No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Stanford CS Major

Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by jquery on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @08:33PM (#9926928)

> One goes on and says women and minorities, particularly blacks, are not smart enough to make it through difficult CS classes.

No, the commenter said many of them were weeded out because the classes were hard. If you have affirmative action helping people get into university with lower test scores, isn't that exactly what you'd expect to see?

When you don't have logic on your side, just call people names, right?

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by irishcoffee on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @08:55PM (#9927029)

> If you have affirmative action helping people get into university with lower test scores, isn't that exactly what you'd expect to see?

Ah, and here we have uncovered the elephant in the room.

Damn elephant.

I'm sure this woman has a legitimate complaint, I'm sure at least two people have asked her if she was lost before. I'm also guessing she may be bloviating a little bit. Nobody in college gives a damn if you're lost, lets be honest. If you're lost, you ask for directions. Happens all the time. Unless, of course, you actually look lost. Even then, people usually don't give a damn.

I went to UMD, College Park, and the weed-out classes were damn hard. UMDCP is only a top 15 program, I can't imagine how hard Stanford would be.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by owen_griffiths on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @09:55PM (#9927270)

The incessantly being asked if you are lost is the most unrealistic part of this story. My wife and I were looking for a room in Stanford last year - we really were lost. No-one gave a s..t.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by irishcoffee on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @10:22PM (#9927354)

Yep sounds about right.

At UMDCP people asked me for directions all the time, and I was happy to help. Not once did I ever ask anyone if they were lost. Nobody gives a shit. They really, truly just don't. Anyone who "does" care actually doesn't, they're just trying to break the ice or whatever.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by codygman on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @02:50AM (#9928087)

You should take it as a compliment, in (probably large) part it means you and your wife looked good enough to be Stanford material.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by comrh on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @08:47PM (#9926988)

Just assuming she got in on affirmative action and the ones weeded out were just "not smart enough" is plain ignorant.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by jquery on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @09:03PM (#9927066)

I'm not assuming she got in on affirmative action. I'm stating that affirmative action, as a policy, has consequences. One consequence is that certain demographics who initially benefit will suffer from it later.

Please learn to separate demographic differences from individual differences before calling someone ignorant.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by comrh on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @09:16PM (#9927124)

Can you comprehend how there are other factors that could effect minority achievement besides your assumption that they're letting in people not smart enough? Does your "consequence" have any backing or did you just make it up?

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by ironfilings on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @09:10PM (#9927096)

That's nice. The rest of us are saying that racism, as a problem that exists rampantly in this society and this very valley, has consequences. One consequence is that certain demographics don't benefit as others do.

And you wanted to assume "affirmative action" had some part in this without knowing a thing about this woman. Horrible.

Please learn to stop perpetuating racism by blaming the victims. It's ignorant, disgusting, and cowardly.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by cpncrunch on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @10:35PM (#9927411)

The woman is still in the class, so obviously affirmative action hasn't affected her. However it is a fact that Stanford uses affirmative action (see https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?artic... for example). I think jquery was pointing out that this affirmative action might explain the reduction in diversity after the "weeding out", which the article author mentions. It's nothing to do with racism or assuming that black people are stupid.

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