Louisiana School Made Headlines for Sending Black Kids to Elite Colleges. Here’s the Reality.

BREAUX BRIDGE, La. — Bryson Sassau’s application would inspire any college admissions officer.

A founder of T.M. Landry College Preparatory School described him as a “bright, energetic, compassionate and genuinely well-rounded” student whose alcoholic father had beaten him and his mother and had denied them money for food and shelter. His transcript “speaks for itself,” the founder, Tracey Landry, wrote, but Mr. Sassau should also be lauded for founding a community service program, the Dry House, to help the children of abusive and alcoholic parents. He took four years of honors English, the application said, was a baseball M.V.P. and earned high honors in the “Mathematics Olympiad.”

The narrative earned Mr. Sassau acceptance to St. John’s University in New York. There was one problem: None of it was true.

“I was just a small piece in a whole fathom of lies,” Mr. Sassau said. T.M. Landry has become a viral Cinderella story, a small school run by Michael Landry, a teacher and former salesman, and his wife, Ms. Landry, a nurse, whose predominantly black, working-class students have escaped the rural South for the nation’s most elite colleges. A video of a 16-year-old student opening his Harvard acceptance letter last year has been viewed more than eight million times. Other Landry students went on to Yale, Brown, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell and Wesleyan.

In reality, the school falsified transcripts, made up student accomplishments and mined the worst stereotypes of black America to manufacture up-from-hardship tales that it sold to Ivy League schools hungry for diversity. The Landrys also fostered a culture of fear with physical and emotional abuse, students and teachers said. Students were forced to kneel on rice, rocks and hot pavement, and were choked, yelled at and berated.

The colleges “want to be able to get behind the black kids going off and succeeding, and going to all of these schools,” said Raymond Smith Jr., who graduated from T.M. Landry in 2017 and enrolled at N.Y.U. He said that Mr. Landry forced him to exaggerate his father’s absence from his life on his N.Y.U. application.

God, this is so cynical. talk about setting up young adults for failure-this is cruel. I am surprised this happened in Breaux Bridge.

I think it‘s great. Fuck the elite.

Did any of the kids actually get a degree from those fancy colleges?

Did none of those doctoring the essays, test scores, and letters of recommendation stop to think how these kids would actually fare in such elite environments? The kids are probably more scarred and messed up now than when they were in the swamp.

[QUOTE]Mr. Landry said the word “kneel” meant “I love you” in his own language, “Mike-a-nese.”

Lol. What a story.

Grifters gonna grift.

These kids have been set up for failure and their parents have fleeced. Everyone should read the last part of the article to see how bat shit crazy Landry is. This house of cards needs to get ripped down.

You have to wonder who are the "wealthy donors" mentioned in the article.

This school sounds tremendous!

But how are the kids doing now? Maybe the acceptance to the Ivy leagues was a blessing.

Read the article and you'll get the answer. In short, not well.

Landry must land in jail.

This makes me so sad for the kids.

This is basic Affirmative Affection, which liberals have been in favor of for decades.

Fuck off, r15.

It's not.

Amazing how many posters are missing the point of the article. R15 is spot on.

Legacy kids get accepted to top-tier schools all the time. If you've ever had anyone help you with homework, that's cheating too, especially if your assignment is graded alongside that of a student whose parents have never helped with homework. Fuck elite schools, charging more per year per tuition than they pay their professors.

If you are applauding this story because you think it will "bring down" affirmative action, you're part of the problem.

Bring down affirmative action? I want it to bring down elite institutions that call it AA only when it's black kids and not legacy kids. That's some affirmative action shit right there: your parents gave money to the school and you have a leg up. Your parents attended the school (or any college) and now you have an advantage. You have an in, a connection; you interned for an alum and so you secured an interview that isn't available to everyone else. You've had help practicing for standardized tests because you have money. This is the affirmative action I want to bring down.

Look at someone like Donald Trump. He went to U Penn, as he'll be the first to tell you--but he went as a transfer for fuck's sake. Given his wealth, his unearned privilege--yes, I think he or people like him are less qualified and show less promise to do well at an Ivy than a person who fucking wants the opportunity even though it'll be harder than anything the person knew in high school.

I know I'm touchy on this subject. I had no one encouraging me to go to school. Not college, just school. And despite my passion for school I don't think I had anywhere near the resources (in myself, not just money and extra help) to show up and perform next to people who got a good night's sleep after a healthy meal in a household that gave a shit if you live or die.

Legacy admissions aren't "affirmative action", they're part of what the previous generation of Ivy League students and parents worked for and paid for. Not just the hope that one kid can get into one of the best schools and be successful and well-connected ever after, but so their children and grandchildren can as well! That's why people bust their asses and game the admissions process and pay unholy fortunes in tuition - the hope of dynastic success, of getting the family into the elite for generations to come.

And I sincerely hope that some of these poor kids from Bumfucke, LA can pull off that trick, but it seems unlikely. Their "educator" didn't give a rat's ass about actually preparing them for college, he was just using their admissions to sucker more local parents into letting him bully their kids.

Wait... this school had black leadership. And it turned out they were corrupt and cheating?? That’s shocking.

Don’t cut yourself on that edge, Robespierre R4.

Oh shit. Shit. This is pure ammunition for Anti-Affirmative Action movements. The school administrators were mad to think it wouldn't come out.

A giant F&F for the racist shitstain at r22

get in by any means necessary. Good for them

This is why Trump won Flyover and the majority white vote.

No it's not, r27

Cant wait til SCOTUS ends the racist affirmative action farce.

This thread reeks of deplorables.

The kids are the ones who will suffer. Not entitled white folks who will use this article to justify their own prejudices.

Hilarious - the lengths that selective institutions try to be “diverse” is absurd. The deserve to be grifted like this. And yes, legacy admissions should end.

Diversity has become a meaningless buzzword in academia.

Of course legacy admissions are a kind of affirmative action. No one should gain admittance because of what their parents and grandparents did. That's the opposite of the kind of society America should be.

Agree, R32, but I don't think the universities were grifted. They went along with it knowingly.

Let's be honest: universities don't care if they're grifted so long as they get some reward.

Do you know what percentage of Chinese students cheat to get into US colleges? A bunch -- probably the majority. The families of these students pay several thousand dollars to assure their sons and daughters can study at good US schools. It's a booming industry in China.

American universities look the other way, because Chinese students bring major $$$$$ and (bonus!) diversity points.

The school’s founder is a total loon.

Those poor kids were abused physically and emotionally and then exploited coming and going.

What a mess

Affirmative Action is racist. Judging applicants on the color of their skin is the very definition of racism.

Affirmative action does not judge applicants by the color of their skin. That was the approach of gate keeping admissions that ruled the day unopposed for decades.

AA was designed to be the wedge to crack open the gate and allow legitimate consideration for those previously shut out by those excluding them based on skin color.

Why no Affirmative Action for poor white kids?

The only barrier for poor white kids with good grades has been paying for tuition, not being systematically denied admission.

If they judged everyone on their academic ability alone, virtually no black students would gain admission to the Ivy League. The vast majority of black students cannot compete with non-black students on a level field.

Harvard wants us to believe that the reason the pass over so many Asians in favor of Jews is that the Jews are braver people, of higher moral character.

For all these people that are defending Affirmative Action and making counter arguments about legacy and Chinese kids cheating (without any statistics) are missing one VERY important point. What is the percentage of these legacy students and proported cheating Chinese students graduation rate vs affirmative action kids graduation rate. Because getting accepted into an Ivy vs. graduating from one are two VERY different things. Based on this article, I doubt ANY of these kids have the basic fundamentals to graduate from a 4 year institution.

And to the idiot who claimed that anyone who has gotten help for homework is cheating...are you a graduate from this school?

Funny how many Ivy League types defend open borders even as they pursue lives and careers based on discrimination and exclusion.

R44: You should stop and examine why black kids getting into Ivy League schools bothers you so much. You really should....

R46, we should all be concerned with injustice. It is unfair to bypass qualified applicants for the color of their skin. It affirms the academic inferiority of black people to inflate their credentials based on their race.

Selective outrage about injustice is just another form of injustice, especially when it’s self-serving.

Imagine where we would be as a society if those enraged by affirmative action as racism held equal outrage over the deplorable conditions of public schools that serve minorities and the poor.

This story goes to show that falsifying credentials and placing unprepared students in rigorous academic settings serves no one other than those in a position to exploit good will economically.

That is not the original intent of affirmative action. Rather, it was to open doors for worthy students previously denied consideration as well as raise the standards of inner city schools.

Those are worthy goals that should not be maligned out of frustration over the perversion over time by those trying to turn a buck.

The outrage over injustice is better directed at those who exploit the good intentions for personal gain, whether they are grifters who found charter schools or grifters who turn young people into props to fill the billion dollar endowments of powerful institutions.

My city just had 2 black teens on the news who were selected for some "diversity panel" at Yale. The male was interviewed and was literally unintelligible . My first thought was how horrible it was going to be for him in such an atmosphere where he was going to be condescended to on a level he couldnt even imagine.

Oxbridge diversity sketch.

Everyone zeroes in on the false transcripts but the most shocking part of the article was the widespread abuse these kids went through.

And you are very correct r36, and everyone knows it. But money from international students is crucial so everybody looks the other way.

Conflicted about this. It feels like the subtext of some of these comments is “poor black kids from the bayou aren’t able to access an ivy education without cheating, and even then, it’s a stretch.” Is that statement true?

Mr. Landry is a crazy, abusive con-artist, but he can fuck me any time. He fine.

R46, never once mentioned blacks kids in my post. Please read again. What I'm against is having kids get into Ivies based on skin color especially if they are ill equipped to handle the rigors of the curriculum. You do NO ONE any favors by doing this.

R48 NYCs Board of Ed has an annual budget of about $25 billion & the vast majority of its students are minorities.

If the schools are in deplorable conditions, I blame the students, the admin & that corrupt idiot DeBlasio & his socialist minions.

The high school graduation rate is about 63%

$25 billion a year & nearly 4/10 dont graduate high school.

R54: "Based on this article, I doubt ANY of these kids have the basic fundamentals to graduate from a 4 year institution. "

That's why you said these kids couldn't graduate from any college. You need to learn how to phrase sentences properly so people can understand you, dear.

r44, you're either naive or obtuse. (Or both.)

R55, Blame everyone you want but where is your outrage against the parents who don't or won't work with their kids and encourage them to get an education?

R58 Isn’t at least some of that a result of systemic oppression? Schools are designed to maintain power structures.

"Blame everyone you want but where is your outrage against the parents who don't or won't work with their kids and encourage them to get an education? "

Oh, the parents in this case valued education all right! They were so desperate to get their kids into a good college that a wackdoodle con man was able to exploit their hopes for their kids, because he was able to sucker them into his abusive con game by getting some local kids into the best schools. But it was all a con, he just wanted kids to push around, there was no actual learning going on at his school.

And that's another sad, sad thing about this case. Not only were the kids abused, not only were the hopes of the kids and families crushed... but that many poor parents are going to read this and despair of ever getting a decent education for their kids. In a world with little hope for the poor, one more shred of hope is gone.

Louisiana?

[quote] And I sincerely hope that some of these poor kids from Bumfucke, LA can pull off that trick, but it seems unlikely. Their "educator" didn't give a rat's ass about actually preparing them for college, he was just using their admissions to sucker more local parents into letting him bully their kids.

I read the whole article and I believe what the Landrys are doing is outrageous and immoral. Still, now that we live in TrumpWorld, all bets are off. Morality is relative and optional. I cannot get worked up about getting these kids into elite schools by corrupt means. Even if only half are able to make it out those are still better odds than those with which they were born. If Trump and his ilk can send their retarded hellspawn to an Ivy just because they are rich why shouldn't these kids get to go because they are deprived?

This is supposed to be a new thing? I'm 27 and I have no idea how ANYONE I went to school with got in, and this was top public college.

[quote] Because getting accepted into an Ivy vs. graduating from one are two VERY different things. Based on this article, I doubt ANY of these kids have the basic fundamentals to graduate from a 4 year institution.

You cannot equate the children who were victimized by the Landrys with traditional affirmative action admits.

What r48 said.

Lots of schools do that. I had a half dozen schoolmates go on to Big Schools and there is no way my Podunk backwater school prepared them for that.

R59, R60, I was responding to R55, not commenting about the Louisiana school.

R56, did u read the article in The Times? The school is not just for blacks AND based on the article, the school was a free for all. They were not being taught anything. I seriously doubt you read the entire article and you are just having a knee jerk reaction. And please don't refer to me as "dear", it makes you come across as the worst type of gay stereotype.

R62, I'm going to assume you are black. Until you and people like who continue to advocate for lowering standards for blacks via Affirmative Action, blacks will never get respect. Every time a black person graduates from Harvard or achieves some accolade, regardless if it is legitimately achieved, people will always think less of the individual. You do black people a huge disservice. It's a never ending cycle. Lowering the bar is not the solution.

The article is about child abuse and fraud on a massive level. It has zero to do with NYC public schools.. This is about a private school in Louisiana that went completely unregulated.

The people who ran this school belong in jail. The wealthy donors should have their names revealed as well.

Cheating amongst Chinese students is so blatant. Many of them can barely speak coherent English yet their assignments/papers are all in perfect written English. It stinks to high hell. But as others have said it's all about the $$$$.

This should be made into a movie. Its the perfect example of the growing socioeconomic divide that is only going to grow wider in the US.

And higher education is a racket in the US right now, the bubble will burst eventually. This just further confirms how fickle the admissions process has become and what a huge money grab the whole college experience is in the US.

Fake it til you make it.

Jewish and Asian have done this for generations.

Is it a problem now because they’re black?

[quote] [R62], I'm going to assume you are black. Until you and people like who continue to advocate for lowering standards for blacks via Affirmative Action, blacks will never get respect. Every time a black person graduates from Harvard or achieves some accolade, regardless if it is legitimately achieved, people will always think less of the individual. You do black people a huge disservice. It's a never ending cycle. Lowering the bar is not the solution.

Assume away. Yours is a racist and retrograde -- and now ridiculous -- argument against affirmative action. There is no distinction or accomplishment earned by a black man that will not be denigrated simply because he is a black. Exhibit A = President Obama.

Meanwhile, no one assumes that all white people are dumb even though Trump went to Penn and Bush went to Yale. Why? White supremacy! Racism will be the law of the land until it is not, and none of us will live that long. Black people CANNOT afford to fret about how their academic or professional accomplishments are viewed by the majority culture. Get that soon-to-be worthless degree by any means necessary. My career has been spent navigating a vast sea of white mediocrity -- many with degrees from elite schools. There is certainly room for diversity in such an undistinguished crowd.

Law & Order did this story years ago.

Did any of them make it into medical school?

Also for r44

People like r69 honestly believe everyone is as racist as they are. It's pretty funny.

R60, a “decent education” can be had at most state schools, and many community colleges.

You don’t need a degree from Harvard to be wildly successful.

Some Asian kids got cheated out of an education because of this.

Affirmative action is racist - legacy admissions are totally unjust as well. Admissions should be based on identity-blind national exam results, same as in Europe and Asia. The US will quickly come to realize that what you study is more important than where.

Rigging the system and then demanding blind admissions moving forward is anything but just.

No they didn't, r80. And hyperbole doesn't help your cause

I bet they LOOKED great, though. It's not what you learn; it's how you look when you doing it.

The NYC DOE’s latest fuckery is actually relevant here.

Admission to the Specialized High Schools is based solely on a test score.

There is an argument that black students don’t score as highly because they don’t have access to test prep/because of income. That is FALSE.

SHSAT test prep is offered at no cost to any NYC public school student. It was offered at our zoned middle school which has affluent white kids and bused-in minorities. Not secret, not hidden. Offered to all.

I don’t know how much more leading the horse to water, here.

That might be relevant if only students from NYC middle schools applied to colleges and universities

R85 That can probably be said about every major school district in America. And they're all endless money sponges, regardless of student outcomes. Govt run hospital systems are very similar in behavior.

When has anyone ever heard a school system say " No, we're fine, we dont need a budget increase, thanks". Yeah, me neither.

[Quote]There is an argument that black students don’t score as highly because they don’t have access to test prep/because of income. That is FALSE.

Capitalizing something doesn't make it true. Anyway, of course this is true. There is no such thing as meritocracy. Test prep is a huge industry, the more resources you put into preparing a kid for an exam, the better they do.

R82 - how is the system rigged exactly? Under today’s system, middle and upper class AAs and Hispanics are given an extreme leg up relative to working class whites and Asians.

The main rigging has to do with school budgets being tied to property taxes.

That creates a hole for poor area schools that would require a dozen legs up just to see a spot of daylight.

This country started offering public education for all as a means to benefit everyone. At some point, the haves stopped realizing that properly educating everyone’s children best serves everyone in the long run.

It’s in everyone’s best interest to see that resources and competent adults are supplied to every school, regardless of zip code...

[quote]...At some point, the haves stopped realizing that properly educating everyone’s children best serves everyone...

But does it, R90? That is a noble and intelligent post, but the cynic in me says that the Haves have realized that depriving the Have Nots' children of an education is, in fact, what best serves them, as it allows the Haves to manipulate the population and amass greater power and wealth.

It does if they care about crime, substance abuse, lunatics voted into office, property damage, theft, and all the other types of blowback that comes from letting children ‘slip through the cracks’

The haves can either build more jails or properly fund schools.

They would have less reason to whine about entitlements and ‘government giveaways’ if they’ve just properly fund all the schools

How about basing affirmative action on income and socio-economic level? That would compensate for the funding problem, right? That would capture a lot of poor, rural, disadvantaged whites and asians.

[quote]Why no Affirmative Action for poor white kids?

THERE IS. College admissions consider many factors when accepting students.especially at elite colleges. Excellent (or very good) students from say, eastern Kentucky, or other poor rural areas, will definitely have their application weighted in their favor. A place like harvard will cap the number of students they accept from a private elite prep, like Thayer Academy.

Yeah white kids from disadvantaged backgrounds absolutely get a leg up r95. People are delusional.

College admissions is a very holistic process, everything is taken into account.

I disagree, R96/R97. In my experience, working-class white kids often fall through the cracks. Schools seem to use state residency as a proxy for socio-economic status (e.g., if you're from rural Idaho, you're treated differently in the admissions process), but there are plenty of talented white kids from California, etc. whose families lack money and social capital, and who are desperate for help getting to college, but are invisible in the admissions process.

While you are correct that state residency is often used as a proxy, but any student worth their salt would make their disadvantaged background an important thread in their essay.

Elite colleges are swamped with kids from well off backgrounds, admissions people do like to see those kids who didn't grow up the same way. They love to see first generation college students.

It is those generic middle class kids who are screwed.

The line about property taxes and education being linked isn't even necessarily that causative. The underlying problem is that on average, parents in impoverished neighborhoods are not going to put as much effort into their kids' education than those in wealthy neighborhoods who have the time, resources, wherewithal, and often have a more academic background themselves. That's the real causal factor. The skill gap between teachers at schools in poor areas and schools in rich areas is not making the difference.

R100 - so true. The best bet for smart kids in poor areas is to place them in selective magnets. When the UK got rid of their version (the grammar schools) in the 1970s, social mobility plummeted and private boarding schools made a huge comeback as even the rich were trying to attend the free grammars. It’s hilarious, in all the hard core socialist, communist, and social democratic countries, uni admissions are exam-based, race blind, and kids are tracked from an early age, even in poor rural areas. Even hard core Marxists, once in power, ditch diversity. The communist regime in Cuba is lily white. Same thing in Maduro’s Venezuela.

People get sucked into these stories about miracle schools and amazing students because they don't want to think about all the kids who aren't special and will never go to an elite school. It doesn't matter what color they are. These students still deserve a living wage and a better life. That's what unions used to specialize in.

Allong with trade & technical schools

You're right, R102. The uncomfortable truth is that most of us are ordinary. We still deserve dignified lives.

The belief that we are all somehow exceptional is part of what has gotten Americans into our current political mess. It prevents us from working together for the common good.

R101 thanks. The property taxes line is trendy right now, and it is part of the puzzle, but only one part. The idea that all urban schools have crumbling infrastructure and outdated textbooks is not true. The facilities, technology, and resources that the "urban" schools in my metro area have are nicer than those in my suburban district. This certainly isn't always true, but the idea that urban schools do worse compared to suburban ones because of the disparity in district budgets is not true. To your point, charter schools with extremely high academic and behavior standards can also work wonders, but the parents need to be on board.

R95, no one has to worry about low-income Asians. At least not in NYC. Those kids fucking study their asses off and work hard. That’s why I’m saying that income is not the factor. Test prep is available to all kids who want it, free of charge.

It’s a cultural problem, and it’s often down to parents. I could give you anecdotes galore about my experiences in the NYC public school system. These experiences lead me to believe it comes down to culture.

Tell us about your experiences in the NYC school system R106. (I agree with you.)

Oh well if it got the kids opportunities who cares.

Seconded, R107. I work in education, but not in NYC, and am always curious to hear from others.

Weren't a couple of the students from this school on Ellen not too long ago? I remember her saying that a very high percentage of kids from the school go on to elite schools. I'm sure that raised some people's eyebrows.

It is most definitely a cultural problem, and no amount of money thrown at it is going to fix it.

Yeah a lot of how kids do in school is a reflection of their home life. You need parents who care and are invested and supportive of their child's education.

If you don't have that base at home, the kid is probably doomed to fall off track.

^It's all that, and not a whole lot else. Throwing money at schools isn't the answer. As others have said, it's down to culture, values and parental commitment/expectations. Asians are the prime example of this. They highly value education.

R20 There is a huge difference between legacy affirmative action and affirmative action for minorities. Legacy students will not fall on their faces and be shamed and demoralized when they realize that they do not belong in the elite schools. Their parents can afford tutoring or further donations in order to help Junior succeed. I have seen what happens when the kids who have no business being in an elite school become mortified and shamed because they are nowhere near the level of the kids who were accepted on merit.

I think that failure and shame sets them up for an even worse future than they would have had without the elite admission.

AA is great if the kids are up to task. I am all for it. But if they are not, sending them to a decent state school is a much more realistic option for their future.

[quote]Oh well if it got the kids opportunities who cares.

You should. If the only opportunity it gives them, is the opportunity to fail. A foot in the door doesn't help if you don't have what it takes stay.

Making sure every school gets a fair share of the larger budget is something far different than ‘throwing money at the problem’

Anyone who had worked at districts large enough to encompass diverse neighborhoods can confirm disparities in facilities and faculties.

Students are undermined by something as simple as lack of heat or air conditioning during more extreme weather patterns. All the parental support in the world won’t chamge the fact that it’s hard to focus when your teeth are chattering from cold in your own classroom or sweat is dripping into your textbook because the A/C from the 80s is only serviced once a year if you are lucky.

[quote]communist regime in Cuba is lily white. Same thing in Maduro’s Venezuela.

Yes, the well known blonde beauty Nicolas Maduro.

This is such a fascinating story, and people here are not discussing even 1/10 of the weirdity unveiled in the article. Only one person here drew attention to Landry's laughable speech in the last part of the article. The story has been lost because some rightwing moron's obsession with race and AA has taken over the thread, and now the only discussion taking place here is some unoriginal back and forth which looks like copy and paste from 100 threads on AA that I've seen before.

Can we discuss the fact that Landry managed to con so many despite sounding like such an uneducated buffoon? Or his campy attempts at LOOKING nerdy?

White doesn't mean just blondes, Nazi at R117.

That Maduro dude ain't white.

r119 Nicolás isn't some dark haired white man either, you moron. He's clearly mixed, as was Chávez, pictured below with his dad.

Yep r118. There is so much to this story but of course the conversation zooms in to favorite right wing talking points about race and affirmative action.

One look at that outfit and one sentence out of that mouth and any thinking person should have clocked this bitch for a con artist immediately. I mean come on,he sounds uneducated !

r123 you hit the nail on the head. Those kids all look and sound ghetto AF yet we're supposed to believe they're Ivy League material. Whatever.

This would make a great comedic reboot of THE PAPER CHASE!

Affirmative action is about redressing past wrongs that have resulted in present day disadvantage and disparity. There has been intergenerational injustice done to African-americans based on institutionalized discrimination, purposeful exclusion and deprivation of opportunities for professional and economic advancement.

What is the argument for extending extraordinary benefits to 'poor' white people? American history is littered with the "rags-to-riches" stories of poor white people who have enjoyed America's promise. That is the American Dream. Historically, economic class has never been a legal barrier to advancement in America. Poor white people remain poor for reasons other than why non-white people are unable to advance.

So all white people have the chance to advance and become wealthy R126 ? Theres so very much wrong with your statement I cant even begin to address it all. I have a feeling though that no matter what is said,you're going to keep right on banging that "we be oppressed" drum until they plant your ass.

[quote] I have a feeling though that no matter what is said,you're going to keep right on banging that "we be oppressed" drum until they plant your ass.

"We be oppressed"? AND I'm banging a drum? Not enough action at Stormfront tonight?

You don't know or care, this is just an opportunity to denigrate someone you presume is black. You'll have the same tiny brain whether or not blacks benefit from affirmative action, so why should we care what you think?

R127 actually makes a good point

I really hope R126 is the same as R108. I wouldn't like to believe we have TWO people this blatantly ignorant on DL.

Blocked r126

Too much stupid for one post.

Blocked the racist at R129-131

R132 Blocking people instead of arguing effectively is cowardice, laziness, and the product of a bad K-12 education. Affirmative action certainly won’t fix that.

Anyone who's only comment on my post is to label it "stupid" deserves to be blocked.

[quote] [R127] actually makes a good point

S/he does not. Historically and today, there has NEVER been a LEGAL barrier to the advancement of poor white people. That is a simple, irrefutable fact. Black people were discriminated against and excluded by LAW, they could not participate in academic or professional opportunities even if they had the resources. That is just a fact. There were no LAWS preventing poor white people from voting, owning property, joining labor unions or attending certain schools. Affirmative action is intended to redress racial and gender discrimination that was enabled by LAW, or a failure to treat everyone equally under the law.

Poor white people are not the intended, or appropriate, beneficiaries of affirmative action. White people do and have occupied and enjoyed every advantage in American society conferred by law. I have no explanation for why some white people are poor and have remained poor but it isn't because someone excluded them from something because they were white. This is America.

"Blocking people instead of arguing effectively is cowardice, laziness, and the product of a bad K-12 education. "

To argue with someone is to take them seriously.

I save blocking for the worthless trolls who don't deserve a response, not the slightest moiety of my time or attention.

R134 its been 60 years since those laws you reference were in place,longer on the more onerous ones like owning property,etc. Im curious as to what you think is an appropriate amount of time before past deeds of people LONG dead are no longer a reason for blaming the myriad problems of the black community on ? The Irish were treated like shit,the Chinese were treated like shit,the Jews were treated like shit,the Mexicans were treated like shit,yet all of those communities seem to have moved on. Not to mention Native Americans who were REALLY treated like shit.

R136 you're coming from the wrong place. I've identified the justification for affirmative action -- and why there is no justification to extend it to poor white people. Just the facts. I have not blamed anyone for anything.

For the record, affirmative action will be necessary as long as there is a "black community." There should be no black community, we are all Americans but we are not treated equally. So how about when black people are no longer viewed as the "other" by the majority culture. Or when it is acknowledged that the problems of the "black community" are the intended result of systemic, calculated and legalized oppression and discrimination lasting for three centuries. Or when any moral, decent person would be too enlightened to suggest -- even in an anonymous forum -- that black people are solely responsible for the "myriad problems" of whatever it is you're referring to as the "black community."

Like the above poster said, other groups were oppressed in American history but they fucking got over it and moved on.

You know who has no sympathy at all? Asians. Don't even get them started.