Hey Amex, Abolish Affirmative Action and the Obsession with Diversity

Is there any reason to continue on with this so-called affirmative action or diversity quota? With an economy at 6.5% unemployment, can we focus for the time being on ourselves rather than assisting every other international student attending our programs so they can take their human capital back home and be praised for it. We've had this glass ceiling supposedly lingering over those with socioeconomic limitations, but let me take a few examples off the top of my head here....Stan O'Neal, African American, was able to run Merrill Lynch for years making hundreds of millions of dollars. Russell Simmons and Jay-Z, the latter I believe it was recently noted Shawn Cahhhta (said like Don Knotts in his best Furley rendition) will make a combined 100 million dollars with his wife Beyonce'. Did I forget to mention Obama....I apologize, a black man is now President, which I am very proud to say, honestly. The point however is that the statute for limitations on the ability of those with racial barriers to rise the social, educational and political ranks just doesn't hold water anymore now that the walls have been steamrolled.

Take my current situation for example, I'm studying for the GMAT's. A test essential to a candidate applying to an MBA-Program or Business School. The other day I'm sitting outside a Pinkberry listening to the conversation of four girls chowing down on the new pomegranate gurt. One starts yapping about UCLA and it's 2006 ranking in Newsweek or Forbes, I forget which one. Each adding their two cents about how they know the rankings are compiled and what the competing schools were for the top spot. Figures I'm looking at the UCLA Anderson School as an option being located right here, but definitely think they'd wipe their asses with my application. Especially if the US, like Russia did years ago to their loose-lipped citizens, decided to rid us of toilet paper (jeez, if they're loose-lipped, consider all Americans gaping images of Heidi Fleiss). Looking briefly at their table, there's not a white face amongst them and each don the hoodie of their Alma mater as if some advertisement for Stanford and Barnard. Two Middle Eastern girls and two Asians. At least I know they're smart, or are they as smart as me but with an added credential.....they sound like anti-social websurfers studying the statistics of Forbes magazine's latest survey. These are the business savvy? I can picture them in a class chewing their gum because they believe any answer they give to be the correct one even if the professor says "no it isn't." Now, my girlfriend is sitting there with me and she's Persian. She used her ethnicity to her advantage when applying (not to UCLA but equivalent), and that was after she'd been denied from the same school where she originally said she was Caucasian, and then they accepted her after a semester in community college and a new application stating her Iranian background. Now of course this isn't a perfect example, but it's not as if this is all a conspiracy theory, this exists. Now, I believe that California's Proposition 209 in 1996 was passed by 54% of the popular vote, and that prohibits granting racial preferences in government hiring and public school admissions however I'm unsure the ramifications on diversity quotas set by any schools, private or public. The way I look at it is, these schools aren't going down to the burbs of Mississippi, Alabama or Louisiana to find these so-called diamonds in the ruff, and if some real talent does competitively apply from there, I still don't believe they can adequately beat someone of greater strength in academics who was denied because they're not a minority. Can you put a challenged student in a class with Harvard kids and expect them to keep up with the class? When I graduated college I got into an Investment Banking Analyst program...the best possible job you could get coming out of college with a finance degree. I was in way over my head but Id written a great cover letter and interviewed well, and they gave me an opportunity. After three weeks into the program, this means 16 hour days studying financial statements and training our computer modeling skills, we were tested on the material. I'd stayed up til 4am the night before and practically every night before that, to try and read as much as possible.......of course I know that's not good for you when taking a test but that's not the point...I wasn't anywhere near those kids in my program from Yale, Princeton and Wharton. They just got it and didn't need to do what I was to prepare. You could put Weird Al Yankovic on the Brazilian National Soccer team, but that doesn't mean he's going to become Pele. Why not just deny him for two reasons, one because he's probably not Brazilian (no I'm not researching it, you can), and two, because he probably sucks when paired against Ronaldinho (which I can assume as fact thank you). My downfall is my Italian mother's attraction to an Irishman who really is just an American like her, both born here instead of some other country that might look better on an application. Funny thing is, 80% of these people were born here like I was, not in some other country, yet they pull their cards out like credit seeing what the store actually accepts via policy. Sorry sir, we've reached our limit on American Express.