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Title: The Shape of the River by William G. Bowen, Derek Bok ISBN: 0-691-05019-8 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 04 January, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.17 (12 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Solid facts supporting AA or slanted liberalism? You decide.
Comment: The Shape of The River continues the same liberal deception and dogma we have come to expect in the debate over affirmative action, and this helps racists of all stripes- liberal and conservative ones. See Sowell on the data.
1) The authors skew their results towards elite private colleges, that most black students don't attend. Their sample has 24 private institutions and only 4 state institutions. But in fact only 9% of blacks attend private institutions. In addition they are selective in their sample of actual black students. Two thirds of those sampled have one or more parents with college degrees- something not typical of the black college going population as a whole. With such a selective sampling it is no wonder the authors got the "results" they wanted.
2) The authors lump together blacks admitted with no special preferences with those admitted under lower standards, rather than separating them out so as to disguise the impact of AA. But in fact, as numerous other studies show, where black students are similar to their white counterparts, their graduation
rates have been similar. In other words they are cutting the mustard, just like everybody else. But where there are those admitted under lower standards, then there is a wide gap in graduation rates.
3) Several other studies contradict the author's conclusions and for some strange reason they will not make their base data public so that others can analyze it. As shown above, they lump together blacks enjoying no special preferences with those admitted under such- disguising the impact of preferences. Their refusal to release base data (like any normal academic study would), suggests something fishy at work.
Some have used various items in the book to argue for the declining intelligence of the black population, based on the fact of high IQ black women having fewer children. But this is bogus. In fact the intelligence scores of blacks (along with other initially low IQ whites) have been rising for decades. As Thomas Sowell points out, it is the "norming" of IQ tests from their earlier baselines so that increases are reshuffled to yield a "normal average" of 100, that has concealed black
progress. When progress is measured from the original baselines, in fact, whole nations have experienced rising IQs, undermining the racist assumptions of so called "decline".
Some whites would like to assume that black folks can't learn anything unless they get some sort of "special help" or conversely, that black progress is due to "preferences." Either way, the presumption is something doled out by white people.
But back in the Jim Crow era, when blacks were blatantly and systematically denied opportunities open to whites, blacks were making progress without any "special" help or "preferences". All black PUBLIC schools like Dunbar High in Washington DC consistently produced test scores for decades above the white average. As far back as the First World War, black soldiers from northern states, places like New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio scored higher on mental tests than white soldiers from southern regions like Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi.
By the way, the academic performance gap between Asians and whites is even bigger than the gap between blacks and whites according to Thernstroms' new book "No excuses". So white performance ain't anything to write home about either. People should remember this the next time they so easily point fingers at black people-- whether to condemn them, or "help" them with yet more deceptive and dubious "preferences."
Rating: 3
Summary: Academic white Racism, Paternalism at it most Vicious Form
Comment: I have read the book twice. Truth often is stranger than fiction. The book is complicated but the central theses is that blacks "need" lower standards to succeed in school, jobs and life. Basically, it says they cannot succeed in life without me the arrogant, academic white liberal providing lower standards for admissions to college for you, the blacks.
The whole subject of differences in test scores, academic achievement is a touchy subject. White IQ averages 100 and Blacks IQ averages 85, a gap of 15 points. Many believe, that the difference will be less once equal opportunity is provided. These people believe in equal opportunity and believe "all races" have the ability to succeed.
Bok and Bowen basically comes and says they CANNOT succeed without lower hurdles, lower admissions criteria, the aid of white paternalism. Bok and Bowen have basically accepted the very notion that blacks are inferior to whites and they will never succeed without the white man support. It's again the ideas of the "white man burden" to civilized the Africans in our midst. If this is not white racism at its worst. I have no idea what it is. Paternalism of liberal whites toward blacks is the worst form of racism possible. It is the "plantation mentality" at work again. If you behave toward the plantation master, I will invite you inside the master's house and let you have the goodies.
There no way to get around it: Bok and Bowen are academic racists.... academic racists of the worst type because they believe intrinsically that blacks are inferior to whites and only through their "benevolence" will blacks succeed. I find this ugly, distasteful and objectionable.
For public universities like the Universities of California, Texas, Michigan, etc. It is well known for decades now that there is two-admissions process. One process is for Whites-Asians and another process is for Blacks-Hispanics. At the University of Michigan, Whites-Asians will be auto-reject at the 6% percentile of applicants. Blacks-Hispanics at 6% will be auto-accept. Berkeley has had a gap year after year of 250-350 SAT points between the two groups. The NYT published the SAT scores of white-Asians, in the 1200-1300 range, whereas blacks-hispanics were in the range of 900, under a thousand. It is no secret-open seceret now that public universities have two-admissions process based on your race. It's like there is two-universities, one for you and one for me.
The only reason I write this is that public universities are under public control and public scrutiny. Much of the data came out of Freedom of Information Act request.
Private universities meanwhile are not publicly obligated to release their admissions data. But here in this book, by the former Presidents of Harvard and Princeton, they are publicly admitting they have two-admissions process. If you are white, your application will be placed with other white applicants and if you are blacks, you will be competing against other blacks.
It's an open admission of a two-system admissions process with the blacks system of admissions with much, much lower standards. I would think this is a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but Bok and Bowen insists "the only way they can make it"
This white academic racism of Bok and Bowen reminds me of the separate drinking fountains of the old US South. One fountain for whites and a shabbier one for the colored. Bok and Bowen is here endorsing the white racism of the US South. White and Blacks cannot drink from the same fountain, Bok and Bowen is saying they cannot "compete" because they are just too dumb.
Instead of the KKK of the south promoting the inferiority of blacks, we have the President of Harvard and Princeton, respected academics, promoting the inferiority of blacks. I consider this academic racism the worst form of "hate" imagination because it is an intellectual, accepted belief that blacks are inherently inferior.
Needless to say, I find the white racism of Bok and Bowen shocking and objectionable. Moreover, they openly admit that Ivy schools have a two-tier system of admissions, one for me and one for you people will be shocking to many readers. Bok and Bowen even defends the two-system admissions process.. lower standards for blacks'.Shocking.
Please buy the book, read it, and judge it for yourself. Your opinion might be different than mine, but the white racism of Bok and Bowen is the racism of the worst imaginable type.... they have concluded and accepted blacks are inferior and they need a lower set of standards to go anywhere in life or college, with the white man help of course. If this is not racism, I have no idea what is.
Rating: 1
Summary: Unscientific dribble
Comment: The authors of this book once again raise the question of whether those who work in the social "sciences" will ever allow their work to be subjected to the same academic rigor as the physical sciences. To wit, William G. Bowen is the head of the Mellon Foundation, which is in possession of the research used to justify the claims made in this book. In real science the data would be made available to anyone. In the case of this book, however, the Mellon Fundation will only make the data available under "special" circumstances:
"Requests for access ... must go beyond a general desire to recheck results; they should instead offer sound reasons for believing that there is a likelihood of error or misinterpretation in the work of others..."
That's a quote from the Mellon Foundation's guidleines to obtain the data. In other words, in order to get a chance to prove that it's wrong you already have to be able to prove it's wrong. Hmmmm....Not very scientific for these two "social scientists."
National Review's Melissa Seckora recently gained fame for disproving much of the data used to justify Michael Bellesiles' book "Arming America." Mr. Bellesiles reputation has come under furious assault for the falsification he used to support his book's thesis. Perhaps a similar fate awaits these 2 men, if their data ever actually becomes available. Perhaps if Mr. Bellesiles had been the head of "his own" foundation? (It is, of course, Mr. Mellon's money - I'm sure he's spinning in his grave.)
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Title: The Source of the River : The Social Origins of Freshmen at America's Selective Colleges and Universities by Douglas S. Massey, Camille Z. Charles, Garvey Lundy, Mary J. Fischer ISBN: 0691113262 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 25 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America (Morality and Society) by John David Skrentny ISBN: 0226761789 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: April, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Black-White Test Score Gap by Christopher Jencks, Meredith Phillips ISBN: 0815746091 Publisher: The Brookings Institution Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Promise and Dilemma by Jr. Eugene Y. Lowe ISBN: 0691004897 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 08 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $47.50 |
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Title: The Affirmative Action Debate by George E. Curry, Cornel West ISBN: 020147963X Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.50 |
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