Your Weekend Cerebrality

This article is pithy and thought-provoking, and reminds me anew why I so treasure the Arts & Letters Daily website. For the record - it's a compendium of articles/book reviews/essays/opinion pieces culled from a WIDE variety of sources - and very balanced in terms of bias.

Delbanco's comment "Academics certainly talk a lot about social justice, but how credible are we when, for instance, our wealthiest and most prestigious universities admit such a minuscule percentage of students (often fewer than 10 percent) from low-income families?" struck me in particular, because it seems like such a good microcosmic statement for what we've all been guilty of, at least once in our lives (in mine, probably a thousand times over, something in which I take no pride). We wish people all sorts of well - but we don't really want to like, live near them if they don't fit in with our self-satisfied perceptions of what is 'right', politically, socially...economically. I know I have run my mouth a hundred times over about inequalities and the like, and yet - how often have I actually *done* something about it, something real?

I'm not trying to be a downer this morning, at all - if anything, I thought this article was actually optimistic and a bit of a clarion call; a reminder that we don't exist in our own personal vacuum,

I gave onr of K's friends who moved to Marin a "swearing in" ceremony. Her oath:

"I really care about poor people. And I want to make their lives better. I just don't want them living anywhere near me."

The admissions stat: I believe affirmative action admissions policies should look more at economics than race. Harder to do, but also the real way we give those who had fewer opportunities growing up the chance to realize their potential in an intellectually richer environment.