Category: Uncategorized

In early March, the Batt celebrated Texas A&M’s ranking
number 25 for the enrollment of

Hispanic women. There
were quotes about the attractiveness of the campus,
etc. But what’s to

celebrate? For Texas A&M, a
ranking of 25th demonstrates an obvious failure.
Here’s a letter

to the editor that did not get
published this week: “When considering the significance of

enrollments by
race and ethnicity, raw numbers are never enough. For example, Texas A&M ranks 25th

in total enrollment for Hispanic women (1,479). But Texas A&M is the fourth largest university in the

nation (according to the College of Science), serving a state that is 32 percent Hispanic (according to

the 2000 Census Bureau). So why does Texas A&M not rank at least among the top four universities when

it comes to total enrollment of Hispanic women?

“When Texas A&M ranks eighth in the

nation for total
women enrollment and fourth in the nation for granting degrees to women of all

races and ethnicities (Batt Mar. 3), the rank of 25th for Hispanic women
enrollment actually

demonstrates a strong continuing
tendency toward white privilege.”

So what needs to

be explained is not the success of
Texas A&M’s ranking among Hispanic women, but its
failure.

Why are more not choosing A&M. How safe do they really feel?

**********

I circulated the above note to some faculty at Texas A&M and

received one response. In reply, I wrote the following:

Thanks for the note…. It

sent me looking a
little deeper into the stats. And thanks for saying
you appreciate these

emails.

We agree that the raw number, 25th place, is not by
itself sufficient for

celebration. Your note helps to
refine the questions that need to be answered before
we start

presuming that 25th place is an obvious mark
of success.

If we take 21% as a standard

percent (actual 2000
Hispanic enrollment in public colleges statewide) then
we would be looking

for ten percent Hispanic women,
but the total for Hispanic women reported by the Batt
(1,479) is

far off that mark.

http://txsdc.tamu.edu/pubsrep/pubs/txchalcog/cogtab7-

09.txt

As for your crucial question, what can we do to ensure
success, I agree that

it is a crucial question.
Meanwhile the question of what counts for excellence
in enrollment

remains answered. 25th place is not
excellent for A&M. Half a loaf is still half a loaf,
even

if it ranks 25th in the nation.

cheers,
Greg

Moses

Restitution for Black Farmers

A New York Times Editorial
Published:

July 27, 2004

In 1999, African-American farmers won a major civil rights settlement

against the United States Department of Agriculture. They had argued that the loans and subsidies they

received were substantially lower than those for comparable white farmers. What made matters worse was

the fact that Reagan-era budget cuts closed the U.S.D.A.’s civil rights office for 13 years, so most

of the complaints filed during that time were never heard. To its credit, the department conducted an

internal investigation and discovered that racial discrimination had not only occurred but had also

been structurally and historically embedded in its operations.

What looked like a

good settlement, promising prompt payment to black farmers, now looks like a failure, according to a

new investigation by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group. Again and again, these farmers

have run up against procedural hurdles that have effectively blocked most of them from receiving

payments that were supposed to be automatic. Because of poor record-keeping, the U.S.D.A. seriously

underestimated the number of farmers who had been discriminated against. It also did a terrible job of

seeking out farmers who might qualify for payments. And it did nothing to help them get the documents

needed to demonstrate the loan and subsidy support that neighboring white farmers had

received.

This is discrimination by a different name – a continuation, in effect, of the

racism historically entrenched in the U.S.D.A. The department’s resistance and the inherent

inadequacies in the original settlement have caused a staggering rate of farm failures among small-

scale black farmers: three times the rate for white farmers. That has sped up the loss of farmland to

development. In the past few decades, the U.S.D.A. has paid only lip service to the survival of small

farms. It apparently pays only lip service to civil rights as well. The remedy for this inequity will

not be found at the department. Carrying out the settlement with fairness and accountability will

require the intervention of Congress.

See: TAEX Basics at:

http://pages.prodigy.net/gmoses/tcrr/taex.htm

To view copies of the Aug. 29 report from the 2003 Task Force on

Admissions, please go to the Open Records section via the menu at your upper

left.

The Truth you Can’t Hide From

By Greg Moses

I once asked a

student what percent of the American population did he think was Black. “At least sixty percent!” He

said eagerly.

“Are there any other guesses?” I asked the class. How was I going to

talk this young man down?

In fact, 77 percent of voters in the Bush-Kerry-Nader

election were white. It is the most obvious reason why the election turned out the way it

did.

For white voters and their pundits, however, the stupidity of the election would be

experienced as an expectation of politics as usual. “Of course, it’s a stupid election,” they would

tell you. “Aren’t all elections stupid?” OK. But every great stupidity has its personality. And

not enough folks are talking about the personality of the white vote in the wake of this most recent

election.

In fact, the stupidity of American elections to date has been heavily imprinted

with the specific personality of white America. Imagine, for instance, any other race of a candidate

acting as stupidly as George Bush, performing as poorly, and yet–among white voters–being so well

liked.

But if you live in white America, George Bush’s stupidity is the very form of

mind necessary and sufficient to constitute political power. That’s why white folks in America could

serve up a majority for Bush, unlike Black, Latino, and Asian voters–who would not have re-elected

him.

And if I’m wrong about this, why else do you think the South was considered

untouchable all year long? The solid South is not solid without a big, fat, white vote. So among

elites who claim their latitude to bypass the American South, it sounds like a far better idea to work

around this problem. Pressures are enormous to find some other thing to talk about. Take

responsibility for transforming the white vote and do it in the South, too? Do you have any idea what

you’re talking about?

Only Howard Dean was willing to talk about the Confederate Flag

waving white voters down in Dixie. Dean is occasionally discredited on that account (for example, see

Chait’s column in today’s LA Times [Nov. 26]). Now that we are four years away from the next

Presidential election (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise) it is not yet too late in the election

cycle to raise the question–what are we going to do about the white vote? No white Democrat without

an answer is smart enough to lead.

“But white voters will dominate the electoral process

for decades,” reports Aurelio Rojas in a preview of the California vote. There, Kerry wins 47 percent

of the white vote compared to Bush’s 51. In New York, Kerry gets 49 to Bush’s 50. Compare the margins

of the Kerry losses among white voters in those progressive states to Texas, where Bush got 74 percent

–of the white vote. In none of these states (nor in Illinois for that matter) do white voters favor

Kerry, but in the blue states a significant bloc of white voters present themselves to the Democratic

Party.

A Massachusetts liberal is such a dangerous spectre to raise among white voters

(who are not Massachusetts liberals) because white voters in Massachusetts behave differently. They

actually gave a majority to Kerry.

Tom Hayden in a recent essay encourages anti-war

activists to “become more grounded in the everyday political life of their districts, organizing anti-

war coalitions including clergy, labor and inner city representatives to knock loudly on congressional

doors.” But I wonder if this outreach to “inner city representatives” doesn’t hide the political

problem that anti-war activists actually have, that is, convincing white voters to favor less

belligerent politics.

Perhaps Hayden means to say that anti-war activists should get

more grounded in their existing political base. The Congressional Black Caucus, for example, does very

well on the war issue already. The CBC and the NAACP were two groups who early on expressed “strong

opposition to war” (writes the Associated Press in 2002, archived at NathanielTurner.com). So if it

were up to “inner city representatives” there would be no need for an anti-war movement in the first

place. And if it were up to black voters, Bush would never have been elected.

So, yes,

it was a stupid American election, and many of us did stupid things along the way. Let’s not be so

stupid again as to quit working on the transformation of the white vote–especially in the South–until

we’ve made Massachusetts liberals of them all.

Back to my student. Obviously, he was an

urban youth. For him, sixty percent of life was Black life. And God bless him for not imagining

things any differently. I can still recall, after hearing several guesses from the class, that I

looked back at him and gave him Perlo’s numbers on percent Black in the USA. It was a cruel moment

for the same reason that the election was cruel. And white folks who scoff at Massachusetts liberals

should think about the eagerness that falls out of a person’s eyes when he realizes there’s no getting

around white folks in the

USA.

LINKS

NathanielTurner.com

http://www.nathanielturner.com/pol

lwaragainstiraq.htm