My Last Chappu

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sac #128

...... it is not just the car companies, the executive floors at most fortune 500 companies are still occupied by white males with exactly 23% women and 12% african-americans - the desis are conspicuously missing ( other than at the hi-techs - Computer Associates, Wang, Oracle, etc. ) ..... but that is okay - we haven`t been around long enough to earn the trust of the boys at the union hall and the country club .... but we are not complaining either - unlike the african-american who is constantly whining ...... heck, they even complain about koreans, indians, arabs and chinese coming into their ``hood`` and opening up businesses to sell them milk and bread and dry-cleaning......and untill they stop complaining, get off the porch and do something, nothing is going to change - no amount of affirmative action can help those who are used to hand-outs ......

.....as for the engineering execs at the big-3, there aren`t that many either - mostly directors, not even executive directors and, if memory serves me right, only one VP (Homi Patel at GM, and there used to be a VP of Finance at Ford) ....... but there are a number of desi guys with the right credentials and better accents who will make it one day .......

Shankar:

Legal protection for the socially-disadvantaged is must for India. However, the current solution (reservations) are a blunt tool for a disease that requires micro surgery. The Constitution recognizes that reservations may not be needed till eternity, and all such provisions are thus `temporary` which each government has thought fit to extend every 10 years. Your point, I think, is that reservation quotas need to be tempered by some sort of an economic/financial justification screen. I agree. However, you are probably aware of the fact that administering such a system will be far from easy, open to manipulation, more corruption, etc. The argument AGAINST economic justification is that some scheduled castes/tribes will face discrimination no matter what, and simply because they belong to a certain caste, and not on grounds of financial net worth -- thus, the need for protection. However, the one process where caste discrimination DOES NOT play a direct role is in the examination process for college admissions. It is here, where the examination cum economic justification process will probably be the most beneficial.

re Fuzair #111:

Affirmative action is bad for all the reasons you`ve mentioned. But wouldn`t you agree that race and caste should be extremely important factors when decisions regarding admissions/promotions are made? Don`t the disadvantaged communities need to see other role models besides athletes and gang-members? Does being born in a black physician`s home take away all the blackness of ones skin? How many times in your teaching career were you faced with difficult choices when the color/race of a candidate was an issue?

re hamidm #125:

``how many desi engineers are there at ford, gm and chrysler? .. thousands ... how many executive vice presidents ? ... none, that i know of ......``

There may be no EVPs at the big-3 but there are quite a few at very senior positions mostly in research areas. The engineer`s career path in car-country is very inflexible. These guys rarely get to call the shots in any meaningful way. The brightest amongst them are always trying to get into the Treasurer`s office. Every organisation has its armpits. For the car companies its the Engineering divisions.

later

-sac

RSaxena,

You had mentioned that you`d heard V.Prashad speak at a university lecture. What did he talk about, and what were your impressions?

regards

Shankar,

This was hilarious. I was very frustrated with the quota system in our medical colleges back home .Lot of the seats were taken up by Arab and Iranian doctors. While the girls tried very hard to study and pass, the boys were there having a good time . When the results would come out, an inevitable sight would be a bunch of Arab boys consoling a mate, on clearing the exams , while the rest of the bunch were delighted to have failed .They were having a ball of a time and no one wanted to leave !

One Arab student was actually shown a femur in the anatomy exam, and asked to identify it . The Lab. Assistant prompted him `` bolo raan ki hadee ``, and the guy replied `` Kaan ki haadee`` gleefully.

Hope Shankar you are still having fun .... try giving Sunil a Chappu instead of birthay bumps next time !

love,

keep writing ...... dont worry about spellings .... we will try to overlook that :)

rsaxena

``I have yet to see even one black or hispanic partner at the firm out of over 250 worldwide. (And it is not due to discrimination by the management.) ``

........ because in this racket the criteria for partnership is simple, objective and measurable - you have to bring in x dollars in revenue and you are in ...... in order to make partner you basically have to sell your soul to the firm, kiss your family good-bye, put in eighty hours a week and, in addition to all that, have your lips surgically implanted on some partner`s posterior ......no self-respecting african-american is willing to do that ............on the other hand, look at the executive org chart of any fortune-500 company ... see something funny ? .... there is an african-american or two at every level - it is so predictable you can almost bet on it ........affirmative action at work ? ....of course .... wrong ? ... not really, but .......

....... on the other hand, how may desis do you see on the exec org charts - very, very few .... but do they complain .... not really , they simply go out and form their own companies and appoint themselves ceo`s with a couple of hundred million in the bank ...... rana talwar and shaukat aziz didn`t get john reed`s job but they moved on instead of running to the reverend al sharpton ....... is there a glass ceiling for desis in corporate america ...sure there is, and for many reasons, some of which are valid and others silly and spurious .......

...... so what is the point i am trying to make ? ....i guess, you have to play with the hand that you are dealt and stop itchin ..... sometimes i get really irritated at the african-american for wanting this and that because life wasn`t too good for grandpa ... oh, don`t get me wrong - i am all for affirmative action in some cases, but you have to draw the line somewhere ....... how many desi engineers are there at ford, gm and chrysler? .. thousands ... how many executive vice presidents ? ... none, that i know of ...... why? maybe they can`t make a decision; maybe they don`t have the business instinct; or maybe they can`t handle a golf club and the salad fork and don`t fit in at the country club ...... is it fair ? ... of course not - but things good be worse ..... the only person who is guaranteed success is a gay black woman with a college degree and one leg .......

Reply Monasehgal #122

Jee Haan, Monaji, yeh tho sahi hai.

Ref brain-dead-mo-fo #: 105

[What they dont realise (eventhough I`ve told them a million times), the more they insult me, the better I feel about myself, that I`m on the right track.]

So, why didn`t you try for admission to AIIMS (All-India Institute of Medical Sciences) or JIPMER (Jawaharlal Institute of Post-graduate Medical Education and Research) (there are two of them) where there is no caste-based admission? Didn`t cut the mustard for admission criteria, did you?

Keep feeling better about yourself. As they would have taught you in psychiatry classes, when all else fails, lower your standards to maintain your self-esteem.

Affirmative action is a must. Otherwise socieities will divide completely into the haves and have-nots. However, affirmative action programs need to ensure that the people utilizing them actually deserve to utilize them.

If the program is race-based, then it is based on the fact that students from a certain race do not get the same oppportunities as students from another race, It thus needs to be ensured that the African American utilizing this program actually did not have the same opportunities as his fellow white American. This is not too hard to do. Just designate certain schools as underprivelaged, and all minorities from those schools fall into this category (this is not perfect, but much better than what is available today). If the minority happens to be the son/daughter of Denzel Washington with a 90210 zip code, then why in the world should that kid be allowed to take advantage of a program for poor black kids. All this kid will do is take away a slot from the poorer black kids. Harming his own race, and doing exactly opposite of the aims of affirmative action.

The same should be the case for all other types of ethnic, provincial etc. based affirmative actions. I don`t know what the situation in Pakistan is today, but I remember, due to a Kashmiri domicile, when I reached college age, I could have gotten into any college of any type I wanted to in Pakistan. The reason behind this was affirmative action for Kashmir, because that area did not have the schools that were available in Punjab. The other purpose was to ensure that university students had access to people from all areas. A very well-intentioned and required program.

However, I had gone to school in Punjab and NWFP, my whole life. So I had access to the same schools as the Lahoris etc. My fellow classmates wouldn`t learn too much about day to day life in Kashmir from me, since I grew up in the same neighborhoods, as they did in Punjab. Yet I could get into a professional college with much lower grades than them, even though I had the exact same opportunities. In the process, I would have taken the seat of a deserving student who went to poorer schools in Kashmir, and actually was at a disadvantage as compared to the urban Punjabi students. And that student could have actually diversified the studetn body by his day to day knowledge of Kashmir.

So affirmative action programs need to not only define race, ethnicity, caste etc., they need to ensure that a second restriction of having actually graduated from schools which are disadvantaged is satisfied also. Otherwise the biggest sufferers are the people for whom these programs are designed.

Unfortunately, the biggest advocates of these programs are the influential minority leaders, who are as well off as the majority in their personal lives. Yet they want to ensure their kids have access to such programs, and thus they keep highlighting the first part of the need for affirmative action, yet they never highlight the second part, since that would put their own kids at a disadvantage to the poor person of their own ethnicity, race, caste, domicile who actually deserves to use such programs.

Zafar Sahab,

We should stop looking for foreign aid or even towards our govt. (which we incidently have elected) to help us out of the mess, which we we have single handedly created over the past centuries. Lets start working towards it in our own small ways. I think Veeresh would also agree with me since he was the one who first chided me of not doing anything to improve our society. We just have to look around us to find so many kids not even going to school. Lets start working with them to began with.

Mona

Zafar Bhai,

You know, I haven`t read Booker T. Washington, but I should. However it won`t be soon; apparently I have to read some just released novel...mayhaps You, Zafar Bhai might oblige us with a book review of something, na?

Something with munha pages?

regards!

Affirmative action programs by themselves are not very useful. The beneficiaries get into certain schools but the corporate world rejects them if they haven`t caught up by the time they graduate. Then the debate moves to how much is sufficient time for them to catch up? I`ve seen numerous examples of this at my firm. We`ll get black and hispanic Associates from the top schools but eventually they will either end up leaving by choice or will simply not advance very far. I have yet to see even one black or hispanic partner at the firm out of over 250 worldwide. (And it is not due to discrimination by the management.) This pattern is seen across many firms.

I don`t know if it is fair or not -- it is a tough argument either way. How can a corporation justify not providing the best to its clients...but then how fair is it to judge a someone who has been disadvantaged all his/her life and just barely began to catch up in college? Whose fault is it? What is fair and what is unfair? (Of course none of this is relevant to the blacks/hispanics who do become the best.)

Reply Saminashah #96

Saminaji,

“Your point of view is one heard often esp. in immigrant and mainstream Anglo communities. There are noted African American intellectuals who argue the misguided means of affirmative action and others who support it. Some of the intellectuals I remember finding edifying; Julius Wilson, Cornel West, Patricia Smith (the lawyer).”

The “self help” thing was also articulated right at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement as well – unless I’m wrong by Booker T Washington among others.

Reply Monasehgal #84

Monaji

“What is imperative is raising the standard of school level education and ensuring as many students in the schools as possible.”

You are 100% right. But that is a long, slow process (albeit the only one that can work for the whole of society to advance – as shown by East Asia’s example).

What would you say to the idea that foreign aid to India should be refocussed to promote universal primary education?

Zafar

saminashah #110,

Read this book by Luis Rodriguez, if you can find it, ``Always Running : LA Vida Loca : Gang Days in L.A.``



As for my experiences with minorities from inner cities, I have a couple memorable ones.

I tutored statistics to this one African American female student. She was a single mother of two children from a father who was in jail. She worked two jobs, one on the weekend, and one in school. She was accepted to the university through an Equal Opportunity Program. Though she did miss many of our sessions, she managed to get her a B in the course, which was excellent considering the small amount of time she had to study. Now these students that I tutored weren`t forced to get help, they registered for it. She took the initiative to get help, and I helped her.

And by helping, it was more guiding and disciplining and problem solving together. She was the one who did the work, not me. THe misconception that people have, is that these students get by through other people doing the work for them. And that is not true at all. It`s their motivation and initiative that gets them to where they are.

I graduated from the university, and don`t know what happened to her eventually. I do know that she was one year closer to getting a degree in teaching.

ps: you can email me at jannat_bibi@yahoo.com

if you feel like knowing more. I`d like to

know more about your experiences as well.