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... get an admissions boost without having faced the historical suffering of U. S. blacks. Jason Lee, the Harvard group's president, pointed the fact that there has always been a tension between the representation of the both black Americans and immigrants. He said that immigrants disrespect black Americans; parents don't allow their kids to play with them warring that bad habits rubbing off on them.
He emphasized that a lot of immigrants think though they share the same skin color with African Americans they come from different backgrounds with different cultures. From the historic point of view discriminations based on race and on gender are the same. They were the result of slavery (in direct and indirect meaning). From the other hand Added-Brenyah, the president of the African Students Association at Columbia, proves that drawing an admissions distinction based on suffering under slavery is false; because there are a lot of immigrants who suffer under slavery. He argued that "If you " re going to make a slavery case, people from the Caribbean were also displaced and enslaved. How do you begin to differentiate?" Most of all, living in Africa is 100 times worse than America ever was.
Is it right if people shouldnt be admitted because they havent gone through suffering? 3. Nowadays, the affirmative action is being debating as a part of the process of democracy. Opponents said that nowadays African Americans are in an unfavorable situation. Why they should immigrant receive racial privileges as soon as they get off the plane? They say that immigrant minority has more advantages today than African Americans.
Others argue diversity is its own reward and as long as the opportunities of access to quality higher education are available to all, it should not matter that they are recent immigrants or descendants of slaves. Yet opponents typically attack at quotas strongest emotional point that they are somehow compensation for the lingering effects of slavery and Jim Crow rather than their weakest point the Bizarro World aspect of giving privileges to newcomers. Proponents of affirmative action argue that because of prior discrimination in education immigrants will be in worse situation than Native blacks when they seek decent jobs, look for promotions or apply to good schools. They believe that colleges and employees ought to give some sort of preferred treatment to immigrant minorities, either by seeking minority applicants or by setting up a quarter of jobs or school spaces reserved for them. In this aspect all the forms of discrimination are the same. But, frankly speaking, there are another side of the medal.
Some people and students point the fact that affirmative action at Harvard doesnt do anything significant for poor blacks, from here or abroad. Even Harvard's American black students tend to come from well-to-do families. Other studies also demonstrate similar findings. In a study regarding divisions between African immigrants and black Americans, Howard Ph. D.
candidate Music Kibona Clark, conducted several interviews among black (native-born and immigrant) college students and residents of the Washington, D. C. area. One interviewee, who was originally from Washington D. C. but attended Princeton, remarked that most of the black students at Princeton were upper middle class African and Caribbean immigrants whose parents could offset the cost of their educational expenses, and says, in conclusion, that theres a deep class divide amongst African and African American students at predominately white universities" (Pailey, "Students Study").
The author, Suzanne Wu, noted that in comparison to their American-born black counterparts, black immigrant students were more likely to have attended private school. The authors also found that "Black immigrant fathers were far more likely to have graduated from college" than the fathers of American blacks. Indeed, many had received their college degree in the United States (Wu, "Immigrants Comprise"). Another difference that commentators writing on the study noted, though that was not explicitly stated in the study, involves work ethic.
As a direct result of pressure to succeed, many black immigrants, much like immigrants from other nations, outperform their American peers. According to U. S. census data from 2000, black immigrants from Africa averaged the highest educational attainment of any population group in the country, with 43. 8 % of African immigrants having attained a degree at an institution of higher learning in comparison to 42. 5 % of Asian-Americans, 28. 9 % of immigrants from Europe and Canada, and 23. 1 of the entire U. S. population (Page, "Black Immigrants Collect").
In addition, black immigrants make up 40 % of the black student population enrolled in Ivy League education institutions, while they only comprise 13 percent of the black population in the United States as a whole (Wu, "Immigrants Comprise"). The biggest problem in analyzing studies like the one presently at hand is attempting to do so through the lens of commentators, many of whom have an agenda of their own. With each additional piece of information regarding the study, the previous claims of the vast differences between black American and black immigrant college students became less and less credible. For example, the researchers in the achievement study found that black immigrant and black American student groups had similar social and economic backgrounds, and that "once enrolled at the college or university, Black immigrants perform no better than their native counterparts. " Somehow, once in the same environment, the students' performance seems to plateau, "implying that the factors influencing the performance of black students in higher education affect immigrants and natives alike" (Wu, "Immigrants Compromise"). The representation of black Americans vs. black immigrants at public universities as opposed to private, Ivy League institutions.
Immigration is, without a doubt, a voluntary act. No matter how dire the situation may be in ones homeland, the act of leaving ones own country to have a better life is not an easy step to do. Enslavement, on the other hand, is not viewed in such a positive light. The very word turns those who are slaves into victims objects receiving action, as opposed to those committing an act.
So despite similarities in physical characteristics, black Americans and black immigrants have less in common with regard to their migration stories. It should be pointed the fact that each state must take care of its own citizens first of all. And, for some degree, it must guarantee the right to education for its people. May be trying to be a democratic state, the government of America pays more attention to immigrant students than to its own ones? There's something basically unfair when black students in this country can't hope for the fair shake that some foreign students come by more easily. 'Charity begins at home, ' the saying goes. So does achievement.
But, frankly speaking, the average African seems to understand that America is a land of opportunity and they wont let any residual racism stop them from taking advantage of it and they are so grateful to be here that they study like hell and dont have time to worry about perceived wrongs 150 years ago. Academic diversity needs to be less about correcting racial injustices and more about creating a variety of perspectives on campus. That serves education and diversity best, regardless where a student is from So, the question of whether or not the new research will contribute to the pre-existing strain between black Americans and black immigrants remains. Despite any evidence that challenges the assumptions of the authors who addressed the research study regarding academic achievement, these assumptions are most likely exactly what will remain as truth. Now is the time for native-born blacks and black immigrants to work together in their efforts to confront the obstacles that limit their rights on a daily basis.
Though black Americans and black immigrants cultural, socio-economic, and academic backgrounds may differ on some levels, there is no mark especially assigned to black immigrants or black Americans that would allow either group to benefit over the other, and the society worries that the manipulation of statistics regarding academic achievement may allow for the tokenism and essentialism that has torn the black community apart for centuries, and, in turn, silence people for good against the very powers that keep them divided. Bibliography: Anna, Cara. Among black students, many immigrants. Associated Press, Apr 30, 2006. web Charles, Mail. Affirmative action requirements.
Monthly Labor Review. Washington, Vol. 122, Iss. 1, Jan 1999. Clarence, Page. Black Immigrants Collect Most Degrees, but Affirmative Action Is Losing Direction.
Chicago Tribune March 18, 2007. Clarence, Page. Black Immigrants Collect Most Degrees, but Affirmative Action Is Losing Direction. Chicago Tribune March 18, 2007. Darryl, Fears. "In Diversity Push, Top Universities Enrolling More Black Immigrants" The Washington Post. March 6, 2007.
Elaine R. Jones. Higher learning - eroding of affirmative action programs for Black College Students. Essence, April, 1995. web John, Brimelow.
African Immigrants vs. African-Americans - who is right? VDARE, 6 November, 2005. web Karamagi, Rujumba. Affirmative action: Which blacks benefit most? BLADE, September 12, 2004.
web Marshall, Thurgood. The Constitution: A Living Document. Howard Law Journal, 1987 Nancy, For and George M. , Fredrickson. " Introduction " Not Just Black and White: Contemporary Perspective on Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States. Russell Sage Foundation Publications: New York, NY, 2005. Pailey, Route Neajai. Students Study African American-African Immigrant Connections.
The Washington Informer, December 15, 2005. Race-based affirmative action vs racial nondiscrimination: the moral dilemma. Curtis Crawford, Mar. 2004. web Suzanne, Wu. "Immigrants Comprise a Disproportionate Number of Black Students at the Most Selective Universities" Press Release Archive. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 2007. The African-American Migration Experience, the New York Public Library, 2007.
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Research essay sample on Washington D C Affirmative Action
