张昭富访谈(3)
anonymous-114 05/01 5033
4.5/43
[donate]http://www.barry4ca.com/donate[/donate]
3. Affirmative Action and SCA5
LY: How do you view about Affirmative Action and SCA5?
Barry: From my experience in real estate and equal housing (where one has to be “racial-blind” to be really non-discriminating), the practice of AA in education is questionable and wrong. It has been a legal ambiguous area as the Supreme Court has been ruling differently in the past depending on the situation. After Proposition 209, the graduation rate in public universities improved. We have actually improved on student success rate.
The goal of SCA5 ultimately is achieve a “racial quota”. Even if it is legally allowed, how do we evaluate all the shades of interracial marriages now more than the past? Do they want to separate out Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, the various Hispanic and Latino Americans and African Americans ethnicities to be more “fair”? How do we deal with the conflict of the people being oppressed for generations since slavery age and those more affluent new immigrants of same color or ethnicity? It will be even more of a problem and unfair when we have to define and equally protect everyone. For example, what do we do with the kids that are descendants of Thomas Jefferson (the Caucasian President) and Sally Hemings (a Black slave). How can we have laws to perpetuate the rifts, creating winners and losers among the people?
We also need to look into the cause of education inequality. If it were the result of racial discrimination against the Hispanic and Latino Americans or other minorities, we look at the remedy over there. If it were for economic reasons, we try to help them on that. For example, the education spending per person on California students was ranked 6th in the nation about thirty years ago, that helped the excellence of our UC and Cal State universities. Today our rank is the 47th in the nation. If this is the cause, we need to address this head on. The wrong medicine creates new, unjustifiable discriminations; it can create more issue and tension in our education system and will divide our nation even more. We don’t mandate racial quotas for the NCAA, NFL or NHL because that would be wrong too.
From my experience with education I hope to bring success to the Hispanic and Latino American and African American communities too. Everyone deserves the chance to be a proud graduate based on their hardworking and merits. If it is poverty, we look into how to address the issue of job creation and working poor. If it is the habit of reading and languages from the early age, we improve on the head start and pre-K programs. If it were parents and community involvement, we can help. We can even look into the hunger issue and provide free or subsidized food for the very poor students if need. I have my thoughts, but I will have the good honest people and experts look into the real issue and give recommendations. We should help everyone to succeed. As always, as a first generation immigrant myself, I’m on the side of the minorities and economically disadvantaged for their equal rights as I see what my family has been gone through.
Drawing from personal experience, my mom didn’t finish school due to hardship. But she knew the importance of education and demanded the best of her kids. At one point the family business failed and my dad was thinking of going back to the countryside and becoming a peasant again (with kids help with the farming). My mom refused and insisted to keep the kids in school while both parents worked hard in Taipei on all sort of jobs they can find. Because of that, her kids were able to graduate from colleges. Even when my parents were in the 60s and 70s, they still learned enough English so that they could help out the family. We want every kid to have a proud family and the best education they make through. We also like every family to get the help they need and deserve.
We need to focus on cause and solutions rather than using SCA5 to obscure and complicate the problem. SCA5 is wrong. When education fails, the competitiveness of Silicon Valley will decline and everyone suffer.
