Steve Sailer has a brilliant article on elites protecting the integrity of their communities:
In the current immigration debate (if we can call the coordinated marketing campaign we’re being subjected to a “debate”), we are told by Wall Street, academia, corporate shills, and the media that a stable population would be a dire fate. (Not that the US is in terrible danger of that: The number of inhabitants has grown by 34 million in this century.) Thus, illegal aliens are doing us a big favor by coming here to have the children they can’t afford to have in their own countries.
And yet the experts enlightening us about the wonders of a bigger populace don’t seem to be in any hurry for their own communities and colleges to grow. From checking the statistics of elite institutions, you might almost get the impression that the “revealed preference” of people who are good at getting what they want is for very slow population growth.
Sailer quickly covers lots of space, pointing out the very many cities and middle class suburbs have grown at very fast rates while wealthy enclaves from Chicago’s Hyde Park to Dallas’ Highland Park to Greenwich, Connecticut to Harvard and Yale all maintain their exclusivity and protect incumbents. Sailer notes that Harvard’s class of 2011 was only four students larger than its class of 1986. This is really an amazing fact when you think about it.
Like Sailer, I had a hard time finding a definitive discussion of the broad subject of limitations on student body growth rates at elite schools. But for starters, Rice University provided a comparison between itself and other elite universities:
The Big Three on that chart – Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton – have all kept their student count stagnant since 1980. The big jump from 1960 to 1980 marks an era where more and more women were being allowed into school. But after that point, these schools didn’t invest their huge endowments in expanding capacity in ways that would allow for an expansion of the student body. These schools have so much to offer the nation, yet they maintained their exclusivity. This preserves the value of existing degrees. Also, exclusivity keeps alumni sending in checks. While good discussions of this as-yet-unnamed topic are hard to come by, Kevin Carey previously broached the subject and touched on some of what Sailer has addressed:
In 1990, Harvard had an endowment of about $4.7-billion. That was still a lot of money, about $7.7-billion in today’s dollars. Only five other universities have that much money now. Over the next two decades the pile grew to colossal heights, $36.9-billion by mid-2008.
Harvard spent the money on many things. But not a dollar went to increasing the number of undergraduates it chose to bless with a Harvard education. In 1990 the university welcomed slightly more than 1,600 students to its freshman class. In 2008, $32-billion later, it enrolled slightly more than 1,600 freshmen.
That is remarkable stinginess. Harvard undergraduate degrees are immensely valuable, conferring a lifetime of social capital and prestige. The university receives many more highly qualified applicants than it chooses to admit. Because the existing class includes underqualified children of legacies, rich people, politicians, celebrities, and others who benefit from the questionable Ivy League admissions process, Harvard could presumably increase the size of its entering class by, say, 50 percent while improving the overall academic quality of the students it admits.
And other snippets from Clarey:
The university gobbled up nearby land and erected a collection of handsome new buildings, creating over six million square feet of new space since 2000 alone. Yet none of the brilliant new people and buildings and land were used to give more undergrads a Harvard education.
…
That’s because the real priority of elite higher education, as the receding tide of money has exposed, is the greater glory of elite higher education and the administrators and faculty members who work there.
…
That’s why admissions officers work so hard to get them in all manner of shapes, sizes, and colors. And that’s why nobody wants to admit more of them—you only need so many to fill out a brochure, and the more applicants you reject the more awesomely selective and unattainable—and thus attractive—you seem.
…
It’s said that the wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it an unscalable wall.
While attending Yale, Nathan Harden, a conservative author of the recent book Sex & God at Yale discussed proposals to hike admissions. All of his arguments could be made in regards to immigration:
While expansion would not do much to change the admissions rate, it would represent a significant increase in the size of the student body. 650 new students would represent a 13 percent increase in the size of the student body. That’s 100 more history majors vying for the best seminars, 13 percent more competition for a slot in a Harold Bloom course, 13 percent more competition for the Whiffenpoofs. Expanding the faculty and course offerings cannot compensate for the loss of access to the most desirable courses and activities on campus. Not all classes are equal. Future Yalies will have less of the best that is offered here if the expansion goes forward.
Ultimately, the most important goal before us should be preserving the best aspects of the Yale experience. If half of all incoming freshmen no longer have a chance to live on Old Campus (the new colleges would, like Timothy Dwight and Silliman, house freshmen all four years) will that take away something important about the Yale experience? If the best professors become even harder to access, will the Yale education lose value? I think so.
I am not convinced that a bigger Yale will be a better Yale. The old socialists used to have a motto, “Growth for the sake of growth is a cancer.” If we expand simply to accommodate our growing applicant pool, then we are missing the point. Preserving the quality of the education here is far more important. Yale has expanded many times over its history, but at some point that expansion must come to an end — otherwise Yale will cease to exist as a single community of scholars. The bigger Yale gets, the further we all get from one another.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Anglophone elite education is substantially, maybe primarily about socialization through personal relationships with other students and teachers. (There is a whole genre of literature and film devoted to this, Harry Potter is just the most recent.) This can’t be scaled up.
Good catch, Chuck.
I read Sailer’s pieces on the topic both at his blog and over at Taki’s Mag earlier this morning, and while I certainly get where he’s coming from, I also have some critiques as well. First, my agreement(s):
I think he definitely is onto something when he points out the sheer hypocrisy of the White Liberal Elite – they want diversity and the like, but they aren’t willing to put their own blood, sweat, tears and perhaps most importantly, treasure, on the line to get it. The idea that there is no downside to integration and the like, is downright silly. Even if there are real social goods and the like to be reaped, there are tradeoffs and downsides to it just like anything else in life. I’m Black and I’m honest enough to freely admit this to you, or anyone else. Middle and especially lower/working class Whites will most certainly pay a price for the (expanded) freedom of Blacks and others. Affirmative Action – not at the elite college level -but more at the civil and city municipal employee levels – is but one example of this. Even if we as a society decide that it’s a good thing that opportunities be granted to previous kept out groups, we wouldn’t be honest if we didn’t admit that there are only so many slots to go around, and that someone – in this case, middle and lower class Whites – are the ones most likely to be left standing when the music stops. This is why I’ve always argued that AA was implemented in the wrong way – that it should have done on the Congressional floor, where all this could be debated, and ultimately the American People as a whole, could decide.
Having said all that though, do have a problem with Sailer and others in the Alt-Right Manosphere’s obsession – that’s the only word that comes to mind – with the SWPLs and the like. Yes, I get that they’ve got all the plumb spots in life – but aren’t there enough bright minds in the ‘sphere to make things happen in spite of that – and if not, why? Can’t you guys simply show em how it’s done? Wouldn’t that, more than anything, show and prove just how banal, vapid and hypocritical the SWPLs really are? Especially if the argument is HBD-based – you guys would be the beneficiaries of superior brainpower – right? So…why can’t the Sailers of the world just get themselves in gear, and come up with some novel approaches and workarounds to mine the best and brightest of Marginal White Guys, make it happen, and show all those pretentious SWPL snobs has it’s really done?
O.
Obsidian,
Describing affirmative action as expanded freedom for African Americans, is stretching the definition of freedom quite a bit.
Immigration (legal and illegal), is a far more important issue than affirmative action, in my opinion.
Good post, but the guy you quote is “Carey”, not “Clarey”.
@Lara:
Tell that to the Black folk who were systematically locked out of many areas of employment – and still are…
O.
Who are these so called black folk who are systematically locked out of many areas of employment? Not having the requisite skills doesn’t count.Companies fall over backwards to hire blacks to fill their diversity quotas.
This whole “growth” business shines a light on the ONLY argument that will work against unlimited immigration: the “growth is a cancer” argument. Too much sprawl, too much resource consumption, too much environmental degradation. All these things are very real problems that the Left is correct about, but Republicans Incorporated stubbornly resist this thinking, for some reason.
The connection is so simple to make: without immigration, America’s population growth would flatten if not decline, which is a GOOD GOOD GOOD thing. By chucking out 10 or 20 million illegals, you could instantly drop that population massively, which is a GOOD THING that the Left will agree is a good thing (the pop drop, not hustling out the wetbacks). But the Left deliberately never makes the immigration/growth connection, and the dumbass Republicans won’t make that connection for them.
Kind of makes you think both sides of the aisle have other agendas in mind.
Tell that to the Black folk who were systematically locked out of many areas of employment – and still are…
Just how many decades removed from any of this will we have to be before it stops being an excuse? We are well into at least the fifth decade of black folk NOT being “systematically locked out” of employment and in fact being “systematically” PREFERRED for employment. That’s basically someone’s entire working life, so in effect these long-past issues are currently affecting nobody at all. Can we drop this excuse now?
The racist failed to accept Obsidians generous merciful comment and now they will see how a Soldier handles white ass liars. Obsidian is the strongest Black Man we observed followed his brilliance.
why can’t the Sailers of the world just get themselves in gear, and come up with some novel approaches and workarounds to mine the best and brightest of Marginal White Guys, make it happen, and show all those pretentious SWPL snobs has it’s really done?
For the same reason that blacks complain about life in the US so incessantly, but never able to form a functional economy or institutions of their own.
Tell that to the Black folk who were systematically locked out of many areas of employment
Yes, because black folk do sooo very well in the job market when they’re removed from the presence of whites and their racism. There’s been an exodus of American blacks resettling in Africa where they are able to become business leaders, architects, physicians, Nobel laureates and chemists on their own without white folks holding them back.
I suspect Obsidian is referring to the Philadelphia trade unions. I believe he is some kind of skilled blue collar worker.
@Camlost:
“For the same reason that blacks complain about life in the US so incessantly, but never able to form a functional economy or institutions of their own.”
O: HBD theory holds that Black folk are, in aggregate, cognitively inferior; are you saying that the bulk and mass of the White Alt-Rightsphere, is also cognitively inferior?
“Yes, because black folk do sooo very well in the job market when they’re removed from the presence of whites and their racism. There’s been an exodus of American blacks resettling in Africa where they are able to become business leaders, architects, physicians, Nobel laureates and chemists on their own without white folks holding them back.”
O: Acttually, I happen to know many native-born African Americans who have homes and thriving businesses in African countries like Ghana and Senegal. I also happen to know of quite a few native born African Continentals who, after getting their education/skills here, return back home.
Do you know any such people?
O.
@Lara:
“I suspect Obsidian is referring to the Philadelphia trade unions. I believe he is some kind of skilled blue collar worker.”
O: Actually, I wasn’t referring to them at all, but rather of other fields. The U of Chicago “Black name/White name on Resume” study will give you more information. Just Google for it…
O.
@Lara:
“Immigration (legal and illegal), is a far more important issue than affirmative action, in my opinion.”
O: That’s not the way many in the White Alt-Rightsphere say it; to let them tell it, AA is a huge, major area of concern and source of pain for them. For example, take Ron Unz’s latest huge writeup on the matter as it relates to elite college admissions…
O.
@Scott:
“Who are these so called black folk who are systematically locked out of many areas of employment? Not having the requisite skills doesn’t count.Companies fall over backwards to hire blacks to fill their diversity quotas.”
O: You first – please name me all the many Fortune 500 companies who are just falling over themselves to hire Black Men and Women professionals with real areas of responsibility and decision making powers? I’m all ears and would love to be corrected by you on the matter.
In the meantime, in the book, “Two Nations” by Andrew Hacker, gives two lists of professions and occupations – one that is chockfull of Blacks and the other that is a defacto “no go” zone for Blacks. Check it out and holla back…
O.
http://www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company/diversity/
http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/inclusion_and_diversity.html
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9023446&contentId=7058326
http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/careers_emplpolicies_diversity.aspx
http://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility/diversity-inclusion
If this doesn’t get caught up in the spam filter, I could go all day.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/snapshots/206.html
8 of the first 10 on this list have a diversity initiative pop up in one of the first 3-4 links with a search “company name diversity”. Fannie Mae needed a little more specific “fannie mae diversity employment” search. I couldn’t find one for Berkshire Hathaway. .
Obs writes: “please name me all the many Fortune 500 companies who are just falling over themselves to hire Black Men and Women professionals with real areas of responsibility and decision making powers?
Way to move the goalposts. And you don’t just get hired out of the blue for those jobs. It’s called building a resume. You have to start somewhere, but blacks, among many other afflictions, often object to starting at the bottom because they don’t like taking orders from whitey. Attitude, attitude, all is attitude. And incidentally, EVERY Fortune 500 company would step through a hoop of fire to hire a black actually worthy of a high level exec position. “Black executive with experience” is the most marketable resume on planet earth.
O: Actually, I wasn’t referring to them at all, but rather of other fields. The U of Chicago “Black name/White name on Resume” study will give you more information. Just Google for it…
I am still waiting for the equivalent study to be done with names like Cleatus, Billy Bob and Jethro. Just saying.
This goes out to all you racists and to the Black Men. You are asking yourself who is Promoting Justice. You white boys are to intimidated to confront us head on because you know we will stomp you. And you are correct. We will stomp you. As to the Brothers we invite you to be a Real Soldier. Instructions were sent to Obsidian.
@Peterike:
“Just how many decades removed from any of this will we have to be before it stops being an excuse?”
O: AA has been in force per executive order by the Nixon administration is memory serves, for less than a half a century; how long has Jim Crow been in place? At least a century?
“We are well into at least the fifth decade of black folk NOT being “systematically locked out” of employment and in fact being “systematically” PREFERRED for employment.”
O: This is not entirely true. Please see the U of Chicago’s “Black/White name on Resume” study, as well as the book “Two Nations”…
“That’s basically someone’s entire working life, so in effect these long-past issues are currently affecting nobody at all. Can we drop this excuse now?”
O: Not until we meaningfully address these issues, no. No excuses.
O.
P.S.: It appears that in so many ways, the White Alt-Right are truly Men without a country, in that it is clear that the GOP is moving in the direction of pro-immigration policies, among other things. Sailer in particular, has been banging on about immigration for at least two decades, and what has it gotten him? Like the North Dakota issue – which does indeed speak directly to the White Right’s demographics and sexual politics issues, the immigration issue is yet another nail in the coffin, and to date, none of you guys on the White Alt-Right are even on the field with any viable solutions that can actually have any hope of gaining any traction. Hmm…
Obsidian did you get the message we emailed you
Citigroup and Fannie Mae among other Fortune 500 companies have had black CEOs, O’Neal and Raines.
Obsidian said: “.:It appears that in so many ways, the White Alt-Right are truly Men without a country, in that it is clear that the GOP is moving in the direction of pro-immigration policies, among other things. Sailer in particular, has been banging on about immigration for at least two decades, and what has it gotten him? Like the North Dakota issue – which does indeed speak directly to the White Right’s demographics and sexual politics issues, the immigration issue is yet another nail in the coffin, and to date, none of you guys on the White Alt-Right are even on the field with any viable solutions that can actually have any hope of gaining any traction. Hmm…”
I agree with this analysis but don’t attach any glee or schadenfreude to it; I think that, deep down, the real split in the GOP party is between the neo-cons and others that want to make the party more ‘inclusive’ and those who want to make it the white party but don’t feel comfortable or safe saying as much; race is clearly the divide in the mainstream political battles involving democrats-vs-republicans and, evne more so, between traditional and modern republicans.
And said divides are going to get worse before they get better. Me, the naive political romantic that I can be, would like to see a multi-racial GOP, with Western-Europeans role revised and re-exalted for being the Enlightenment-bringing culture that it is indisputably is historically, and various others moving along and happily incorporating those contributions to humanity and moving forward.
I deal with “Promoting Justice”-like dumb-shits every single week day from 8-to-4 p.m.; it’s just the tyhpical half of the charade America’s been culturally stuck in the last 50 years: There was a Second Reconstruction that left a lot of emotional scars: White America dealt and is dealing with racial guilt for slavery and Black America is crippled by racial shame for being conquered; this, even though no individual white is personally culpable for slavery and no sole black responsible for being conquered and put into bondage. Promoting Justice’s illiterate bluster is a neurotic-hysteria reaction to that shame, while some of the alt-right’s racial essentialism is a neurotic hysterical reaction to some of that guilt.
Boring old shite, but true, true, true.
White America dealt and is dealing with racial guilt for slavery and Black America is crippled by racial shame for being conquered
That’s a nice story, but it’s not real. People are story-tellers whe create narratives to promote reconciliation or to better handle emotionally difficult realities. We call that pretty lies.
You remember the OJ Simpson killings and trial, and how the media went full force in creating a narrative around that shocking event. Simpson was transformed into a tragic hero — he was rich, a great football player, and everybody liked him. Kato Kaelin was the comic-relief sidekick. Naturally, Mark Fuhrman had to be the impersonation of evil. However, the reality offers an exact opposite story: Simpson turned out to be a boring, venal thug, and Fuhrman emerged over time as one of the few good men of that sorry saga.
An opposite story to your own guilt/shame narratvie that reality offers is that whites don’t feel guilt over any historic event. What whited do feel is visceral pity for blacks, a pity that originates in our radically different appearance. Tis is why on extreme cases they sacrifice their daughters to black killers and then they shake hands and dine with them. I elaborated on this earlier. And blacks as far as I can tell don’t feel shame over anything either. They do, certainly, cling to the slavery-victim narrative (or to the Jim Crow narrative like Obsidian does) because it is very empowering in present political arrangements, and they hear about it from the moment they learn their first words.
Here is somethign that at least is not a pretty lie: the unhappy racial dynamic you point to is not a result of guilt or shame. It is a result of the liberation of black man’s desire to possess white man’s things.
As to Promoting Justice, thosue guys sound pretty tough; you don’t wanna mess with them.
@PA:
What in the hell are you talking about? What is, or perhaps better to say, is not happening out in North Dakota, doesn’t have a blessed thing to do with Black folks, and I remain deeply amused that none of you White Nationalist keyboard warriors seem all that enthused to jump headlong into some of the most pressing issues facing the GOP and its various iterations of the Right moving further into the 21st century – namely, its demographic problem. Simply put, your own Women aren’t buying what you’re selling – from Todd Akin to Williston, White Women are voting with their feet, marrying and having babies less, going it alone as Singles with each passing year. Trying to shift the goalposts of blame onto what Black and/or Brown folk do or don’t do, is weak in extremis. The big question is this: does being on the Right help the Average White Guy Get Laid? Does it help him in what Sailer called Affordable Family Formation? And if so, where is the hard evidence for any of this – because if anything, North Dakota points in the opposite direction. Here we have White guys coming out of the highschool, making 40 and 50K a year, as a starting salary, without going to college to get it(!) – and yet, the White Ladies of ND aren’t having it. What should be a GOP’s wet dream is turning out to be very much a nightmare, and here you and other White guys are, banging on about how dumb Black and Brown teenage girls are – again. If you were really serious about helping and saving your own, you’d be all over the Wiliston issue tying to come up with ways to make the White Women in locales say “Yes!”, but of course it’s always easier to whup up on contrived enemies. I’m telling ya, you can’t make this stuff up…
O.
“And blacks as far as I can tell don’t feel shame over anything either. They do, certainly, cling to the slavery-victim narrative (or to the Jim Crow narrative like Obsidian does) because it is very empowering in present political arrangements, and they hear about it from the moment they learn their first words. ”
It’s very profitable. Why work when you can steal?
If we all got on a plane and left tomorrow for Europe leaving all our property behind, Obsidian, PJ, Al Sharpton, and the rest of the non-working lot of them would be on the very next plane behind us. Our abandoned buildings and roads would require upkeep. Who would do it? Them? How’d that work in Detroit?
I’m reminded of a scene out of “Bonfire of the Vanities.” If they were all immediately offered jobs, 75-80% would run in the opposite direction of whatever work was offered. The other 20-25% would take the job thinking “job” means “show up to work and play on our iPhone or talk to co-ethnics.”
They can move at any time to a continent where they will never see another pale face again, but it’s more profitable to stay and steal through government re-distribution, AA, or the old-fashioned way.
Please Obsidian, spare me ginned up academic “studies” of resume names or other trivia. Here in the REAL WORLD we all know that blacks receive massive preferences in hiring, as long as they know how to behave in the corporate/academic world.
You seem reasonably intelligent, though you do have that annoying habit of always moving the argument to something else (is that the old okey-doke?). But when you say something like “how long has Jim Crow been in place? At least a century?” you can’t be taken seriously any longer.
So in your world Jim Crow is still in place? There are still LEGAL BARRIERS to blacks obtaining employment, education, housing, whatever? Because that’s what Jim Crow means. Find me one, just one, such LEGAL barrier. Meanwhile, a massive government and corporate edifice exists soley to ensure Jim Crow never rear its head, and if it does in any way it is met with extreme prejudice.
I don’t dispute everything you say, and your comments above about the GOP are spot on. But you do a lot of arguing against things nobody said.
Thanks for the Rice graph.
My impression from attending Rice U. in 1976-1980 is that it was absurdly small. At 2,500 undergrads, it had the lowest attendance of any Division I football school. It had a 70,000 seat stadium that hosted Super Bowl V and plenty of parking on campus for all fans. The campus was a sprawling 294 acres in a very nice part of booming Houston. And the endowment per student was enormous because the founder of what is now Halliburton had slipped the board of directors inside information on the vast East Texas oil strike of 1930.
My impression is that Rice has since grown from eight dormitories to eleven, about as fast as the American population. But, it certainly had every advantage, so it’s hard to explain why it should not have grown even faster.
I agree with PA, that our current racial problems have little, if anything, to do with slavery. If African Americans were able to go off and create their own successful, self sustaining communities, I don’t think we’d hear too much about slavery. Most white Americans probably aren’t even the descendants of slave owners.
@Steve – What is the design to the new dorms? Knowing the progression of dorm design, did they expand from 8 to 11, but just added dorms that were full of singles or suite set ups, which offer larger rooms or more singles with commons areas? Cornell modified their dorms to create more singles under the mask of maximizing student sleep and helping sleep pattrns for better academic performance. Middlebury College expanding their dorm footprint, yet did not increase student housing capacity much in the ’90s. Their brochures and pitch though was on new designs and not being crammed into a 10×10 with a roommate.
Obsidian, approximately 40% of black pregnancies end in an abortion. That’s a huge number of babies killed by their own mother. As we can safely surmise, the overwhelming majority of those Sistahs were knocked up by men who look more like you than like me. Seems to me there is an untold story about those ladies having second thoughts about bringing black men’s seed to term. These black women are clearly voting with their feet and saying NO to black men. Isn’t that more of a concern to you than what (or who) young white laborers may or may not be doing in North Dakota? Hmmm.
Trollsidian has it backward – white MEN are voting with their feet and not marrying/breeding. These days marriage is slavery. Having a child has become slavery – for a man.
If I was 20 again and working in the North Dakota oil fields, I wouldn’t get married either. Just make lots of money and enjoy life.
pretty good point PA.
O: You first – please name me all the many Fortune 500 companies who are just falling over themselves to hire Black Men and Women professionals with real areas of responsibility and decision making powers? I’m all ears and would love to be corrected by you on the matter.
Obsidian, you’re an idiot.
IBM, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, to name a few.
Why in the world do you think you know anything about corporate hiring when you work for a blue collar union? I’m pretty sure you’ve admitted that you don’t even have a bachelor’s degree.
When I worked in HR for IBM we were donating about $3 million to NSBE annually – the National Society of Black Engineers. IBM has dozens of fellowship programs for blacks who could pass an engineering curriculum (ANYengineering curriculum). Literally, if you were black and had a technical Bachelor’s, then IBM would give you a job if you could just show up for an interview on time.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. Every other fortune 500 company has similar programs designed to identify any black even remotely qualified, and give them a shot while all other resumes go in to a pile.
I had one black friend from undergrad who had pretty middle of the road grades and pedigree who was given a Cisco fellowship designated only for blacks, which involved Cisco paying full tuition, paid internship, work study and paying all certifications and fees (to the tune of $75,000+). He did take excellent advantage of it and earned his CCIE, which only about 12,000 engineers have nationwide. Bottom line is that yes, he could do the engineering-level work once he got thru, but Cisco rolled out the red carpet to give him a set aside not available to whites.
The white boys are stepping up with racism and Black Men aint showing up. white boy pa is doing numbers trickery white boy camlost bamboozling with fancy names white boy a persapera is disrespectful. Step the fuck up Obsidian and Nickrit. This is an order Soldiers.
I feel left out of Promoting Justice’s list of evil white boys.
Black women might find black men the most physically attractive, so black men have the sexiness part down. Black women don’t always seem to have a lot of respect for black men. That’s where the dysfunction comes in.
Game might be fun for black men, but it probably doesn’t help them nearly as much as it does white and Asian men. I think in general black men’s time would better be spent on improving in other ways. While I think all men should workout at least a little, I don’t think black men need to spend tons of time on that either.
PA says, “What whited do feel is visceral pity for blacks, a pity that originates in our radically different appearance. Tis is why on extreme cases they sacrifice their daughters to black killers and then they shake hands and dine with them
This makes absolutely no sense; it reads more like a self-serving interpretation to a disturbed conscious.
Having said that, I’d revise my guilt/shame narrative to say, yes, white’s racial attitudes have little to do with the traditional definition of ‘guilt,’ but a lot to do with it if you consider the various forms of annoyance and anger that comes with charges of guilt.
However, IMO, much contemporary black racial rhetoric and posturing has much to do with a unprocessed sense of shame and humiliation; in my mind there are constant examples of this in private life and in the national media.
“Here is somethign that at least is not a pretty lie: the unhappy racial dynamic you point to is not a result of guilt or shame. It is a result of the liberation of black man’s desire to possess white man’s things. “
Microbrews and personal dart sets hold little allure in the hood. (rimshot).
RE: “As to Promoting Justice, thosue guys sound pretty tough; you don’t wanna mess with them.
LMFAO! Guys like that are cartoons! Come ’round to my school district some day, we’ll go on the rounds.
- “This (racial pity theory) makes absolutely no sense; it reads more like a self-serving interpretation to a disturbed conscious.”
Did you read my elaboration on this several weeks ago? I presented a very cogent case for this. The first time I wrote about it was a year ago in Chuck’s post about the Onion girl getting her leg broken.
I don’t write this race stuff because I’m a dick. I write it because I’m fighting history’s greatest blood libel. For Kayla Peterson, if you will.
- “much contemporary black racial rhetoric and posturing has much to do with a unprocessed sense of shame and humiliation”
Maybe, but I really don’t see this being about slavery or any other historic event. Any humiliation there may be, I think, comes from present day’s ubiquitous examples of blacks lagging behind whites; this is fueled by many whites’ unintended patronizing or solicitous behavior.
- “Microbrews and personal dart sets hold little allure in the hood. (rimshot).”
Not microbrews and darts. Rather: communities, goods, and women.
PA: “Any humiliation there may be, I think, comes from present day’s ubiquitous examples of blacks lagging behind whites; this is fueled by many whites’ unintended patronizing or solicitous behavior.”
Yeah, I’m talking ‘slavery’ in the original sense and legacy sense—— the black ‘take-no-shite’ bluster is a mask; and that’s not an attempt to reduce its pathological and atrocity-producing element; I’m just noting a root to the psychological end of the impulse; the denouement of HBD is evident (as well as its exceptions); it’s clearly a contemporary culture case of ‘not what can be known, but what can be publicly acknowledged.”
As for the white pity rooted in the alienation of black physical looks? Today I was at one of my district’s biggest high-schools; it’s the most racially diverse demographically; of the 2000 kids, it’s roughly 30-30-30-10, in terms of Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asian-and-others, etc.
With as much detachment and objectivity as I could muster, I would sincerely wager that, if you asked the 300-or-so white boys there who’d they idolize or idealize as physical images representing themselves, and who they’d pity or at least be alienated from, I wouldn’t be surprised if two-thirds of them would pick a celebrated pop figure who was black or something other than white, yet I could easily see them picking someone white who had some of the qualities that some of the black celebrated figures possesed, etc. What I’m saying, is: I think you/our adolescent frame and take on things is dated; the adolescent pop culture and who they identify with, deeply, is much more racially open nowadays —— and that is a fact that I myself would not have presumed had I not taken on my current profession and job several years ago.
I used to argue this point all the time with OneSTDV.com, who —– somewhat like you, i must say —– seems to have a block or a constant bit of denial when it comes to today’s miscegenated pop culture.And don’t get me started in recalling the scores-upon-scores of attractive (ifotherwise jaded and fucked-up in many ways) women I knew or was familiar with throughout the 90s and early 2000s in Chicago, L.A. in and around the periphery of the mid-level music industry who absolutely fetishized sexual and romanticinterludes with black males, stereotyped-enhanced and not; it was prevalent and pronounced.
Do you recall the time OneSTDV.com actually argued that there were no black pop music figures that white females publicy screamed for and adored in concert? lol! I first thought he was joking and tried to feel him out, but he wouldn’t budge with that ludicrous claim; he then asked me to provide proof, claiming I wouldn’t be able to produce one example; in about 30 seconds I posted one of dozens of youtube links of the pop-R&B Lothario Usher going through his onstage ritual of bringing white female audience members up onstage and practically dry humping them on a oversized divan stage prop while singing his way through his hit ballads!
The point is, you guys —– or some of you guys —– are in serious denial about the physical and sexual perceptions of the ‘racial other’ nowadays, particularly among the younger set.
And those that do concede a few of my points; it ‘s about that point that the finger-pointing accusations commence about how ‘The Jews” and ‘The Media’ are in cahoots and practically force-feeding young white Americans into such unholy acts and alliances.
Your interpretation and revision of my casual ‘guilt’-vs.-shame, white-vs-black’ juxtaposition is real and cogent to you —– but it is NOT some majority default opinion!
(sometimes with your comments I do what I try not to do because I find myself annoyed when it happens to me: put on my amateur psychologist hat and wonder if you endured some personal tragedy or atrocity, visited upon you by a pathological NAMs; I only wonder that because your usual opinions and rational generosities seem to not extend themselves in certain ways, almost as if they were compulsive ammendments to your thoughts.
@Peterike:
“Please Obsidian, spare me ginned up academic “studies” of resume names or other trivia. Here in the REAL WORLD we all know that blacks receive massive preferences in hiring, as long as they know how to behave in the corporate/academic world.
You seem reasonably intelligent, though you do have that annoying habit of always moving the argument to something else (is that the old okey-doke?). But when you say something like “how long has Jim Crow been in place? At least a century?” you can’t be taken seriously any longer.
So in your world Jim Crow is still in place? There are still LEGAL BARRIERS to blacks obtaining employment, education, housing, whatever? Because that’s what Jim Crow means. Find me one, just one, such LEGAL barrier. Meanwhile, a massive government and corporate edifice exists soley to ensure Jim Crow never rear its head, and if it does in any way it is met with extreme prejudice.
I don’t dispute everything you say, and your comments above about the GOP are spot on. But you do a lot of arguing against things nobody said.
Nickrit, you should sometime get a chance to read my ‘racial pity’ thesis. It’s about a very specific thing, not some vague argument about blacks being “good looking” or “ugly.”
As to humiliation based on history, it’s really whites who feel this on some level. Slavery is more distant to blacks than Polish partitions are to me: its ancient history. Modern whites, on the other hand, are CURRENTLY living through an ongoing, epic historic calamity. I’d even guess that the nuggets of truth about white guys being beta, or nice, is a product of three generations of disposession: physical (white flight, loss of cities, immigration) and psychic (political correctness, anti-white memes, racism blood libel.)
Shoot, my bad, I cut and paste the wrong thing. Here’s my reply to Peterike:
@Peterike:
“Please Obsidian, spare me ginned up academic “studies” of resume names or other trivia. Here in the REAL WORLD we all know that blacks receive massive preferences in hiring, as long as they know how to behave in the corporate/academic world.”
O: Nyet. The Black/White Name on Resume study conducted by the U of Chicago is highly reputable. It’s available via an easy Google search if you’re so inclined. Same deal with the data featured in the book Two Nations. Again, I invite you to check it out and see for yourself.
“You seem reasonably intelligent”
O: Oh, how very White of you…
“though you do have that annoying habit of always moving the argument to something else (is that the old okey-doke?).”
O: No; it’s called looking at life and things through a door, instead of through a keyhole…
“But when you say something like “how long has Jim Crow been in place? At least a century?” you can’t be taken seriously any longer.”
O: Why not? Because what I said was demonstrably false? I’m looking at the Wikipedia entry on the topic as I type this; Jim Crow was in place from 1876 to 1965 – the better part of a century. Your argument was that, because we had a half a century of Affirmative Action, that should be enough time to remove the effects of Jim Crow. Do you still adhere to this argument? Or did I misunderstand what your argument was to begin with?
“So in your world Jim Crow is still in place?”
O: No, that is not my argument, nor have I ever made any such argument.
“There are still LEGAL BARRIERS to blacks obtaining employment, education, housing, whatever? Because that’s what Jim Crow means. Find me one, just one, such LEGAL barrier. Meanwhile, a massive government and corporate edifice exists soley to ensure Jim Crow never rear its head, and if it does in any way it is met with extreme prejudice.”
O: Again, no, I have never made any such argument – and neither does the U of Chicago’s Black name/White name on Resume study. What my argument is, that there are still long held and lingering racial attitudes on the part of some Whites, that can impede the success and advancement of Blacks in various ways.
“I don’t dispute everything you say, and your comments above about the GOP are spot on. But you do a lot of arguing against things nobody said.”
O: This is an interesting statement – you say that my observations about the GOP and those who consider themselves on the (White Alt) Right are “spot on” yet you continue to spill ink taking me to task on stuff that I never actually said(!). Fascinating!
OK then Peterike – since we both agree on what I actually did say about the GOP et al – why do YOU think these forums across the White Alt-Right hinterlands spends so much precious time and energy discussing what Black and Brown folk do or don’t do, instead of discussing ways and means by which the Right can actually find ways to reproduce itself? Why aren’t they discussing this as it relates to arguably the most economically successful Red State in the Union?
Hmm?
O.
Nikcrit,
I do believe black men are the best looking men. However, women desire more than good looks in a man. White women universally prefer white men. There are very few exceptions to this rule.
A lot of these women might be trying to make a white man jealous.
@PA:
“Obsidian, approximately 40% of black pregnancies end in an abortion.”
O: I would be very interested in knowing where you got that particular stat from? Not saying it or you are wrong, just curious.
“That’s a huge number of babies killed by their own mother.”
O: That’s certainly one way of looking at it.
“As we can safely surmise, the overwhelming majority of those Sistahs were knocked up by men who look more like you than like me.”
O: OK.
“Seems to me there is an untold story about those ladies having second thoughts about bringing black men’s seed to term. These black women are clearly voting with their feet and saying NO to black men. Isn’t that more of a concern to you than what (or who) young white laborers may or may not be doing in North Dakota?”
O: Sure, it would be – IF Black Men were seen handwringing over say, abortion in the same manner that, say, the very White Todd Akin did during last year’s election season. But, by all accounts, Black Men seem to be perfectly cool with abortion – there certainly don’t seem to be much in the way of hard evidence that suggests otherwise.
We also have to consider the fact that abortion rates in the Black community are not at all uniform; indeed, the evidence as we have it suggests that it is very much a matter of SES class. Per Ralph Richard Banks’ book Is Marriage For White People, among other works by other writers/scholars, we know that married or single middle class and above Black Women get abortions at higher rates than Black Women coming from the lower classes. In the book Promises I Can Keep, it is clear that poorer Black Women want their babies and fully intend to bring their pregnancies to term. We also know that the lower classes of Black America are doing the heavy lifting of bringing on the next generation of Black Americans – indeed, quite a few of the Black middle classes and above have a lower birthrate than their White counterparts.
And, this is indeed a an area for concern in Black America – or, it should be. Yet, I know of no Black outlet that discusses any of this. IF anything, the evidence as we have it, suggests that Black folk, particularly those who reproduce the least (if at all), are perfectly cool with things.
Not a one to one anaologue to what I am talking about here wrt the GOP and the goings on (or not) in locales like Williston, ND.
Nice try, but no cigar, I’m afraid.
But, do try again!
O.
@Camlost:
“Obsidian, you’re an idiot.”
O: And you sir, are a fool.
“IBM, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, to name a few.”
O: OK – how many Black folk do these compaines employ, Cam? Does it approach, or exceed, the percentage of the Black population of the country – and if so, at what positions? Do you know?
“Why in the world do you think you know anything about corporate hiring when you work for a blue collar union? I’m pretty sure you’ve admitted that you don’t even have a bachelor’s degree.”
O: I don’t think one would have to hold college degrees, or even has to work in the corporate field, to get some sense of how hiring and firing practices work there. As the old saying goes, Google, is your friend…
“When I worked in HR”
O: Wait, YOU worked in the wretched HR dept? Isn’t that one of the routinely skewered “make work” departments that you White Alr-Righters constantly whine and moan about? About how it’s the devil incarnate for the common White Working Man? About how it’s out to get all of you? Wait, maybe you’re given a pass, seeing as how you’re a half-breed and all…do tell? I gotta hear this…
“for IBM we were donating about $3 million to NSBE annually – the National Society of Black Engineers. IBM has dozens of fellowship programs for blacks who could pass an engineering curriculum (ANYengineering curriculum). Literally, if you were black and had a technical Bachelor’s, then IBM would give you a job if you could just show up for an interview on time.”
O: Yea, I’ve heard of the NSBE. Question, and hopefully you’ll be able to answer, since you worked at IBM – how much of a hit does IBM take to donate this princely sum to undeserving NAMs? I mean, is it something that’s breaking IBM – or – is it something that IBM wouldn’t even miss if the books weren’t kept right? Something tells me it’s a lot closer to the latter than the former. But I’m open to being educated by you on this matter. By all means, please do respond…
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. Every other fortune 500 company has similar programs designed to identify any black even remotely qualified, and give them a shot while all other resumes go in to a pile.”
O: OK. Given your work profile, I am very curious to know what your take is on the U of Chicago’s Black/White name on Resume study – first of all, have you read it? And how does that align (or not) with what you’re saying here? I can tell you how it all goes down on the Blue Collar side, but I get the impression you’re not terribly interested in all that…
“I had one black friend from undergrad who had pretty middle of the road grades and pedigree who was given a Cisco fellowship designated only for blacks, which involved Cisco paying full tuition, paid internship, work study and paying all certifications and fees (to the tune of $75,000+). He did take excellent advantage of it and earned his CCIE, which only about 12,000 engineers have nationwide. Bottom line is that yes, he could do the engineering-level work once he got thru, but Cisco rolled out the red carpet to give him a set aside not available to whites.”
O: Hmm – doesn’t sound at all unusual in the least to the many programs and apprenticeships and the like on the Blue Collar end that persists, to this day, that are extremely limited, if not outright off-limits to, Black Men. Interesting.
At any rate, as you make clear, your Black friend proved that he could cut it once he got a shot, so what’s the fuss? Has Cisco taken a loss as a result of putting your Black friend on? We should be concerned about marginal White guys who might have gotten that spot were it not for a Black guy like your friend? Are you seriously going to argue that guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin have something to fear from your Black friend?
Really?
Why are you carrying water for Marginal White Guys, Cam? Why does it matter so much to you?
O.
I do believe black men are the best looking men.
I don’t think even HBD nerds claim this, unless you mean muscle tone (of a particular kind of black guy, not Fat Albert), or you’re confusing looks with smoothness of a particular kind that some of the smarter black guys have, or a playful don’t-give-a-fuck attitude many blacks have. In pure looks for men, tall, chiseled chin, intelligent but sensuos face, athletic body but not musclehead, piercing eyes, thick hair is the male looks ideal. r go by gay male tastes.
And, this is indeed a an area for concern in Black America – or, it should be.
When Jesse Jackson was younger he was pretty outspoken about abortion being black genocide. Once he started running with the big boys in the Democratic Party in the late 80s he changed his tune and “supported a woman”s right to choose.” By the way, Al Gore stared out in politics as pro-life as well, then changed his song.
@a_peraspera:
“Trollsidian has it backward – white MEN are voting with their feet and not marrying/breeding. These days marriage is slavery. Having a child has become slavery – for a man. If I was 20 again and working in the North Dakota oil fields, I wouldn’t get married either. Just make lots of money and enjoy life.”
O: What I cited in my recent post on the matter is based on reputable researches into these matters. If you like, you can see some of these for yourself – you can start with the book, The Evolution of Desire, by David Buss. When there are notably more Men to Women in a given locale, Men are known to compete with each other along the lines Women most prefer, provisioning of resources being one of them. Men in such locales are known to be more in debt, for example, as a result of getting homes, cars and other highend purchases which act as lures and inducements to get Women to mate. In the case of Williston, right there in a very well known NYT article recently written on the matter, we have young White Men offering as much as $7K USD to a White Woman merely to strip nude while he and his buds played video games. White Men are voting, alright – with their wallets. At least in Williston.
The meme in the Manosphere about a “marriage strike” has little empirical basis to back it up, and until it does few if any are going to take it seriously (I, on the other hand, as a Black Man, can indeed back up what I say, at least anecdotally on this score).
In short, and to quote Jay-Z: I don’t believe you, you need more people…
O.
@PA:
“I don’t think even HBD nerds claim this, unless you mean muscle tone (of a particular kind of black guy, not Fat Albert), or you’re confusing looks with smoothness of a particular kind that some of the smarter black guys have, or a playful don’t-give-a-fuck attitude many blacks have. In pure looks for men, tall, chiseled chin, intelligent but sensuos face, athletic body but not musclehead, piercing eyes, thick hair is the male looks ideal. r go by gay male tastes.”
O: You may be familiar with a famous study published by the NYT a few years back; it made the rounds of the Manosphere, including Roissy’s as I recall. It clearly showed that a plurality of Women polled accross races, selected actor/director Denzel Washington as among, if not thee, most desirable male. Google “New York Times, What Do Women Want?” for more on this point…
“When Jesse Jackson was younger he was pretty outspoken about abortion being black genocide. Once he started running with the big boys in the Democratic Party in the late 80s he changed his tune and “supported a woman”s right to choose.” By the way, Al Gore stared out in politics as pro-life as well, then changed his song.”
O: OK, so you have one data point in your favor – a young Jesse Jackson. Do you have any other evidence that Black Men in the main really do the feel same way about abortion that Todd Akin does?
O.
It clearly showed that a plurality of Women polled accross races, selected actor/director Denzel Washington as among, if not thee, most desirable male
They were being nice.
@PA:
“They were being nice.”
O: They were being hooked up to probes – down there. Recorded their wetness and arousal levels.
You were saying…?
Dude, get a room.
@PA:
“Dude, get a room.”
O: Easy, PA. No need to get emotional. Have you read the NYT article I’ve mentioned?
O.
It’s an exception when a white woman prefers black men. Usually, it’s a defense mechanism, because she can’t get the white men she wants. Maybe, in the case of a profession athlete or another high status black man, it is really love, but part of the attraction is that she sees white men being deferential to him. He seems dominant to her. For the most part, though, white women like white men.
A less than desirable white woman, might think she is punishing white men, by sleeping with black men.
@Lara:
“It’s an exception when a white woman prefers black men. Usually, it’s a defense mechanism, because she can’t get the white men she wants. Maybe, in the case of a profession athlete or another high status black man, it is really love, but part of the attraction is that she sees white men being deferential to him. He seems dominant to her. For the most part, though, white women like white men.”
O: Both anecdotal and empirical evidence is quite clear on this matter – that when Women, if any color, has the choice between a handsome, socially dominant and resource-rich Man of another race to one of her own who is the 180-degree opposite of all this, she invariably chooses the former over the latter. This isn’t about color; it’s about evolved sexual psychology.
“I do believe black men are the best looking men. However, women desire more than good looks in a man. White women universally prefer white men. There are very few exceptions to this rule.”
O: While true, it still doesn’t change what I said above. In short: if given the choice, a Woman can and will choose a more desirable Man of another race than a less desirable one of her own.
“A lot of these women might be trying to make a white man jealous.”
O: OK – who was Heidi Klum trying to make jealous? Just curious.
“Black women might find black men the most physically attractive, so black men have the sexiness part down. Black women don’t always seem to have a lot of respect for black men. That’s where the dysfunction comes in.”
O: There may indeed be something to be said for this…
“Game might be fun for black men, but it probably doesn’t help them nearly as much as it does white and Asian men. I think in general black men’s time would better be spent on improving in other ways. While I think all men should workout at least a little, I don’t think black men need to spend tons of time on that either.”
O: I don’t disagree with what you’re saying here, and I’ve said as much back at my blog, as recently as about a week or two ago.
O.
Maybe, but I don’t think a white woman, with a black man, ever gets over her need for some bit of approval and validation from white men.
The Ivies didn’t just maintain their exclusivity after 1980, by not increasing their enrollment while the US population and applications for admission were booming, they hugely increased their exclusivity.
Pingback: Ivy League Exclusivity, Ctd. | Gucci Little Piggy
Obsidian,
I believe you are mixing up a study with a poll. It doesn’t surprise me, that in his prime acting years, women voted Denzel Washington the most desirable man. He was given all the best roles. In real life, he is married to a black woman.
@Lara:
LOL. I think it is you who is doing the mixing and matching. Washington, like Pitt, Cruise, et al, gets desirable acting roles. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this and you know it. Please read the NYT article for yourself, and holla back…
O.
I think it would be awesome to see someone start attending classes at one for these schools without registering or paying tuition and then claim status as an undocumented student and demand a diploma.
Liberals are the true devils in this world.
Pingback: Ivy League schools tighten their borders | Gucci Little Piggy