sorry ahead of time for the long rant. feel free to just ignore this...
okay. so i was running the issue of affirmative action in my head... it has been a hot topic of late. and i can see darth's point. affirmative action on the surface seems to be reverse racism. in fact, in high school, i thought it was unfair. but it's really more complex than just giving 20 extra points to a person of color for consideration in college admissions. the reality is people are on an uneven playing field. what do high school students need to get to go to a good college? right now, good s.a.t. scores and a high g.p.a. pretty much. well, the s.a.t. test has been found to be racially biased. plus, those who are privileged to afford kaplan, etc. can achieve higher scores. then there's gpas where colleges are trying to compare students from different high schools and judge them the same. it can't be done. so you have the higher, priveleged students on an elevated plateau and the disadvantage students on a lower one. and even if we decide to forget all this and say, judge them the same. it still doesn't happen anyway. people who have a privileged background and money and connections are more likely to be accepted into a good college, especially ivy leagues. i'm not even talking about dubya... look at the celebrities. we need to develop an education system that gives everyone a fair shot... otherwise the people who are disadvantaged are almost guaranteed to stay that way. and that's what's really unfair.