Affirmative action must be based on income, not race

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cepeda/1960763,CST-EDT-esther28.article Affirmative action must be based on income, not race

December 28, 2009

BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA

I've never been more sure. If we want to make a real difference in meaningfully educating our children, we must let race and ethnicity concerns go. It is high time for color-blind, income-based affirmative action.

I just had the pleasure of polishing off a big, thick novel written by my journalistic/literary hero Tom Wolfe. And my reading of his 2004 book, I Am Charlotte Simmons, coincided with a report by the policy group Public Agenda that found the main reason students drop out of college is that their academic lives are complicated -- and ultimately overburdened -- by having to work. That finding cemented in me the conviction that in today's world, problems of socioeconomic status are far more important than race and ethnicity in shaping successful lives.

I Am Charlotte Simmons

tells the story of a poor, white "mountain" girl from Sparta, N.C., who, while living in a shack with a dirt floor, is prepared for college so rigorously by a singularly attentive teacher that she knocks her SATs out of the park. She lands a full-ride scholarship to one of the most exclusive and prestigious private colleges in the United States.

The story pokes a finger in the eye of one of the most common misconceptions about college life -- if you get in and have the tuition covered, you're golden -- by detailing the travails of a poor, even if brilliant, student completely ill-equipped to thrive in the university system.

In the book, Charlotte Simmons, despite being able to read many of her course materials in their original languages, might as well be a Martian on campus -- not because of the color of her skin but because of the poverty she has known her whole life.

Ultimately, Charlotte's lifelong isolation from people of different socioeconomic classes -- and a shortage of day-to-day cash -- blunts her ability to perform well academically.

In real life, having to work to pay for tuition often is only the final straw in derailing a college career. Other major disadvantages begin and need to be addressed starting in preschool.

This country must embrace socioeconomic cultural awareness by promoting income-based affirmative action to the best public and private educational facilities. Only then can children from all points on the income spectrum "see how the other half lives."

Unfortunately, our country is so focused on civil rights era notions of ethnic and racial diversity that it fails to look beyond those terms to establish a framework for adequately educating children of all income levels.

And pity the poor sap who tries. Take Ron Huberman, the Chicago Public Schools chief, who is trying to maintain racial desegregation in selective-enrollment school classrooms by basing admissions in part on five socioeconomic measures, such as family income. The courts have ruled he no longer can use race as a factor directly.

At the same time, Huberman understands that the neediest of Chicago's needy aren't uniformly black, Hispanic, Asian or white. Children of all these groups can lack the social and financial capital necessary to succeed.

But poor Huberman never knew what hit him. He immediately was attacked, lobbied and guilted by interest groups claiming his socioeconomic parity plan would infringe on the "civil rights of black children."

The simplistic fairy tale is that racial considerations above all, rather than income and social factors, are the best way to deliver a better education for all children. The reality is so much more complicated.

But it's a tough lesson, one that Charlotte Simmons learned too late: A lack of familiarity with the basic touch points of different socioeconomic classes can be just as destructive to an academic career as not studying enough for midterms.

 

 

 

Comments

[blackmamba]

There is a lower socioeconomic class structure in America that is based upon race. Where any white person has the advantage of being white in a country with a lengthy history founded upon slavery, white surpremacy and white racism. Race is the basis for presumed merit, qualifications and ability. A presumption of white superiority and black inferiority still permeates everything in America.

Put a black face on Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, Sarah Palin,Richard Daley and Joe Biden and imagine where they would have landed in history. Put a white face on Martin King or Malcolm X or Paul Robeson or Colin Powell.

Whites with mere high school educations from poor backgrounds compare to or exceed African Americans with college educations from middle class backgrounds in nearly every socioeconomic meassure e.g., wealth, employment, health, test scores. Because there was such a dearth of African Americans before change seemms to be more significant than has really been the case.

Being a super Negro who is far better qualified than any white competitor is not equality. America has yet to reach the Promised Land in racial matters.

[laprofe63]

I wish what you suggest could be true in this country --that we could be concerned for remedying the effects upon children of poverty, first and foremost. Unfortunately, our Calvinist/capitalist system sees poverty as indicative of "worth" and so isn't anywhere near the kind of social consciousness required to go there.

We would rather give middle class children who happen to be ethnic and racial minorities a leg-up and be considered "progressive" on race, rather than give poor kids of all races a real shot at making it out of something they had the misfortune of being born into. As my (black) husband says, "that would be too much like right"!

The people who cry "civil rights" etc. just know that doing so works, to keep what little gains they think they're making via that old system, or to keep the status quo.... But that system of "distribution" is also fraught with the same corruption, cronyism and unfairness from within as any other that distributes favors or privileges. ¡A qué no!

[Reylc]

Just to clarify: if somehow all children accepted were poor and white then it wouldn't matter if no students that were poor and black or Latino were admitted?

Aren't you setting up a false dichotomy between income and racial considerations?

If you were invited to a lot of things mainly because you were a Latina writer at a major paper, would it be better to invite a blogger at a lesser known paper instead even if every writer in the room ended up being white? It would ceratinly avoid any old-school civil rights era notions that apparently you have never benefited from.