> 1) I believe an inequity exists that grants
> disproportionate advantage to white males
> in this country's key leadership positions.
> 2) I believe that one of the primary mechanisms
> driving that inequity is an educational system
> that, historically, has favored wealthy upper
> class students who
> a) come from families more able to afford to pay
> for participation in that educational process;
> b) are part of a subculture that has been
> raised for many decades with the expectation
> of entitlement to leadership; and
> c) enjoy favorable treatment from older
> generations of that subculture and those
> families who are currently holding most of those
> positions of power already, and until about the
> past generation or so, the vast majority of those
> successful in that educational system have been
> white males. Bearing in mind the average age of
> this country's leadership, most of the people making
> up that establishment graduated from college sometime
> in the 1950's, so the inequities that contribute to
> the white male club currently in charge of this
> country are historical ones, not current ones.
> 3) I believe that the inequity should indeed be dealt
> with decisively.
>
> 4) I believe that the current state of higher education
> in this country has, with a few notable exceptions, the
> largely addressed the inequities that in the past created
> white male power structure, and in addition to that, the
> culture of the country has changed significantly
> during that time and no longer equates aptitude to govern
> exclusively with success as judged by that educational
> system, which will, on its own, cause those inequities to
> balance out over the next generation or so, which to me,
> largely satisfies \.
> other than
> 5)the remaining exceptions which pose entirely different
> problems than the historical source of the current imbalance.
> 6) I believe that using gender, ethnicity, religion, or
> other statistical distinctions as a means of artificially
> enforcing the statistical makeup of this country's leadership
> does a disservice to both the country and the people chosen to
> lead. This applies both ways, however, and as I said, I find
> drawing any kind of racial/gender/belief system boundaries
> racist and offensive. (I would apply the double-blind method,
> myself, to make sure *only* metrics relevant to actual
> performance of the job were considered, but
> I'm a little odd in that respect.)
nothing odd about that, bruce... it's just that merit sometimes loses out over
quotas, which may be an injustice, but you can't make an omelet with out
breaking eggs. i believe we are slowly catching and foresee a time when my
father's generation will be dead, and hopefully the present generation will
know better. however i still see a lot of racism around in the current
generation. my baby boomer generation though we would eradicate sexism and
racism, but when i look around it still exists. progress is being made,
however.
jon
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