[1532] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: article on racism
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Belcher)
Thu Oct 30 18:21:12 2003
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 15:15:48 -0000
Reply-To: jwb@space.mit.edu
From: John Belcher <jbelcher@CECI.MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <ppwy8v2wvd1.fsf@nerd-xing.mit.edu>
at the risk of being hackneyed, I have always thought these
issues were about class and not about race. Being raised
on the lower social rungs in West Texas (my father got
through seventh grade) and then raising children in the
Lexington school system as an MIT prof, I have seen the
class spectrum in this country from two
pretty different perspectives. In an earlier post some
one implied that it was racist to imply that a sharecropper's
child could not get an 800 on the Math SAT. All other
things being equal, I would say that going through the
Lexington school system gives you a leg up
of on the order of 20 to 1 in your chances of
getting an 800 on the Math SAT. That is class, not race.
Thus I have a reasonable
certainty that the deck is stacked against students not
from Lexington. I also think some intervention is not
unreasonable, because you throw away a tremendous amount
of potential when you don't do that. I am a case in point.
I came out of Rice University in 1965, and went to Cal Tech
for graduate school because I got an NSF Fellowship
(CalTech did not admit me until after they found out that
I got the NSF).
I would give you dollars to donuts that I got that
NSF because of a "regional" quota--the NSF wanted
to take some students from Texas and not all students
from the West Coast or the East Coast. I of course
think that was a pretty wise decision, even if Rice
were not Harvard or MIT or Stanford. I had a tough
time the first year at CalTech, but I did ok.
I don't have "white guilt", what I have is a pretty
reasonable feeling that what's good for the gander
is good for the goose. Sure worked for me.
John W. Belcher
From: Talk about MIT, for MIT, by MIT. [mailto:MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU]On
Behalf Of Ray Jones
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 4:20 PM
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
Subject: article on racism
This has been going around various lists at MIT. I thought some on
mit-talk might be interested in it as well.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1830_305/94044073/print.jhtml
Ray Jones
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