Wouldn't focusing on fixing this situation be more beneficial than reinforcing it?
Yes it is "still a thing". They are mentioned in legislation as Black Colleges. It was an extremely big deal this year when Black Colleges were successful in lobbying for Title III funding. In fact, they are listed officially as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Native American's higher education institutions are referred to officially as Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs).
Wouldn't focusing on fixing this situation be more beneficial than reinforcing it?
So, yes, that is what they are referred to in legislation, so stop trying to imply someone is not using the right words. It really ticks me off when people wordsmith but don't bother actually engaging or knowing any of the history of the people they are being offended for.
Maybe if you stopped implying racism where none exists, we would have a better world.
I am not american and never heard about a "black college" before. Are those words (along with the TCUs you mentioned) used for historical reasons, or is there still segregation (wether legally or de-facto)?
The meaning of my second question was actually that I disagree that "beefing up the Computer Science programs in black high schools" will help much beyond a little short term relief. Efforts should focus about understanding and fixing the systemic problems, not the symptoms.
Of course most of the real divides come down to income class, which is part of what should take an emphasis in terms of possible distribution of education funding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historically_black_colleges_an...
TL;DR, the reason why these exist is because of historical discrimination against black people in college admissions.
While there is much less discrimination in admissions today then there was in, say, the early 1900's, these colleges still have a strong presence in the US today.
And to your point, yes I think we all (or at least most of us) want to live in a world where we don't need race-based communities or institutions, but because our country still suffers from extreme race-based segregation and inequality, IMO it still makes sense to have these active support structures in place.
What they should be doing is scholarship and mentoring programs to increase the base if that is their real goal. But that takes actual effort and costs real money.
What it does do is make a few people feel better because they are misinformed and so other things like education would be a better solution, something like "there's no need to feel bad about this word, and here's the logic about why."
Hell, switching your Amazon account to one of those smile accounts will do more good than signalling.
You're complaining about indulgence! You're saying that this change won't help people as much as something else. This is a fair criticism. Changing some technical term is probably not a optimally utilitarian use of resources.
However, while you may be trying to live an optimally utilitarian life, the rest of us aren't. I can only speak for myself of course, but evaluating all my life's actions on only that axis is too strict for me.
But, like I said, if you want to do that: props.
It would be fine if it just made them feel good, but it substitutes for efforts that would help. Its a personal indulgence taking energy from a system when more is needed. It also is a distraction from actual issues. Nothing is often better than something.
> However, while you may be trying to live an optimally utilitarian life, the rest of us aren't. I can only speak for myself of course, but evaluating all my life's actions on only that axis is too strict for me.
Yeah, this is wordplay that has nothing to do with me.
Utilitarianism is a philosophical framework. It's not for me, but based on your comments you might be into it:
It would be fine if it just made them feel good as people's mental health is an important thing that too many ignore. But, this will suck attention away from people who are actually doing things that will help people. The world has only so much time to pay attention, and that time is valuable. Microsoft is just adding to the noise.
They are bringing homemade cupcakes to a food bank and making the national news.
If you are going to help, actually do something that improves the lives of people. Maybe, you should really put some effort into beefing up the Computer Science programs in black high schools and colleges? You are Microsoft, and had a damn policy of only hiring people from certain schools for certain job areas. In 90, one of your damn reps told a classroom of students that they were only good for "help desk" positions because of the school they went to. I'm betting some all black colleges were not on the hire list for actual developer jobs.
Actually doing something useful is hard, this is just signalling how cool you are.