Repeal of race preference programs: Effects onAsiansandpublicreactions

[Volokh, Eugene]

Yvette Barksdale writes:
 
> Eugene  - isn't your analysis here is really superficial. Do 
> you really believe that disadvantage to blacks ended with 
> slavery? What about the 100  years of de facto and de jure Jim Crow? 

	I neither believe it, nor did I say that.
> 
> Also, even assuming that whites suffered some disadvantage 
> from discrimination and slavery, and blacks may have gained 
> some advantage from discrimination (certainly not slavery) - 
> obviously blacks suffered far more disadvantage from slavery 
> and discrimination than whites could have, and whites 
> obtained substantially higher benefits from the slavery and 
> discrimination than blacks could have.  So, net - blacks 
> lose, whites gain? Right. 

	How does that make "whites gain"?  If the arguments that race
discrimination was on aggregate bad for nearly everyone (except a
fortunate few) are right -- as I suspect they are -- then the answer is
whites lost, blacks lost more.  Rick therefore doesn't have any
ill-gotten benefits to disgorge, and is not a member of a "debtor race."
At most you should argue that he should bear further costs to equalize
his costs and those of blacks; perhaps that's the argument you're
making, but that's not the argument that I first saw.
 
> Let me ask you this - would you trade your background and 
> family history as a white person, with all the benefits that 
> accrue from that,  with that of a black person (let's say one 
> whose socioeconomic rank within the black community would 
> have been comparable to your families socioeconomic rank 
> within the white community) just in order to qualify for 
> affirmative action?  If not, why not? Perhaps, being white is 
> a net positive in this society, and always has been.  

	I wouldn't trade my face for Brad Pitt's, even though I know
Brad Pitt is more attractive than I am.  Would you trade your background
and family history as a black person with that of a white person?  I
suspect that few blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or whites would; what's
doing the work in these "I wouldn't trade" arguments is that people
don't like the idea of trading their background and family history -- or
their race or face -- with anyone else.  

	Eugene