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What They Don't Tell You About Those Diversity Bake Sales

Posted: 09/29/11 05:27 PM ET

So Tuesday, UC Berkeley went ahead with its purposely racist "Diversity Bake Sale." The bake sale charges white people more for baked goods than people of color, with women getting a $0.25 discount. The purpose of this is to protest what the group sees as the racist practice of considering an applicant's race and/or gender in the school admission process.

If you've been following for a whlie, you know that I went to a pretty racist school. What you don't know is that I actually attended one such bake sale. And what else you don't know is this: sure, minorities get discounted goods, but those goods are not created equally.

I attended the sale with a good friend of mine, Adam, a white male (I am a black female), and we noticed something interesting after reading the ingredients labels on our cupcakes (we checked after I noticed that mine was surprisingly bitter while Adam's apparently tasted like good times and happiness). I saved the labels:

Guess which one the white folks got?

So sure. My cupcake was discounted. That's kind of just a drop in the bucket compared to everything else I still have to digest.

 
So Tuesday, UC Berkeley went ahead with its purposely racist "Diversity Bake Sale." The bake sale charges white people more for baked goods than people of color, with women getting a $0.25 discount. ...
So Tuesday, UC Berkeley went ahead with its purposely racist "Diversity Bake Sale." The bake sale charges white people more for baked goods than people of color, with women getting a $0.25 discount. ...
 
 
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03:11 PM on 10/03/2011
+1 For Diabeetus.
09:00 AM on 10/03/2011
First, love the post! People don't like affirmative action, and I can see why. If everyone started off on equal ground, there would be no need for it. But, that's not the case. And it's time to stop pretending it is. Affirmative action doesn't mean I can waltz into Harvard with my 3.4 GPA. They would laugh me out of the place. Second, when the country is no longer majority white in 20, 30 years, will white men be so against affirmative action then? Third, I don't want a job or to get into a school over a white man if I don't deserve it, but if it's a tie, better luck next time. Fourth, since I'm black, latina and a woman, would they owe me money with my cupcake?
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Elyriaohio
Stop the Monarchy
08:07 AM on 10/01/2011
Bigotry is a dessert best served with icing on top!
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Ashok Hegde
06:01 PM on 09/30/2011
The single block of people benefitting most from Affirmative Action are White Women. Yes, white women.

If you had pure competition, our elite universities would be 70% asian.
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Dianne Jarreau
01:04 PM on 10/02/2011
"our elite universities", aka Ivy League which means Old American Revolutionary institutions for the teaching of religious ministers remained white because "tradition" accepted enrollment would pass from father to son as the most likely way to continue receiving contributive support financially to the school that the now successful father had gone to which guarantees the likelihood of a successful supportive son. Most interesting was the other kind of admission. about the time that Barack Obama went to an Ivy League school, those schools which had supported slavery, and therefore were supported by slavery, suddenly admitted they had been involved in that part of our history as well. Between Obama's birth and his being voted by his classmates: President of the Harvard Law Review, I was quite surprised how little coeducation had figured into the Ivy League or rather: how Late, Here is how I found out...
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Dianne Jarreau
02:21 PM on 10/02/2011
I lost a beginning segment of this next(3rd. post by editing)hate to admit inadvertently editing Michelle nee Robinson Obama who left with her Sociology degree when I arrived, and began to realize, I used to work in Princeton, taking the bus from Manhattan on Sundays to the Art Dept. just past the corner opposite the Firestone Library.

When Poppy Bush had become President, it coincided with the Democracy movement student rebellion in China in which the Old Military Veterans brought out the tanks; but, while he had campaigned in Princeton against Pierre du Pont,IV -- Bush,sr. discovered that his Moderate Republican friends in Princeton were economically doing very well and he decided to tax these business men on their inventories. Six years before, I had received a message from other women asking if I would like to join a class-action suit against the State Dept. ("an Equal Opportunity Employer" who and...) which had quit hiring us although we had passed the exam and qualified. Now, when I went to the Dillon Gym on campus for coed phys-ed classes, or to use the pool, or the bike room, or the "Foreign Food Festival": I recognized the faces of the Chinese dissidents on that latter occasion. They were being hidden throughout the East Coast academic network.
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Dianne Jarreau
02:43 PM on 10/02/2011
As a result of the turmoil in the Peoples Republic of China, the relocation of the dissident Democracy movement, eventually about 7 or 8 years ago I learned of a whole new generation of Chinese faculty making over the Mandarin language studies program.But, I think that Ashok Hegde has to realize that previous to that event in World History, there had likewise been another elitist movement to reach 70% "asian". It was perfectly obvious when strolling Nassau Street, the down-town of Princeton directly across from the campus. Here, about the time of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution which was quite fascinating listening to Darnton expound on the French Monarchy's Police State, during the Easter Break, the shopping district with the extra wide sidewalks was chock a block with Muslim men from Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. You could recognize their origins by their particular variation of head-dress.
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Dianne Jarreau
01:34 PM on 10/02/2011
Are you ready for my best shot #2 ? Hope this doesn't shock you too much. When I began studying at Univ.of Wisconsin- Milw.because of the Kissinger=Chou En Lai and Mao TseTung=
Nixon Shanghai Communique, I decided not to approach the library at Harvard, Yenching, where Kissinger taught but instead wrote to the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Princeton, James Tung-shir, whom the library secretaries refered to as Jimmy Tung-shir. "Jimmy" had arrived at Princeton as a "slave" to a man from China who, having received money from a Princeton businessman by the name of Gelb who requested that he begin boatload packing crates of rare Chinese books/shu, did so before the war of Imperialist Japanese invasion, which they had known for some time would occur. Mr. Gelb knew he was going blind and suspected that somewhere within all those classics from China would be found the cure for his impending blindness. Tung-shir wrote back to me, in the years before Mao died, and told me that I could borrow anything on interlibrary loan that I requested, "in honor of the merit of your teacher" whose translations of Asian poetry,"Jimmy" recognized.
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Moravecglobal
04:37 PM on 09/30/2011
What they don't tell you about the stunning waste at the University of California Berkeley. Californians are reeling from19% unemployment (includes those forced to work part time, and those no longer searching), mortgage defaults, loss of unemployment benefits. And those who still have jobs are working longer for less. Faculty wages must reflect California's ability to pay, not what others are paid.

Pay increases for generously paid Faculty is arrogance
.
UC Berkeley (ranked # 70 Forbes) tuition increases exceed the national average rate of increases. Chancellor Birgeneau has molded Cal. into the most expensive American public university.
President Yudof and Chancellor Birgeneau have dismissed many much needed cost-cutting options. They did not consider freezing vacant faculty positions, increasing class size, requiring faculty to teach more classes, doubling the time between sabbaticals, cutting and freezing pay and benefits for all chancellors and and reforming the pension system.

They said faculty such reforms “would not be healthy for University of California”.
We agree it is far from the ideal situation, but it is in the best interests of the university system and the state to hold the line on cost increases. UC cannot expect to do business as usual: raising tuition; granting pay raises and huge bonuses during a weak economy that has sapped state revenues and individual Californians’ income.

Opinions? Email the UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu
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TW77429
The best GOV money can buy!!
11:06 AM on 09/30/2011
Thanks for adding to my awareness - clever bake sale.
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TheCommons
I didn't quit. You just bored me.
08:14 PM on 09/30/2011
And doesn't it just get even more delightful as they do it over and over again at different universities? It's been an old gimmick for quite some time.
JStading
Trust me, I'm an attorney...
10:54 AM on 09/30/2011
Agreed - because telling a white guy with dyslexia that he can't get the job he just qualified for after acing a test it took him months to study for because not enough minorities passed the exam isn't "institutional racism."
08:49 AM on 10/03/2011
Did that white get blatantly told that he didn't get the job because of race? I doubt it. Maybe, just maybe, he didn't do as well as he thought he did and maybe, just maybe, those minorities scored higher than them. The price of diversity is that less white males will get jobs or admissions into schools because there are more qualified women and minorties available. But, they will always assume that all the minorites and women are ONLY there because of affirmative action. Maybe that white man should take a look in the mirror, stop whining because things are changing and work harder.
JStading
Trust me, I'm an attorney...
09:21 AM on 10/04/2011
Yeah, hence his win in the US Supreme Court in Ricci v. DeStefano. White and Hispanic fire fighters were denied promotions because not enough blacks did well on a merit promotion test that was certified as being non-discriminatory.  The test results were thrown out and the promotions were denied.

The notion that less white males will get jobs to promote "diversity" is a lie and is inherently racist.  First, it presupposes that gender and race are accurate proxies for diversity.  Put another way - it is largely irrelevant where you grew up, what your family structure was, what your income was, etc. It all is a function of skin color.  This inherent characteristic argument is a derivative of what slave owners used to argue and is now being perversely applied to promote racism.

As for stopping whining - AA policies were historically out of control.  In the Univ. of Michigan case, a minority applicant would get more admission points on an admissions scale than a white male with a perfect SAT score and a history of being a concert musician.  It was outrageous in 2003 and it's still outrageous now.

I would also question why blacks don't stop whining.  AA doesn't promote "minorities" in any way.  First, whites are a minority in a number of states where the AA policies are enforced.  White males are always a minority.  Second, AA is hugely negative for Asian-Americans and Jews.  Why a poor Asian-American who came to this country not knowing English should be dinged for their "privilege" is so far beyond me that I can't even comment on the point.

As for AA now, I identify as black/African American.  Why?  Because the gov't can't prove that I'm not and I want the benefits that come with it.
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darquelourd
You Get What You Play For
10:37 AM on 09/30/2011
shhhhhhhhhhhh, the rich white folks be living a lie but don't wake em up cuz they get cranky!
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thorrsman
Why should I define myself by quoting others?
10:20 AM on 09/30/2011
So the entire article is based on a lie. What else is new?
09:11 AM on 09/30/2011
All excuses accepted................
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Jim NLN
Obama 2012 and beyond!
09:02 AM on 09/30/2011
Pure joy! Thank you for your article!
08:48 AM on 09/30/2011
I have been hoping that in the last 60 years republicans would get over their rascist tendencys.
Some have but as far as I can see they are no longer republicans, they are either independent or dems.
The republicans seem to believe that slavery is a good thing. I think they are just to lazy to get out and do the work themselves, or just not smart enough.
I live in a small town, we only had a few black families. One of them lived about half a block down the street. We got to be good friends. Bill got drafted and sent to Vietnam and his brother and I played in a rock and roll band together for years. Bill made it back from Vietnam. He would travel with our band on the weekends. Bills oldest brother died in Vietnam. I remember the funeral as though it was yeaterday
one of the members of our band played taps from the woods surrendering the cemetary.
It was heart breaking. Bill still lives in the same house he grew up in. We are still good friends always greeted with a hug. Comon republicans we are all brothers, get over it!
10:11 AM on 09/30/2011
"rascist tendencys"

Treating people different based on the color of their skin is racist. Both the bake sale, and the California Law would do that.

The bake sale was highlighting how both it; and the law; were racist.
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darquelourd
You Get What You Play For
10:44 AM on 09/30/2011
yes, middle class white people need government assistance!

welfare for soccer Moms!
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ManhattanMC
my micro bio ate my microphone
11:07 AM on 09/30/2011
Sorry-when the status quo is de facto racism inherited from an extremely racist society to do nothing is racist, a legal remedy is not.
08:09 AM on 09/30/2011
Notice how the Asian kids don't waste time worrying about diversity. They worry about getting into grad school and medical school.
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abbienormal
What hump?
10:44 AM on 09/30/2011
Asian kids don't have to worry about diversity. They make up about 50% of my classes.
01:59 PM on 09/30/2011
Word for word from the undergrad application to MIT:
"Asian is not a minority at MIT"
01:39 PM on 09/30/2011
Notice how Asians come over to this country with Masters degrees and from relatively affluent families
Notice how Asians have strong familial networks that span continents and few issues w/ paternal absenteeism
Notice how Asians have established communities to move to and barring that
notice how Asians don't automatically get their credit run when renting an apartment
Notice how despite our terrible driving, we're not racially profiled.

Notice how I recognise my own privilege in this society.
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Sanity Inspector
He who laughs, lasts.
02:12 PM on 09/30/2011
Notice how Asians work harder, and make their children work harder, than most Americans would ever dream of doing. They deserve their success, nevermind the slackers who surround them.
07:56 AM on 09/30/2011
What's wrong with the ingrdients? That's how I would have baked them.
08:49 AM on 09/30/2011
I would expect an answer like that from a republican!
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ChiBloger
And the truth shall set us ALL free
11:58 AM on 10/04/2011
Yeah, and LSU is not quite Harvard, not even close.
07:42 AM on 09/30/2011
you checked after they tasted different...
but the ingredients listed for the second label are not real ingredients,
thus it cannot establish that the two were different in composition as there appears to be no real world correlation between that ingredients list and the actual cupcake.

moreover, if they gave you a cupcake with that 2nd label, they are pointing out that minorities get the short end of the stick in our society... which is true and which would be something one would have expected them to dispute rather than to admit.

I must say I don't really understand this post at all.
Did the two cupcakes actually taste different, or is that a rhetorical device?
08:13 AM on 09/30/2011
"I must say I don't really understand this post at all."

Yeah, we got that.
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thorrsman
Why should I define myself by quoting others?
10:17 AM on 09/30/2011
Rhetorical device, of course.

There is much to suspect about the verasity of this report.
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darquelourd
You Get What You Play For
10:45 AM on 09/30/2011
the word is "veracity" Nordic superman
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ManhattanMC
my micro bio ate my microphone
11:09 AM on 09/30/2011
'Veracity' not 'verasity'. Did a person of color take your spot in college or steal your spell check?