also, I would recommend Andrew Olmstead's post It Was My Understanding There Would Be No Math over at Obsidian Wings:
"Responding to hilzoy's post on discrimination, in which I end up making a case quite different to what I expected. . . .There is a lot more to the world than math, and my figures are extremely rough in any case, but that's an awfully powerful argument for affirmative action. This is not the first time that I've made a case other than the one I expected to when I started, but that's part of what makes blogging interesting . . ."

Posted by Dan S. | November 27, 2007 1:10 PM

"If going to NC State instead of Duke will have no adverse effect on the middle class white guy then going to Duke instead of NC State should really have no beneficial effect to the underrepresented minority candidate with the lower SAT score."

If they both meet the entrance requirements, then I agree. The point is that if they both meet the entrance requirements at an elite school, then taking either one would not measurably harm the other.

"It seem like the pro-AA crowd are making to conflicting arguments. That going to an elite school is a tremendous benefit for a black/hispanic student but of no benefit to a white or asian student."

There are many arguments made by pro-AA people. Some are good. Some aren't. I don't have to adopt all the arguments to be pro-AA. My argument is internally consistent. Others' mileage may vary.

Posted by Joel | November 27, 2007 1:16 PM

Adam,

Perhaps I wasn't clear, for which I apologize. I haven't issued some edict here. When I said that we no longer debate (and decide) on issues of public policy in this country based on the idea of innate racial differences I wasn't referring to what's going on in these comments or in Watson's book. I mean we no longer do this at the legislative level, the executive level or in the courts, the levels that matter when the question of policy arises.

The battle over affirmative action makes my point. That debate revolves around the issue of whether or not affirmative action is fair and/or constitutional, not whether or not differences in IQ make it pointless. That may be the grounds on which Andrew Sullivan would like to debate the issue but it isn't and given our history, it's not going to be. We will never arrive at the consensus with regard to innate differences that we would have to arrive at in order to discuss anything of importance on those grounds nor, given American racial history will it ever be politically palatable to bring the debate we're having in these posts onto the floor of any legislature. That's my point.

Unless you want to make the case that we will debate this or other matters of public policy using inherent racial differences as a starting point, my point stands.

Posted by davido | November 27, 2007 1:34 PM

davido

Now I'm with you. Thanks for the clarification.

"We will never arrive at the consensus with regard to innate differences that we would have to arrive at in order to discuss anything of importance on those grounds nor, given American racial history will it ever be politically palatable to bring the debate we're having in these posts onto the floor of any legislature. That's my point."

American's very rarely arrive at a consensus on anything at all, so I'm not certain how salient a point that is. I'm also not sure that we can extrapolate our current political social/reluctance regarding racial differences indefinitely into the future, especially if the scientific consensus underlying those differences are becomes more firmly established.

Posted by Adam | November 27, 2007 1:50 PM

In the end, how many times does a black person get to benefit from AA in their life?

How about 300 years, or the length of time apartheid existed in America.

Posted by Horatio Parker | November 27, 2007 2:00 PM

"Yes Harry, you're example "was about the underrepresentation of Jews in the NBA today" and since History begins today it has perfect pertinence. Never mind culture Harry, or the fostering effects of environment. If basketball is a cheaply played game ideally suited to the urban environment..."

Mark,

You mean like the urban environment Matt grew up in (not that basketball courts aren't ubiquitous in both suburban and urban environments)? You're whistling past the graveyard here. History may not begin today, but the history of anti-Jewish discrimination in the 1920s has as much relevance to the paucity of Jewish NBA players today as it does to the surfeit of Jewish physicians today, which is to say it has no relevance. You know that, but you feel compelled to keep dancing anyway.

You're afraid to give an inch toward the obvious explanation, which is that Jews, on average, are inferior in certain inherent attributes than blacks: height, fast-twitch musculature, speed, etc. The reason you are afraid is obvious: if you admit that Jews and blacks aren't inherently equal in athletic potential this leaves the door open to other inherent differences in potential which must not be named. So I understand why you feel compelled to keep playing such a weak hand.

"Harry, Do you have any proof that this doesn't occur? Being an accountant,investment banker, physician, or professional writer can be very lucrative (I'm sure Matt makes at least a comfortable living as a writer for the Atlantic), and the risk of injury is far less in these fields than it is in professional sports."

How about instead of asking me to prove a negative, you use your common sense for a moment. I'm sure Matt does fine as an Atlantic writer, and it's a great gig to get paid to do something you'd be doing anyway, but do you honestly think he would turn down a seven figure contract to play a sport he loves if he had the opportunity? That's absurd on its face.

Posted by Harry | November 27, 2007 2:03 PM

"If you have the ability to get into Stanford, you'll do well whether you go there or not."

If that were true, than you wouldn't have so many applicants clamoring for a chance to pay $30k+ (?) per year to go to Stanford, instead of paying ~$10k per year to go to Cal State Fullerton. And also, what Superdestroyer said:

"It seem like the pro-AA crowd are making to conflicting arguments. That going to an elite school is a tremendous benefit for a black/hispanic student but of no benefit to a white or asian student."

In short, if it didn't matter what school you went to, affirmative action in education wouldn't be an issue for anyone. But it does, so it is.

A perfect example is the Atlantic. How many state college grads have blogs here?

Posted by Fred | November 27, 2007 2:15 PM

Uh, fellows? On average, high-SES children of highly-educated black professionals make lower SAT scores than low-SES children of poor whites.

SAT scores are a proxy for IQ scores. The only reasonable explanation for the observed facts is reversion to the mean, and the data strongly (almost conclusively) suggest that IQ is partly genetic.

Affirmative action (AA) was sold as a way to help socially-deprived blacks over a threshold. Once a generation of blacks was boosted into the professional middle class, we were told, they would perpetuate themselves there-- their children would grow up with the same advantages as white middle-class children and would post similar achievements in life. (It was understood that society would have to accept one long generation of ill-qualified black professionals. That would have been a small price to pay to solve the overall problem.) People still peddle this myth-- like Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who repeated it in Grutter, writing that 25 more years of racial preferences would do the trick (though 35 previous years hadn't).

In fact, as a scheme to wipe out the average racial performance gap, or even as a scheme to create a self-perpetuating black middle class, affirmative action has utterly failed and no amount of tinkering can fix it.

In current American practice, affirmative action hoovers up the small fraction of black children who are reasonably smart and gives them educational credentials and jobs rather better (say, 1SD) than most of them could earn by themselves. They end up with fairly high SES. Due to reversion to the mean those AA beneficiaries produce children who are, on the average, noticeably less smart than themselves. Left to their own devices those kids cannot maintain the socio-economic status they inherit from their parents so AA has to hoover up a new generation of reasonably smart black kids-- many of whom have parents of merely average IQ (for blacks, meaning 1 SD below the mean for whites)-- to produce a new generation of underqualified black professionals.

That, by the way, is why every year we read new heart-tugging stories about bright high-school kids from bad neighborhoods qualifying for college with help from AA programs. Smart kids can have normal (even dull) parents! Stories of this kind usually suggest that the smart kids must have smart parents who were held down by racism, but that's nonsense. Reversion to the mean predicts equally that both parents and children of exceptional people will average closer to normal.

Finally, affirmative action gets a lot of support from bright black parents with more normal kids. The bright parents want the best for their kids and are able advocates for programs to benefit them. Such parents are quite willing to "work the system" for their kids. That is one reason there are always plenty of AA beneficiaries ready to tell reporters how they suffer from racism (despite the almost perfectly inverse truth of the situation) and that AA should be, not just maintained, but expanded for the next generation!

Look, if the average racial performance gap in America were really strictly a product of environment alone (whether SES of black families, or any supposed climate of white racism) then interventions such as the Civil Rights Acts and affirmative action would have largely closed the gap already. They haven't. Yes, AA reduces the "outcome" gap, but the fact that children of the black middle-class can't maintain their parents' SES shows we need more than a simple poverty+racism explanation.

Since AA cannot produce a self-sustaining black professional middle class, and by definition delivers underqualified graduates and workers, we should abolish it immediately.

(Please understand this: millions of highly-intelligent American blacks do not need AA. It's just that there are too few of them for racial bean-counters (because only 15% of blacks are smarter than the average white). The whole point of AA is to boost ill-qualified blacks over better-qualified whites to achieve whatever quota ("proportional representation," "critical mass," etc.) that social engineers have set.)

Once we abolish AA, smart blacks can show their earned credentials to get the respect they deserve. There might be fewer black professionals, but at least they would be legitimate.

Posted by Oh Not Again | November 27, 2007 2:15 PM

"Once we abolish AA, smart blacks can show their earned credentials to get the respect they deserve. There might be fewer black professionals, but at least they would be legitimate."

It's true. And one Dr. Benjamin Carson is infinitely better than ten Dr. Patrick Chavises.

Posted by Fred | November 27, 2007 2:21 PM

"How about instead of asking me to prove a negative, you use your common sense for a moment. I'm sure Matt does fine as an Atlantic writer, and it's a great gig to get paid to do something you'd be doing anyway, but do you honestly think he would turn down a seven figure contract to play a sport he loves if he had the opportunity? That's absurd on its face."

Harry,

You need to use common sense. Suppose Matt displayed both great athletic ability
and great intellectual ability as a child. How likely is it that his parents would have encouragaged him to pursue a professional sports career over a career using his intellectual ability? Yes, a professinal athletic career has a great reward outcome, but that reward comes with greater risk of injury. If Matt's parents steered him in his formative years toward an intellectually based career, how likely is it that Matt would have pursued hoop dreams?

Posted by eltoro | November 27, 2007 2:26 PM

Harry,

Before anyone can turn down an opportunity to do anything, including play pro sports, the opportunity has to exist. For it to exist it has to have been pursued.

Anyone who wants to play pro sports has to decide to pursue that dream early on and pursue it relentlessly. Matt didn't pursue it, nor did I, an African-American who is very athletic but who was taught by his parents that the odds of ever playing professionally were too low to sacrifice any other opportunity for. So I went to a high school that was known for it's academics not it's athletics and started on a basketball team that won three games my senior year. Since the only scholarship offers I got were from academically second rate Division II schools I chose to go to a better college where, not having been recruited, I didn't even bother to try out for the team (In those days, before freshman could play varsity, the freshman team usually consisted of 5-6 scholarship players and 10-12 walk-ons). And while I'll never know what would have happened had I pursued the dream, I am nonetheless happy with my choices and with my life

My point? Those who end up playing professionally didn't just happen to have that option among others when it came time to enter the work force. They worked from childhood for the opportunity to make that choice, foreclosed other possibilities and in the end the vast, vast majority of those who chose that path never made a dime in pro sports anyway.

Posted by davido | November 27, 2007 2:36 PM

Joel,

McKinsey etc would have taken one look at the application, seen the NC State and decided that the person was not smart enough for them. That is why the competition for the top schools is so great. It is the same with the top 14 law schools and all the rest. Just having a diploma from an Ivy League makes it much easier to get into medical school.

Are you arguing that where a person goes to college has no affect on the rest of the life?

Posted by superdestroyer | November 27, 2007 12:16 PM
=================================================
Baloney. Most business leaders don't go to elite schools.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115853818747665842-kChmVyLXSEX6r5nHSVKwfSqtIJg_20070917.html?mod=rss_free

The college diplomas of the nation's top executives tell an intriguing story: Getting to the corner office has more to do with leadership talent and a drive for success than it does with having an undergraduate degree from a prestigious university.

Most CEOs of the biggest corporations didn't attend Ivy League or other highly selective colleges. They went to state universities, big and small, or to less-known private colleges.

Some 10% of CEOs currently heading the top 500 companies received undergraduate degrees from Ivy League colleges, according to a survey by executive recruiter Spencer Stuart. But more received their undergraduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin than from Harvard, the most represented Ivy school.

Wal-Mart Stores CEO H. Lee Scott, for example, went to Pittsburg State University in Kansas, Intel CEO Paul Otellini to University of San Francisco and Costco Wholesale CEO James Sinegal to San Diego City College.

This information should help allay the anxieties of many parents and their college-bound children who believe admission to a top-ranked school with a powerful alumni network is a prerequisite to success in the upper echelons of business management. Today's crop of chief executives are, of course, at least a generation older than current college students, but they are in the position to hire and say they don't favor job candidates with certain degrees.

Posted by Campesino | November 27, 2007 3:16 PM

"A perfect example is the Atlantic. How many state college grads have blogs here?" So your assumption is that very few if any graduates from Berkeley, Chapel Hill, Ann Arbor, UCLA or the service academies (to name a few public schools) have blogs at the Atlantic. Fair enough. I have a better question though; how many grads from those places make more money than the bloggers at the Atlantic?

As for: "Once we abolish AA, smart blacks can show their earned credentials to get the respect they deserve. There might be fewer black professionals, but at least they would be legitimate."

Get respect from who exactly? I get respect in my profession from the only people that matter, the ones I work with who observe my performance day in and day out. Since I only care about the opinions of people I actually know, I'm not concerned with whether or not people I meet at cocktail parties or those I mention my profession to on airplanes "respect me." And if someone I work with assumes that I'm an affirmative action hire but at the same time respects the quality of my work, I don't have a problem. If they don't respect the quality of my work but don't ascribe my shortcomings to race but to me, then again, we're good (and I'll work harder). After all, when one of my colleagues screws up I don't make assumptions about all whites Asians or Hispanics based on an admittedly unrepresentative sample.

What goes undiscussed (and too often by blacks) when people raise the "respect v. affirmative action" argument is the number of times someone who works in integrated environments has to deal with the "compliment" of being told by whites in one way or another how much they're not like "those [most] other black people." No, we're smarter, more articulate, better groomed, harder working and better mannered. Now I'll admit that it's been awhile since I was told, again as a compliment, that if all black people were like me, there were would be no racism. I don't think that's happened since the late seventies and I genuinely count that as progress. But being thought of as the exception that proves the rule about all the other people who look like me is just as odious in it's way as being thought to be inherently inferior, especially when people point to their acceptance of me as a way to excuse their racism.

Sometimes I can't help thinking that at least one or two of the prominent blacks who oppose affirmative action do so because they're not bothered by this kind of thing but indeed welcome it. And affirmative action robs them of their special status as "exceptional" blacks.

Posted by davido | November 27, 2007 3:17 PM

The affirmative action system - systematically favoring white males and disenfranchising blacks propped itself shakily upon the proposition that blacks were inferior, anyway. An odd thing to assert, since that inferiority would surely have made the whole Jim Crow structure superfluous. But such was the nonsense fetched up from the unconscious in which white anxiety about blacks seemed like a permanent factor. After the civil rights era, I think we have seen the gradual spread of enlightenment in at least this area. The only people who hold out for black inferiority are the confederate re-enactors or their ideological equivalents. But racism is entrenched in many other ways in the American system, and defenders of that system, like Sullivan, will not hestitate to revive the old KKK verities, giving them a nice gloss of pseudo-science. All of which is a means of disguising the real need for remedial acts of justice in the U.S. to repair the oppression of blacks. That's a good cause. The supposed "inferiority" of blacks put on the table by 'liberals" who just happen to have a sense that the apartheid system profited a certain class of Americans enormously is a joke issue, a red herring.

Posted by roger | November 27, 2007 3:30 PM

Assuming that the job of the state is to "secure the blessings of liberty" by providing collective security (which necessarily includes remedying injustice), the extent to which population subgroups vary due to differing genetic profiles is simply irrelevant to public policy. Even to issues surrounding affirmative action, unless differing genetic endowments are themselves defined as injustices. But I don't think we're there yet, so Sullivan is simply projecting his own intellectual infirmities onto the rest of us.

It is inevitable that individuals will latch onto research into the extent to which population subgroups vary as a justification for their own biases. Not much that can be done about that. And it is not a reason for researchers to turn a blind eye to variations among population subgroups. Though it may be a reason to avoid non-scientific discussions about the issues.

Posted by henry evans | November 27, 2007 3:49 PM

"The only reasonable explanation for the observed facts is reversion to the mean, and the data strongly (almost conclusively) suggest that IQ is partly genetic."

Oh Not Again,

How does reversion to the mean prove a genetic component to IQ? Reversion to the mean is a phenomenon created by sampling errors, and by that fact that a particular score taken a particular time is partly determined by chance. If genetics play such an overwhelming role in determing IQ (so that the enviromental effect is negligible), reversion to the mean should not occur in regards to IQ scores.

If anything, reversion to the mean suggests that environment plays an important role in determining IQ. Genetics probably determines the RANGE of possible IQs that an individual can possess, but enviroment determines where in the range an individual will actually fall. People of low to moderate IQs can produce people with high IQs, because these parents cultivate and nurture the intellectual potential of their children, and instill a drive in them to maximize their intellectual ability. People with high IQs can in turn produce children of moderate IQs, if these high IQ parents take it for granted that their children will maximize their intellectual ability. If high achievement parents don't prod their children to achieve, these children will tend not to be achievers. Just ask Paris Hilton.

Posted by eltoro | November 27, 2007 3:57 PM

Well Harry let's suppose that MLB teams construct baseball academies in Latin America with no particular objective in mind. Let's also assume that basketball's stature, prevelance and accessibility within the inner city has no greater effect in drawing in, developing and cultivating basketball talent than a collection of suburban driveways.

The prevelance and intensity of basketball is as great in New Rochelle as it is in Bed Stuy Brooklyn. And if it isn't it doesn't matter. Ok.

But assuming all that, you're still left with the fact that Jews dominated youth and sub-professional basketball for much of the early to mid-twentieth century. House of Moses and all that. Even beat the Negroes.

So "You're afraid to give an inch toward the obvious explanation, which is that Jews, on average, are inferior in certain inherent attributes than blacks: height, fast-twitch musculature, speed, etc." And yet not much more than half a century ago such was not the case. So what is it Harry? Is my history wrong? Is this whole jewish basketball thing a piece of fantasy? Or did "certain inherent attributes" just migrate from the jews to the blacks one fateful day in 1948?

Anyway, Harry, I'm not particularly afraid of genetics. In fact I'm willing to go in the direction you're going (like I said Harry, black wide recievers!). It's just that you made such a deliciously ignorant analogy, on which one can't help but comment.

Posted by Mark | November 27, 2007 4:22 PM

"Just having a d