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Let's talk briefly about that pervasive discrimination that enshrines unfairness in the United States and that the 'Mainstream Media' does often fail to discuss: Affirmative Action ... for White people. #WhiteAffirmativeAction 1/
Trump's DOJ alleges that @Yale "discriminates" against Asian American and White applicants in favor of Black applicants, and wants Yale not to use "race"or "national origins" in its upcoming admissions cycle. 2/ https://www.npr.org/2020/08/13/902335422/doj-yale-discriminates-against-asian-american-and-white-applicants-in-admissions
Let's be clear: The DOJ is transforming conservative hysteria of "Affirmative Action is reverse-discrimination" into policy, exploiting the image of successful Asian Americans as a "model minority" to make it appear that the DOJ just wants a fair colorblind meritocracy. 3/
As @prof_erikalee explains in her brilliant new book, this is a long running conservative strategy to prop up the myth of the US as a colorblind meritocracy by masking how systemic racial inequalities and White Privilege are an American Tradition. 4/ https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/erika-lee/america-for-americans/9781541672598/
Try a different angle about the story: a massive proportion of the white (esp.male) students at elite schools like Yale are legacy and donor children. This accounts for far more admissions than Affirmative Action considerations for Black applicants! 5/ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-schools-ivy-league-legacy-admissions-harvard-wealthier-whiter
Such is not an aberration, but standard US operating procedure. #WhiteAffirmativeAction (esp for men!) was literally built into the Constitution and our laws for most of US history. Who got to vote, hold office, and (well) own other people vs. who counted as 3/5 of a person? 6/
But let's zoom ahead to the period of concern in most conservative anti-Affirmative Action narratives: the 20th century. Hate to break this to you (b/c our basic public school curricula should have done that long ago!), but this was a century of #WhiteAffirmativeAction. 7/
Think of the government programs (gasp!) that facilitated the "middle class" and their wealth/opportunities for their children. You know, the things that our schools taught us were basis of America's exceptional "Land of Opportunity" greatness: FDR's New Deal and the GI Bill. 8/
As Ira Katznelson explains in his classic book (read!): Do you know who didn't get access to GI Bill? Black soldiers of WW2. (Conservative politicians only let the bill pass after structuring it to allow exclusions of black veterans) Same with New Deal. 9/ https://www.amazon.com/When-Affirmative-Action-White-Twentieth-Century/dp/0393328511
In more detail, @MehrsaBaradaran explicates the mechanics of such #WhiteAffirmativeAction (and NOT BLACK!) through banking laws, redlining, and racist exclusions built into policies, incentives, laws, and bureaucratic practices. 10/ https://bookshop.org/books/the-color-of-money-black-banks-and-the-racial-wealth-gap/9780674237476
What to do when you see white people vigorously promoting "fairness," holding up college admissions as unfair Affirmative Action, pointing to "Asians" as examples of a successful minority, and advocating colorblindness by saying that even considering "race" is discrimination? 11/
We can start by asking what is missing from the discussion ->the LONG and enduring history of #WhiteAffirmativeAction and systemic inequalities. This is precisely the point of conservative anti-Affirmative Action narratives: rewriting history to make such things invisible. 12/
But we can make the long history of #WhiteAffirmativeAction visible, often to the genuine surprise and horror of White conservatives (I've often heard: 'How dare they mistreat the troops of WW2!'). Truth is awesome and a relentless tool for dismantling injustice! /Thread
