Maybe if you mentioned you were a moderator on AF, they might have reconsidered.
LOL. Priceless
Bush Jr got into HBS because of his father.
^I thought he got in on a cocaine scholarship.
^ I’ve always thought people were overly harsh on GWB regarding the admission to haveing tried cocaine. I feel like most people at Harvard have probably interacted with it in one form or another at some point in their life so at least he was up front about it, not really a big deal.
Did Bush inhale?
Obama used to deal.
Yep, just a joke. Although most sources of his cocaine use have a obvious Democratic political bias, it is notable that there are at least allegations, which GWB has not denied, that he was arrested for cocaine possession:
In Fortunate Son, Bush biographer Hatfield quoted several anonymous sources regarding allegations of Bush’s cocaine use. Hatfield reported that Bush had been arrested for cocaine possession in 1972 and that his father pulled strings to have records of the arrest expunged.[13] Bush campaign spokesperson Mindy Tucker called the allegation “absolutely untrue”.[14] Bush repeatedly refused to state whether he had ever used cocaine.[15]
I think a lot of people took issue with the apparent immunity he had due to privelige of birth more than the actual coke use. Also, check out this description of how GWB got into Harvard (years before his DUI in Maine):
The most notorious episode, reported in numerous diverse sources including U.S. News & World Report on November 1, 1999, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq by Robert Parry, First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty by Bill Minutaglio, and W: Revenge of the Bush Dynasty by Elizabeth Mitchell, has 26-year-old Bush visiting his parents in Washington, D.C. over the Christmas vacation in 1972, shortly after the death of his grandfather, and taking his 16-year-old brother Marvin out drinking. On the way home Bush lost control of the car and ran over a waste container, but continued home with the garbage can wedged noisily under the car. When his father, George H. W. Bush, called him on the carpet for not only his own behavior but for exposing his younger brother to risk, George W., still under the influence, appears to have retorted angrily, “I hear you’re looking for me. You wanna go mano-a-mano right here?” Before the elder Bush could reply, the situation was defused by brother Jeb, who took the opportunity to surprise his father with the happy news that George W. had been accepted to Harvard Business School.[5]
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_substance_abuse_controversy
See, with Obama I imagine him as more the kind of guy that was sitting on the beach in Hawaii in High School tripping with some friends and thinking to himself “I’m going to be president some day.”
I think it worked with GWB because he used coke and alcoholism as part of his redemption story, which appealed to the religious base of the party. And the non-religious right felt a little better because they could rely on the religious right to force him to stay on the straight and narrow.
Nonetheless, W had absolutely no business getting accepted into HBS. If I may paraphrase the great philospher Chris Rock,
“If you walk into any classroom, you’ve got 30 students. Five are smart, five are dumb, and the rest are in the middle. That’s what America is, a nation of B and C students. But let’s keep it real. A black C student can’t run no company. A black C student can’t even be the manager of a Burger King. Meanwhile, a white C student just happens to be the President of the United States.”
“I don’t think a black guy ought to get a job if he scores lower than a white man on a test. I don’t think a black kid ought to get into college if he scores lower than a white man on a test. But if there’s a tie? F— him. YOU GOT A 400-YEAR HEAD START, MOTHERF—ER!!!”
See, I think HBS nailed it. They are trying to identify future potential for success. They looked at GWB, he had average academics, but somehow they recognized his potential to succeed and frankly he became president. How many of his straight A HBS classmates managed that? I couldn’t have, even if that were my goal in life. So I mean, if you take a 1000 ft perspective, in some ways it was a great call. BTW, Stanford just made the rejection official, so “then there was one.” Haha.
Which is why he got replaced by Obama - ZINGGGGG ha shit. Nah, Obamas cool.
What if he’s a spanish man?
What if the black kid is the son of a millionaire? Does he still have a 400 year head start over a poorer white kid?
That’s one of my big beefs with affirmative action. I’m the son of a handyman and a housewife. I grew up in a trailer on a farm. Most people drove cars that were worth more than our house. It was infested with roaches and ants. If my mom and dad had taken a minimum-wage job, they would have made more money than they did by running a handyman business. But because I’m white, I was not considered “economically disadvantaged.”
If Oprah had a daughter, she would get to take advantage of scholarships and affirmative action, because of her “economic disadvantage.” Actually, she would get double-counted, because she’s a minority and a female.
The same is true with B.O. I heard a black guy say, “He knows what it’s like to be one of us. To be poor and not have what the white man has.” I wanted to respond with, “Really? He was born in Hawaii. He went to a private Catholic school in Indonesia, then went to a prep school in Hawaii. After that, he went to Columbia and Harvard. He got a job teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. Please tell me what he has in common with you.”
It’s time to eliminate affirmative action. Life isn’t fair. you can’t choose your parents, whether you are born a king or at a poorhouse as an illegit child of a s** worker.
trying to bend life into being “fair” just creates additional biases against others.
Why should a black kid with average abilities be given preferential treatment over an above-average asian kid? Maybe that first kid was spoiled and from a wealthy family and the asian kid was from a poor family.
I say blind everybody for name & race. If you want to in-person interview after you weeded out people based on education/accomplishments that’s fine. But having a “quota” of a certain race is ludicrous.
^ Maybe you need to sit your dad down and ask him why the f**k he CHOSE to stay involved in a business that makes it difficult for him to support his family. He had a choice! Compare that to poor blacks who where turn down for menial jobs, housing and even schooling! If you are poor and white, don’t hate on blacks or Hispanics for what you perceive as an on fair advantage. You should hate on your dad/grandfather for being useless SOBs who squandered their American dream.
I find it very ignorant and disturbing that young white kids will usually put up an imaginary wall between what their white ancestors did and themselves. The consequence of those injustices are all around us. Prime example is Black Swan’s family’s access to 1000s of acres of land, not long ago black where forbidden to own land. Who worked day and night in those fields?
Edit* comment was meant for Greenman. But f**k you too interacom
So when white people are poor, it’s their parents fault. But when black people are poor it’s white people’s fault. Makes sense, and not a generalization at all, I’m sure.
Lets add to this. My father grew up with absolutely nothing. Dead broke. Had to basically drop out of high school school to work and help his father try to raise several sisters. Just learned how to use email last year, and still struggles with the difference between spelling “ant” and “aunt”. He had several steel traps he would use to catch muskrats and raccoons when he was growing up, which they would eat and he would sell the pelts to support his family. Yes, that’s right, in the 1960’s this was how they were living in the appalachian mountains. So he had business savvy at a young age and began trading his friends furs they caught as well in middle school. By the time he was 16-18 he had his friends involved. By the time he was in his mid 20’s he was moving so much fur and deer hides he had a 50 foot yacht. The fact is, you never had to go through what he did growing up in the 50’s with 1 single light bulb in the entire house. I never heard him make excuses, maybe that’s why he made it Stormy, and your parents didn’t, or maybe that’s why he has thousands of acres YOU DISMISSIVE RACIST. Oh, and I don’t think slaves worked the corn fields in minnesota (where our land is), but what do I know. Next time you sit down and generalize our parents maybe you should start asking yours those same tough questions.
Another story, one of my best friends’s mother is first generation chinese. She came over on a boat with two kids as a single mother at the age of 20 with zero money whatsoever, and not knowing English. After working factory jobs at minumum wage, she now has a self made business. I can’t imagine someone doing more with less. But I’ve never heard excuses about white people from her either. And don’t think Chinese in the mid century didn’t experience racism.
I’m not going to separate what I may or may not accomplish from what my parents did. That’s impossible. But I will say that what my father and my friends mother did are also examples of people who did massive things without generations of wealth (or even any wealth) to their benefit. And it offends me to hear them talked about that way.
Let’s leave my Dad out of this. I have asked him, and it’s pretty evident that he doesn’t want to talk about it.
I was poor and white, I’m NOT hating on those that take advantage–I’m hating on the system that lets them, and it IS an unfair advantage. I’m not talking about the poor white vs. the poor blacks, I’m talking about the poor whites (and yes, they do exist) vs. the rich blacks (and yes–they do exist). I don’t disapprove of the government trying to help the underprivileged, but “underprivileged” goes a whole lot further than skin color. To amplify (and possibly oversimplify), I use Oprah’s kid as an example.
There is no imaginary wall between the “white” ancestors and the “black” ancestors. They’re dead. And it seems like you’re the one who’s using the past as a crutch–not me. I accept the fact that my parents are poor, and I’ve done everything I can to rise above it. If you want to wallow in the “injustices of the past”, be my guest. Don’t involve me in it.
One last thing–it’s a good thing this is an anonymous forum. If you called my Dad/Grandpa an SOB to my face, I would beat the shit out of you. And I probably still will if I ever meet you in person.
All I can add to this is my “+1”. Well said.