This headline (along with the accompanying article which supports it), so help me, is being used for Alex Ura and Kate McGee’s article in today’s edition of the Texas Tribune:
As race-neutral college admissions begin, Texas counselors work to convince students of color they still belong
Let’s think about that.
The headline says that college admissions in the state of Texas will not take skin color into account. White, Black, Asian, etc., regardless of color you will be treated exactly the same.
And this is supposed to make “students of color” (does that include Asians? Just asking…) wonder if they still belong?
Maybe I’m just hopelessly unwoke, but it seems to me the only policy that would make a group of students feel as though they don’t belong would be to treat them differently based on their skin color. Like, for example, requiring them to get higher grade point averages (GPA’s) and/or higher SAT scores for admission to colleges.
Are the authors of this article – and the editors who approved it for publication – telling us that students of color will not feel that they belong unless the standards are lowered for them?
Are they telling us that Asian and White students with higher GPA and SAT scores have no reason to feel that they are being pushed aside for lesser-qualified students of color? That they don’t belong?
Do Ura, McGee and their editors think different admission standards based on skin color improves race relations, or exacerbates tensions between races?
This, sad to say, is where a lot of people are these days. This is what it has come to.
And when those racial tensions get worse, what will the Texas Tribune and its Uras and McGees say about it? Who will they blame it on? The Supreme Court (which, by the way, did NOT completely eliminate race as a factor in admissions; if you doubt me, just read the decision).
Let me end by apologizing to whomever is offended by what I have written for not being sufficiently unwoke to understand the logic of that headline (and the article which attempts to support it). I’ll try to do better in the future…
…or, alternatively, maybe it is you who should try to use some elementary common sense.
