he said "advanced", not "disadvanced".

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I look sideways in front of Marla's apartment. The wall behind me is yelling "I LIKE MYSELF" repeatedly.

About 20 years ago I worked for a small company that had no female managers and had never had a female President or Vice President. When a Managers position opened up I applied and was promoted. I have the applicable degree and experience and qualifications for the position. The men who wanted the position immediately started referring to me as the companies “token female” although none of them were equally qualified. They actually convinced some people that I was promoted simply because I am female.

Booker T. Washington was a very wise person. Affirmative action cuts both ways.

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"He who never made a mistake never made a discovery." Samuel Smiles

right

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I am carrying my heart~I am carrying my rhythm~I am carrying my prayers~But you can't kill my spirit~It's soaring and strong (Paula Cole's Me Lyrics)***We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We ARE spirtual beings having a human experience.(T.deChardin)***There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. (Albert Einstein)

If that is the case about the affirmative action, what else can we try to advocate?

Sounds like he's referencing to the idea of 'White Privilege.'

ardii
An African American student.....in UCLA, Berkerly, was on "The Story" on NPR last year, and it occured and puzzled him why so many new poor immigrants from the Far East come with just the shirts on their backs, and within a generation, so many have started businesses, sent their kids to great institutions of higher learning, while African Americans have been here forever and they stay at the bottom of the ladder. The immigrants put blinders on to obstacles and language difficulties by overcoming or working around them, work their tails off, and America is a fertile ground for them.

Joseph Glantz
I hesitate to give a firm opinion on this because I don't pass the Bill Bradley test - which is have you ever spent an evening in a black man's home. Most Americans still haven't.

GlobalWarner
Ultimately, the era of overt racism in America has proved counter-productive to its maturation as a 'Civilized Society.'
The most harmful effects of racism included the lack of education and economic opportunity...as 'those sentenced to Blackness' were always relegated by various unspoken laws 'into their place'...far and away from the pursuits guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and Declaration Of Independence.
With this discriminatory practice existing as an institution in American until 1964-65 with the historic passages of The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bill, it would absurd to dis-associate the accumulative effects of this societal malaise with the over-all challenges facing 'Africans-lost-in-America' today. (Read more in "Message To A DeadMan" by Turner Page/ June 2010 release)

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Interesting postings here.

To Ardii: 1st, Key word “student.” He is too young to have experienced much of the Civil Rights struggles. This student is one who has benefitted from the struggles of the black man in America the last 100+ years. 2nd, “…immigrants from the Far East come…” Key word “come” – Blacks were dragged here involuntarily as slaves. They did “work their tails off,” for other races. They helped to build this country.

To Joseph Glantz: You are exactly correct.

To GlobalWarner: Well said! “With this discriminatory practice existing as an institution in American until 1964-65 with the historic passages of The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bill, it would absurd to dis-associate the accumulative effects of this societal malaise with the over-all challenges facing 'Africans-lost-in-America' today.”

To all: Here in the 21st century – with our first black President – the inherent racism has reared it’s very ugly head and it feels very much like the 50s and 60s.

Racism/prejudice is an interesting malady that appears to be undescriminating when it comes to race/gender/creed/intellect.

Any form of bias takes its root in the intellectual differentiation of groups of people. It happens when two people exist or when two groups of people exist. The physical attributes serve only as indicators to this diffrentiation. Now this differentiation does exist. This only becomes a problem when it manifests itself as social behaviour. The behaviour is tolerated until it infringes upon the personal space of the person or people discriminated against, and then there follows the revolt.

So, every group that was discriminated against, whether based on sex, colour, race, region, sexual orientation had to fight to attain liberty. Which is ironical, because the only function of strength is to protect the weak.

It is not race, it is immigration law. If people even in their own immigration were given a chance to do something worth merit instead of being the ones that people take advantage of them, then that would be something to discuss within their own people. It is ashame as to how they have to yell as those that are really maybe not showing merit, and sure it shows their slobbiness, but that is their disgusts and not the ones of people's own society.

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Cynthia Bernadette Sha'aouni

Thanks for yours seeker. Perfect race equality does not exist. It does not exist between different dialects within the same race. That's as true in America as it is in China as it is in Africa. Remember the Hutu and Tutsi genocide in Rowanda where hundreds of thousands of people were killed? Black Africans killing other Black Africans. And the conflicts within Kenya between the different ethnic groups, etc, etc. Then there is the economic fault line in every society. It's folly to think that a minimum wage, uneducated McDonalds worker could go out to eat and recreate with the Bill Gates of this world.

Your best bet? Build a community, culture, system to produce the Miltons, Confucius, Einsteins, Voltaires, St. Augustines, and all the bright intellects of the ages, from whom you build uplifting, moral, advanced, benovelent stable communities. They can look down and sneer at you all they want out of human weakness, but you what you've got.

Avatar, have you ever seen those "well educated" Chinese who open restaurants here and tell you they have "flied lice"? :) Not much education there.

I wish I'd known Mr Washington.