The Phantom City

If you are a member of Congress, and someone hands you a crown, put it down and leave. (After determining it isn’t meant for you, of course.)

Courtesy of The New York Times (free registration required)

A debate at Harvard about the efficacy and results of minority-recruitment programs is fascinating, if largely because it starts to illumine the conflict between trying to divide the world into groups and dealing with actual individuals.

In this case, there doesn’t seem to be a question that Harvard has succeeded in increasing the number of black students in the University. However, once you start subdividing the ethnicity they have used as a touchstone, some odd differences start to come to light: Students of recently-immigrated black families — Africans and West Indians, for example — make up the bulk of the increase. Descendents of African-American slaves — familes that have been in the US for more than three generations — have not been as successful.

This leads to an interesting couple of comments by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Lani Guinier, but no one seems to bring up the problem, particularly among smaller groups, of how one achieves aims of ethnic and socioeconomic balance when the decisions are largely being made about and by individuals who each are going to be located in a fairly unique space, even if you just look at ethnicity, class, and gender. What is balance, and how do you measure it?

Courtesy of The New York Times (free registration required)

Pretty good argument for Kerry picking John Edwards as his running mate. However, according to the article, it looks like Kerry is leaning towards Dick Gephardt or Tom Vilsack, which I don’t quite understand.

I don’t know much about Governor Vilsack (Iowa), but I do know that Gephardt has a record of not being able to deliver in elections, aside from his home district. Why would a man who struggles with the charisma/connection thing select Gephardt, who has an even worse time connecting, as his VP choice?

That being said, even though I’m from North Carolina, I think Edwards as the preferable candidate just goes to show both parties’ weaknesses. That he is taken seriously is a testament to the weakness of the Democrats; that he should be taken seriously attests to the weakness of the Republicans.

I must admit, that while I may vote for Kerry, I was pulling for Edwards as the Presidential nominee. However, I still wish, deep down, that I could vote for John McCain.

Courtesy of Talking Points Memo.