One of the reasons the EA Comment of the Day feature is important is that a lot of readers skip comments, especially since on most blogs they aren’t worth reading and are carelessly moderated. On sites like the New York Times, there can be hundreds of replies, with the percentage of perceptive and substantive ones too small to justify wading through the rest.

I have been uncharacteristically swamped with work and personal matters for over a month now, and have not been sufficiently diligent in posting worthy COTDs. I’m going to start a catch-up effort by combining several comments by Chris Marschner on the post about the college debate competition that excluded white students. The collective Comment of the Day is thought-provoking and useful. I also include a response to Chris by Michael R that is helpful.

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I really don’t know why a psychological approach toward combating the progressive agenda is not taken. Campus Reform should merely report the activity and then editorialize why it believes such events occur.

I would expect significant outrage from participants if the editorial content suggested the reason for the BIPOC event was that too often that demographic has been marginalized given their poor performances against white debaters and why it us important for less capable debaters to win occasionally to gain confidence.

That would end that crap toot sweet.

Want to reduce the number of abortions? Stop trying to prevent abortions and start promoting it in black and poor communities using the very rational progressive views about being born into poverty and agree that these women simply would be poor mothers.

If the goal is to stop or limit a behavior do that which is the opposite of the goal but attach a stigma to it. When they gripe, say “Prove me wrong and I will retract my statements.”…

…The entire implied message [of the discriminatory debate competition] is that BIPOC debaters are less talented….you would have to have a way to show after the fact that your intention [in accepting that premise] was to prove the point that BIPOC populations are not well-served by isolating them to themselves….the colleges are evil and manipulative. I am simply suggesting that evil be confronted and not masked as being helpful…

…I am trying to point out the dishonesty and condescending attitudes of these programs. Cloaking the condescension in positive terms by promoting affinity among like groups is damaging to all. Blacks are not stupid. They see through the smoke and mirrors of preferential treatment for what it is but they use it to their advantage. The faster we find a way to eliminate preferential programs the faster claims of systemic racism will fade away.

I will admit there should be better language [to] get the [intended] message across without reinforcing the message of whites being racially superior. But simply claiming reverse racism is not the answer.

Having worked as a teacher/counselor in a correctional setting I have first hand experience getting people with anti-social and racially focused perspectives to adopt a more positive image of themselves not by reinforcing the idea they need protection but to letting them succeed by tackling the challenges from which they sought to be protected.

….

[Michael R replied,

What I am trying to say is that the people behind these programs believe firmly in white supremacy as an unchangeable fact and these programs are there to reinforce that ideology. From the studies I have seen, less than 10% of people can think independently, the rest do as they are told by anyone they view as authority. The only way to fix this is to get all of the people promoting this stuff out of positions of power and authority. So, what would that require?

That will require:

• Firing ALL current public schoolteachers
• Firing almost all the professor in the humanities and the “<insert aggrieved group here> studies
• Getting rid of almost all Democratic politicians
• Removing almost all of the federal and state employees in the ‘Civil Rights’ sphere
• Getting rid of most of the judges 
• Making the mainstream media obsolete

Michael, I agree with the concept of getting rid of the “virus vectors” for lack of a better term.

One of the things that crossed my mind after reading both rebuttals to my initial comment – which was intended to create some push back – is that we continually point out this ” good discrimination” but offer few if any ways to combat it. Simply claiming it is reverse racism is ineffective.

In some ways it is as impossible to change the belief that discrimination in favor of those who were once discriminated against is a good thing as it is for diplomacy to create a two-state solution in the Middle East. In both cases one side benefits from playing the victim. Thus, if our current practice of simply calling it out will not effectuate a change, then the effort is as unethical as trying to get the Palestinians to accept Israel through mere words.

Right now the only answer I have is to make the supposed victim acknowledge they do not need special treatment by giving them a choice. They can claim they are equal both physically and intellectually in every way or they simply can say they are not. My bet is that they would choose the former.

Everything is a choice. The solution will lie with a method that helps those needing a boost to face reality by holding them to as high a standard as anyone else while simultaneously reinforcing in their minds that they do not need special favors because no one can hold them back unless they allow themselves to be held back.