Letters, 9/7: Measures not objective

 30 comment(s)  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

David Moshman’s Aug. 30 community column seems logical, but it deceptively diverts attention from the main reason why affirmative action is so necessary for overcoming our unfortunate legacies of racial and gender discrimination. It is not at all just a matter of diversity; it is a matter of fairness.

The fact is that most of the “objective” measures we use to assess others are not fully objective. There is overwhelming evidence showing that test scores, faculty evaluations, interview skills and personal communications depend, partially but significantly, on one’s cultural background.

All other things equal, an upper-middle-class white male will perform better on standard exams, will use the more appropriate verbal and body language, and will appear to “fit” the job better than someone of a different social or cultural background. Because race, gender and ethnic background are systematically related to the social, gender and ethnic biases in standard tests, school grades, job assessment procedures, the sincere personal judgments of interviewers and many other so-called “objective” measures commonly used to qualify people, it is also true that race, gender and ethnic background are perfectly valid criteria for a college or employer to apply in seeking to accurately judge a person’s true expected performance.

Justice Lewis Powell noted exactly that in California Regents vs. Bakke; what that case prohibited was absolute quotas and completely separate acceptance procedures. Prohibiting reasonable and objective adjustments of faulty and biased assessment procedures, as the Nebraska ballot issue would do, is a step away from fairness.

The “diversity issue” is a different issue, and it was used to reaffirm the California Regents vs. Bakke decision by the much more conservative Supreme Court in 2003. But, as the original Supreme Court decision made clear, diversity is not the only, or even the most important, justification for affirmative action.

The Nebraska initiative, by claiming objectivity and fairness, merely continues the cultural oppression of our white male society: You’d better learn to think, act and look like a white male, or you will not have equal rights.

Hendrik Van den Berg, LincolnNot just her safety at risk

In response to Sara Graham’s letter (Aug. 27) regarding the seat belt law, I’m not pro or con on the value of passing a law to make this a primary violation, but her thought that it is her choice and does not affect anyone else’s safety but her own has no merit.

She mentions herself you could be thrown from your car if you are not wearing your seat belt. Logic would tell you that if the driver was ejected from his or her vehicle, the operator no longer has control of said vehicle, obviously putting others’ safety at risk if the vehicle is still in motion.

Randy Wilson, Lincoln

Race isn’t important

There will be those who don’t want to vote for Barack Obama because of his mixed blood. If the truth were known, most of us are mixed blood of some kind. Way back in time, my great-grandparents were on the Trail of Tears from Georgia to Arkansas.

My kin were in the Civil War, mixed blood both of them, father and son. They were rebels and fought for the south. My grandmother had Native blood in her, but how much nobody knows. People were ashamed of being part Native not too long ago; now it seems some are ashamed to put a good man in office because he is of mixed blood.

I would make a guess that more than a third of the population of the United States is of mixed blood if they would admit it. I’m part Cherokee. The United States is a melting pot of all races. I bet the mixed blood and other races outnumber the Anglos, so the day of the white supreme race are numbered, if not over, for the United States.

I vote for the man, not the party. I want to see our troops home. We have troops scattered all over the world. Do you realize what that costs the taxpayer, and in lives. The now-single mothers without husbands.

Our government had the knowledge to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attack but let it slip by. How long would it take for the Mideast to settle down if we just pulled out and let them fight it out? Let them spend their money instead of ours. We are not making friends trying to play world cop.

I don’t care who Obama’s daddy was. He will get my vote.

Joe Smith, Johnson

Peace through strength

Regarding the letter “Like war? Vote McCain” (LJS, Sept. 3): I am not an expert on history, but I believe several European countries tried to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. Where did that take us?

I will cast my vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin, not for war, but rather for peace through strength. As a veteran, stating that a POW likes war is an insult to all vets.

Leland Foote, Lincoln

Choice of Palin insulting

I find Sen. John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as running mate insulting.

What, Sen. McCain, qualifies this woman to go toe to toe with such volatile foreign leaders as Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Her bachelor’s degree in journalism (her highest degree completed), or her experience as a local sportscaster? To attempt to entice those voters inspired by the accomplishments of Sen. Hillary Clinton with a woman whose resume boasts such accomplishments as “Miss Alaska runner-up,” “PTA member” and “hockey mom” suggests that McCain views women as little more than window dressing, and that one is just as good as another.

This viewpoint is an antiquated one, which citizens of the 21st century have abandoned as ridiculous.

Bonnie Fitzgerald, Omaha

Rocky road ahead

Americans feel the solitary confinement of credit dependence, one paycheck from catastrophe. Outrageous credit card rates, variable mortgage rates and payday advances have created a “beggar my neighbor” predator society in which the powerful prey upon the weak. The government is your enemy till you need a friend. Deregulation hasn’t helped the little guy. Credit card interest rates were regulated until the Supreme Court allowed South Dakota to remove them.

Finance has replaced manufacturing as the fulcrum of our society. Unions represent only 7 percent of the work force. The credit system, carefully crafted by lobbyists over the past 30 years, like a giant slow-moving glacier may be descending into an abyss.

Americans have a sharecropper relationship with their creditors. Paying their bills is beyond their means. Over the past decade, Congress steadily deregulated credit scams and made it more difficult for people to declare bankruptcy.

The goal of corporations is profit. The goals of government are far more complex. By outsourcing government to private contractors, President Bush has substituted corporate profit for the public welfare.

The Bush system of corporate democracy has privatized the profits of government spending through capitalist cronyism but socialized the risk to the taxpayer.

Creative government accounting and off-budget spending would send everyone to prison in the private sector. On the other hand, perhaps Ken Lay and the boys shared their ideas with the government. Today, three-fourths of the American people think we are headed in the wrong direction economically.

American politics is dominated by trivia and misinformation. If the past eight years is prologue to the future, America faces a very rocky road. If a politician means what he says and says what he means, we had better pay more attention to what he says.

This election may be decided by issues, personalities, party labels or race. I hope we get it right.

Roger L. Green, Scottsbluff

Birth control an issue

Watching CNN on Monday, the issue of Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter was discussed by a panel of experts. One point made clearly by CNN contributor Bill Bennett was that the teen was going to “keep the baby.”

Then a CNN reporter in Alaska discussed what people were saying there about the issue. She included that Palin was a strong supporter of teaching only abstinence as birth control in schools.

Bennett admonished the reporter that she was politicizing the issue.

So, it’s okay for him to politicize the issue of “keeping the baby” (anti-abortion), but the issue of the federal government only allowing public schools to teach abstinence as birth control to the peril of losing federal funding is off limits?

While I agree with Sen. Barack Obama’s comments aired at the same time that “candidates’ families are off limits,” I think the right better not make an issue about “keeping the baby” if they don’t want all the studies, statistics and other data that show teaching only abstinence doesn’t work made a major issue in the campaign.

Steve Poots, Seward