Connections Between Both Books

Comparison Between Authors

Their upbringing has everything to do with the perspectives they hold

  • For Rodriguez, his early years struggling between English and Spanish led him to hold for hate for his own culture. This ultimately led him to assimilate from his culture to form an identity he is able to carry privately and publicly.
  • For Riley, coming from a working-class family to suddenly working at one of the most elite journalism institutes led to hold certain ideas about his success.
  • In a way their life experiences gave them a grounding in their critics of race-based, policies, identity politics, and social interventions

Agreement Points

What is unequal in education system is opportunity not the ability

  • The novel argues that academic potential is not determined by race. The difference between students that succeed in university is their access to strong early education, experienced teachers, and the type of coursework they complete.

Students succeed in college when they were accepted based on merit

  • According to the author students perform between when they gain admission to schools based on academic preparation and effort as it allows them to build confidence

Students who are accepted solely because of their race suffer from a mismatch situation

  • According to studies, students who are accepted into schools that don't align with their prior educational preparation can cause them to either gain lower grades, stress, and a higher chance of dropping out

Fixing the education is more important than affirmative action

  • Instead of focusing on a preferential treatment of students, the government should work on creating a stronger educational system. For example, the education system for students in k-12th grade should be stronger to give students an equal playing field

Article Connection

The article argues against a claim from the Harvard Law Journal that affirmative action levels the playing field for all African Americans. It argues that while affirmative actions have helped in some cases African Americans it does not solve the underlying problem. This being that many African Americans students attend primary and secondary schools where the majority of their alumni ends up in prison. Furthermore, they argue that some of the students who are accepted into university are not prepared enough for their rigorous classes. Similarly, while it is not only black people who struggle when their primary and secondary schools did not prepare them for college, society created a stigma around only black people and created an unfair comparison. They put black Americans into two categories, either too privileged or too disadvantaged.