(no subject)
Re: Honors Diversity
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amanda
Meaning: the lack of diversity we are currently struggling with is not the fault of merit based selection but rather problems that are pre-collegiate such as (but not limited to) the socio-economic discrepancies by race that persist.what do we do with that? I feel like taking part in a competitive economy (both on a smaller scale within academia and on a larger scale within the country as a whole) under these circumstances is like continuing to run a race where you saw some people tripped at the starting line...is that a terribly obvious thing to say? it seems like the only right thing to do is stop participating...can you exist in this society without competing? can you exist at all without competing? am I somehow wrong to think that competing with an unfair advantage isn't something we/you/I should do? is there a sense of "good sportsmanship" for life in general? Honor? is it entirely ridiculous to talk about honor in 2008? If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. oy vey... *sigh* today has been witnessed through the lens of my consideration for leaving. I started by having to clean my room, because housing has decided to be paternalistic and threaten to fine me for untidiness. clothing and books on the floor, nothing more, and only in my private room. I kiss my rosary and hear song lyrics in my head, "in casting off my mortal self, maybe all this yearning will go away...", and sigh.
I spent the afternoon at a chicken restaurant...closed on sundays, it's popular piety. my father knows the man who owns it - he gave to family life. the food was disgusting, over the course of 3 and a half hours I had most of a milkshake and one french fry, and I feel polluted.
I was sitting at a table for people to pick up fliers, hand them to the cashier with their order, and have 20% of their purchase go towards Partners In Health. they wouldn't have to spend a dime more than they already were. most people didn't - and in fact most were noticeably afraid to even make eye contact, and had to teach their children to ignore the pictures and mistrust us. the woman from the restaurant who set up the benefit gathered up all our fliers that were next to the register and told us we weren't allowed to have them there. someone said she looked angry. I said I didn't feel bad about it, considering we brought in 40 or so customers who just wanted to contribute to the charity, and one of us had actually danced around in a ridiculous cow suit to give them free advertising. "yeah, they made way more through us than they gave away", someone said to make sure the girl's concerns were allayed.
is this what "working within the system" always looks like? pushing factory farmed chicken on apathetic consumers in exchange for a pittance? "20% is generous" (20% of only those people we could get to come to the table, on one night for less than 3 hours, with strict rules not to actually talk to people unless they walked up to us...they had us busing tables, too.) if we raised even a little bit it still helped people.
my job was to swipe the cards of every person in the Honors College who attended, to get their student ID number, so their participation could be assigned a quantitative value, going into a database of "citizenship" scores, which determines their eligibility for future grant money, scholarships, and excursions. blah.
I spent the rest of the evening until now finding a bibliography for a policy claim paper. both the topics I initially wanted were too far to the left to constitute institutional policies at all...I decided to tone it down and just do a paper against the death penalty, as it was the only subject I could think of that would actually have research attached to it.
again, working from the inside feels lame. does it accomplish more? most people seem to think so...though I'm not sure to what degree that's because if they said anything else they'd be criticizing themselves. does the end justify the means? my general answer is no...
am I justified in perverting nobility of form to compromise and produce more function?
I wanna get out, dangit.