Elie Mystal says that mediocre whites can rest easier now

When we think of the Ivy League and mediocre whites, we picture David Hogg, whose gun control activism had nothing to do with his admission to Harvard. The Nation's justice correspondent Elie Mystal — aka Mad Scientist Fat Albert — writes that mediocre whites can rest easier now that the Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action in college admissions.

"Affirmative action is gone," @ElieNYC writes. "Prestige-obsessed white parents have gotten what they wanted."https://t.co/dRTrMjsgDg

— The Nation (@thenation) June 29, 2023

If universities were using affirmative action to discriminate against Asian Americans in favor of African Americans, what's to say they can't still admit blacks based on merit? These universities have huge DEI departments to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion. So it can't be white supremacy holding black applicants back. We don't get how mediocre whites are in any better position now than they were before. Mediocre is mediocre.

Oh, did you know the six conservative Supreme Court justices weren't elected? The Nation's justice correspondent does.

Mystal writes:

But the death of affirmative action was not achieved merely through the machinations of Republican lawyers. While conservatives on the Supreme Court delivered the fatal blow, the policy has long been made vulnerable by the soft bigotry of parents, whose commitment to integration and equality turns cold the moment their little cherubs fail to get into their first choice of college or university. If you want to see a white liberal drop the pretense that they care about systemic racism and injustice, just tell them that their privately tutored kid didn’t get into whatever “elite” school they were hoping for. If you want to make an immigrant family adopt a Klansman’s view of the intelligence, culture, and work ethic of Black folks, tell them that their kid’s standardized test scores are not enough to guarantee entry into ivy-draped halls of power. Some of the most horribly racist claptrap folks have felt comfortable saying to my face has been said in the context of people telling me why they don’t like affirmative action, or why my credentials are somehow “unearned” because they were “given” to me by affirmative action.

That last bit is in some ways the most devastating: Black people are attacked and shamed simply because the policy exists, regardless of whether it benefited them or not. I’ve had white folks whom I could standardize-test into a goddamn coma tell me that I got into school only because of affirmative action. I once talked to a white guy—whose parents’ name was on one of the buildings on campus—who asked me how it felt to know I got “extra help” to get in. The sheer nerve of white folks is sometimes jaw-dropping.

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Yeah, sure you did. Which white guy was it? His last name is on one of the campus buildings, after all.

Those “mediocre” Whites are the people making sure that planes don't crash into each other, are the reason that the power grid is functioning properly, and are the ones drilling cheap American gas to put in our tanks (pre-2021).

For this journalist’s (and everyone else’s) sake… pic.twitter.com/NEl2nCHKUI

— Lauren Witzke (@LaurenWitzkeDE) June 30, 2023

Well @ElieNYC, if they are truly mediocre, then you have nothing to cry about, since selection would now be done meritocratically, right?
If Blacks are good enough, they'll get through, right?

— Mr. Alare (@Alare_Bems) July 1, 2023

So they’re saying the mediocre white is top tier compared to other races. Sounds a bit racist to me but I’ll take it 😂

— Dec Farr (@DecFarrr) June 30, 2023

"You're mediocre!" cries group of people who need the standards lowered every few years to achieve the same results.

— LordZash (@ZashOnKorriban) July 1, 2023

Notice how @ElieNYC and the entire press don't shit upon Asians who were the plaintiffs in this whole thing, yet again it is whites who were mere bystanders who are picked on.

— Veneration (@depthhidden) June 30, 2023

We did a few posts on a public school administrator who was virulently anti-Asian, saying that Asian American students had adopted "white supremacy culture" to get ahead. Damn, did she have a chip on her shoulder.

It’s more racist to think “mediocre whites” are still better than the top minorities. Wow

— Pinky is the Brain (@pinkyisthe) July 1, 2023

Affirmative action was one of our most effective social justice policies — that just happened to screw over Asian Americans who are way more qualified than mediocre whites.

We wish Mystal and others would dig a little deeper … why is it that public schools aren't preparing black kids properly for college? Yes, we know, the SAT is racist and public school teachers refuse to "teach to the test." And if anti-racist mathematics says two plus two can equal five, then so be it.

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