First of all, there is a good reason why Elon referred to Duke. It's part of a discussion began by Ben Shapiro and some other white people after a white girl said some things about Duke Medical School's DEI program
By its own admission, the school has a DEI program.
Duke Medical School is 12.5% Black and US News ranks it as the 5th best medical school in America. Nationwide, Black students make up 10% of medical students.
25 years ago, Duke was ranked 6th and was 9% Black. In 2005, the medical school was 15% Black.
So what did DEI change?
Well, here's the thing: While most people think DEI policies have something to do with increasing minorities, most DEI policies focus on recruiting and retention.
Instead of lowering your standards, you can increase diversity by inviting more diverse students to apply.
Cost is the #1 reason why non-white students go to grad school, so offering scholarships & fellowships and recruiting at HBCUs INCREASES the number of diverse applicants. We rarely think about the advantage white kids have by interviewing with someone who looks like them
When you focus on diversifying the applicant pool, you don't have to lower the standards. In fact, Duke Medical School's applicants' GPAs INCREASED as the school became more diverse.
And here's the thing: Even though the % of nonwhite students increased...
The TOTAL NUMBER OF WHITE STUDENTS increased. Somehow they found a way to STILL GET white kids in.
So, exactly who are these so-called "DEI admits" taking spots from?
Is it possible that expanding the competition resulted in white kids losing out to MORE QUALIFIED applicants?
Here's a more interesting question:
What exactly does "qualified" mean?
Duke requires a minimum 500 MCAT. Just as the SAT predicts how well students perform on the SAT, the MCAT just predicts how well someone performs on the STEP 1 (a multiple-choice test for med students)
Does "qualified" mean "richer?" Because people with more money can afford expensive test-prep services, they tend to perform better on standardized tests. To be fair, there's one factor that better MCAT scores and medical school admission than wealth.
Children of doctors.
Which makes sense. Having someone who navigated the process gives you a leg up.
But ONLY FOR THE 1st YEAR.
Forget whether the tests are biased. Ignore legacy admissions. Let's look at the facts.
Look what happens to the "underprivileged" students who make it past the 1st year
Basically, once they make it past the 1st-year exam, the poor students shot past children of privilege and wealth.
This is not something "I believe." I don't know shit about medical school. I just read what the National Library of Medicine said:
Well, even though WE KNOW systems that rely on standardized tests are biased towards the rich & privileged, no one cares about that.
They don't care that the POOREST white students attend better K-12 schools than middle-class Black kids
They're not upset that MOST nonwhite kids attend underfunded schools
They don't care that white kids NEVER EVER have to attend underfunded, majority non-white schools.
Yet, they believe someone who manages to navigate a biased system that advantages whiteness is "unqualified"
They believe doing well on a flawed multiple-choice test because their daddy did well on a multiple-choice test in a system DESIGNED FOR THEM TO DO WELL is an indicator of "merit."
Because Elon & his mouthbreathing acolytes don't actually give a fuck about fairness or equality
In the history of America, there has never been an issue as big as the American education system that white people wanted to fix but somehow couldn't.
Not one.
ZERO.
And this motherfucker has a billion dollars and goddamned spaceship.
This is not a thing I "believe."
This is something I know:
The law doesn't allow schools to give Black students preferential treatment.
Instead, MOST DEI admission policies INCLUDE factors like interviews, GPAs & financial status, that BETTER predict success. They provide resources for underserved students...
WHO ACTUALLY PERFORM BETTER than the Elons of the world, once they make it past the unimportant obstacles that literally increase bias.
If Duke was lowering standards, Hospitals wouldn't hire Duke grads. The rating would drop. And guess what would happen?
All those wealthy, white free-market capitalists would immediately stop sending their kids to an inferior, low-quality school.
But instead of using logic, facts & the same economic principles that made them rich, they'd rather "believe" unqualified Black kids are the problem
I believe that's called racism.
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First of all, let’s get this out of the way, NO ONE deserves hate. It is wrong
Yet, year in and year out, there are more anti-Black hate crimes than any other category.
And according to the latest FBI data there, are nearly 3 times more anti-black crimes than anti-Jewish crimes.
But of course, there are SIX TIMES more Black American than Jewish Americans, so people just divide the number of hate crimes by the percentage of the population and Jewish Americans are more likely to experience hate crimes…
A few years ago, while working for one of the greatest sports franchises of all time, I learned a very important life lesson.
A thread
Every summer, my hometown's recreation department hosted a "stop the violence" summer league to keep kids "off the street."
It eventually became so competitive that teams would recruit out-of-town ringers, leaving local basketball players shut out of their hometown's tournament
My homeboys asked me to sponsor a team and I agreed. Unlike the other teams, no one on my team played college ball. They were essentially regular dudes from the hood who just loved basketball.
Many people don’t know that the phrase “crabs in a barrel” comes from an old Geechie Gullah tale.
A thread:
A long time ago, it was impossible to catch crabs. They were too crafty. Even when they got caught in a net, other crabs would come and free them. Then, one day, a fisherman found a crafty old crab in his net one morning. He was just about to eat it when the the crafty old crab said:
“Please Mr. Fisherman, don’t eat me. Please don’t eat me!”
“Why wouldn’t I eat you?” said the fisherman
“Because I’m crafty, old, & other crabs respect me,” the crab replied.
Fisherman: What good does respect do me? You ain’t nothing but a crab”
Crafty Crab: Well crabs are very stupid, and I’m smart. They’ll believe anything I tell them
7 years ago, I wrote a small piece about a man who was falsely accused of a crime.
A few days later, I got an anonymous telling me to look up the woman they called “the evilest white woman on earth.”
What happened next is the absolute wildest story you’ll ever hear
A thread
The story begins in 2017, when an editor asked me to fill in for a coworker and do a quick write-up about Lamonte McIntyre, who spent 23 yrs in prison for a double murder he didn’t commit.
I thought it was weird his conviction wasn’t actually overturned
Contrary what people who don't read things say, the Virginia legislature is not "targeting" the Klan-affiliated, pro-Confederate hate group that is responsible for the "lost cause" by taking the tax-exempt status from the KKK's little sister.
See, in 1950, Virginia GAVE the UDOC a plot of land to build their HQ in Robert E Lee Park with 3 stipulations
1. They had to finish building in 5 years 2. If they didn't, the land reverted back to the state 3. If they finished, the state would GIVE them an additional $10K
In 1924, lawmakers tasked the census bureau was tasked with figuring out the “national origins of the white population of the US.”
If white people were from a certain country, that country was considered “Good.” Nonwhite people were from “bad countries.”
To preserve the country’s racial composition, they created a formula. Ppl from good countries could immigrate based on the % of pop. in the formula. Immigration from bad countries was limited.
And no Asians
This was why we call it the Asian Exclusion & National Origins Act
In 1952, they changed the formula to allow people from “bad countries” to immigrate at a minimum # 100
Except for Africans. Under the formula, ALL of Africa was considered 1 country
In 1965, civil rights activist convinced LBJ to sign the Immigration & Nationality Act