4 thoughts on “SOME GUYS HAVE ALL THE LUCK”

  • j says:

    I am statistically as likely to be Ed Burmila as I am to be swallowed by a sperm whale tonight. Which is zero. Unfortunately in the former case, but very happily in the latter case!

  • j says:

    And yet, if you are a minority who is fortunate enough to get the same education and experience as your typical non-minority, there is a slight advantage to being able to enumerate your minority status in some fields such as my own. If you are a minority researcher, there are a number of grants and fellowships that are available to you that are not available to non-minorities. This can translate into cases where, if it's a toss of the coin between two people for one slot then if one has minority status then it's a slight push in their direction.

    Given this situation, some people (dirty dirty republicans!) might think it's a bad thing because people aren't judged solely on their merits. Others might think it's a good thing because disenfranchised minorities need help and diversity should be celebrated.

    I think it's a great thing for a very different reason: usually minorites who are well-qualified have had to push way harder to get where they are than non-minorities in a similar situation. The conservative rationale is turned on its head.

  • warmbowski says:

    When I first head of Geraldine's remarks, I remembered the stuation between Isiah Thomas and Larry Bird back in the late '80s? Almost the opposite image of the current situation, with a black player (Thomas) playing the Ferraro part and disparaging a white player (Bird) in the context a heated playoff. I looked up the quote and it went something like – if Bird were black he "would be just another good guy".

    I don't remember the outfall of these remarks too well, but I think that Thomas at least regretted them.

    BTW

  • Ed says:

    Well, J, I understand what you mean. Sometimes in academia one thinks "Man, if I were black I could get a job much more easily." What most people neglect to remind themselves is that if they were black they probably wouldn't be there to ponder that reality.

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