The NY Times Analyzes Racial Data

One of the key skills in being an accomplished social scientist is the ability to summarize complex data into their essential message.

For example, what message do you think is being conveyed by this graph? How would you summarize it?

If your answer was “Minority Students Decline in Top New York Schools,” you would not only receive a high grade from me (if I believed in grades to begin with), but you would qualify to be a New York Times headline writer, and you would support that conclusion with statements like this:

“Asian enrollment…has soared over the decade, while white enrollment has declined.”

And you would seek interpretations of that statement like this:

“Robert Jackson, the chairman of the City Council education committee, who is from Washington Heights, was more pointed in his criticism. ‘The statistics clearly show that black New Yorkers are being shut out,’ he said.”

How are black New Yorkers being shut out? By the blatantly racist policy of making them take a competitive exam – a clear violation of their civil rights. Or, as explained by a colleague at one of my alma maters:

“Gary Orfield, director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, called the schools’ racial compositions ‘absurd,’ saying, ‘I don’t think someone would want to hire somebody just on the basis of a test score, and we don’t admit them to a great college on the basis of a test score, and we shouldn’t admit them to a great high school on that basis.”

Clearly, we are dealing with the irreparable effects of slavery that have permanently sentenced People of Color to a status where they will never be able to compete against the Asian slave owners. And that is why all standard measurements are inherently racist. Or, as explained in the NY Times article:

“For years, exclusive public schools throughout the country have been places where advocates of strict, color-blind standards have clashed with proponents of racial diversity.”

Indeed, this entire issue only reinforces my rage at being born white. But I have accepted it, and will confess my guilt. And I confess your guilt, too, my dear reader – as you too are guilty of genocidal racism.

I ought to prepare a simpler sister blog that could be understood by the Community of Color.