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Black Businesswoman Offers Thoughts Of End To Affirmative Action · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:12
  Welcome to the second hour of The Morning Show with Preston Scott. I am
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  Preston. That is Jared, last day of the month, and we're talking
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  about a very very good thing in my opinion on show four thousand, nine
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  hundred and fifty nine, and it's I think the steak in the heart of
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  affirmative action. I think it's a good thing. And joining us on the
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  program from Project twenty one is Melanie Collette. Melanie, do you think it's
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  a good thing. I indeed think it's a good thing. I have been
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  complaining about affirmative action for many years before it was like a popular thing to
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  do. I've always looked at it as a black cloud that followed me or
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  my career. So I think it's as I think it's a great thing that
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  it's done away with, and I think you will force people to actually do
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  the work. Schools, in particular public schools higher education. Instead of lowering
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  the standards and lowering the threshold for people based on the color of their skin,
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  maybe what we'll do is for all students if there are gaps in their
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  learning. I'm a former educator, by the way, gaps in their learning,
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  that they will attempt to fill those gaps, perhaps with some additional programs
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  or transition courses or something like that, instead of lowering the standards, and
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  that way kids would actually graduate from public high schools with the actual education that
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  their diploma suggests that they have. When they get to college, they will
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  be equipped with the knowledge that they're supposed to have to be able to have
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  the discipline critical thinking and etc. To graduate from college and and to get
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  accepted into college. You know, perhaps uh, you know me being a
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  business person, maybe there's a gap in the market for a school that's not
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  a community college, but it is not high school, that's just a transition
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  program to prepare people for college, instead of just letting people into college based
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  on the color of the skin and lowering the threshold or giving them extra points
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  for the color of this skin. In my mind, it's reverse racism.
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  It is a way to keep black and brown people less educated, less you
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  know, less successful, by just continuing to pass them along without the knowledge
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  that they actually need. So I'm a static that this has happened. And
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  now I think that the powers that be, especially in the education space,
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  will have to actually roll up their leaves and do the work joining me on
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  the program. Melanie Colled, she's a spokesman with Project twenty one. For
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  those of you that are new to the program and maybe new to Project twenty
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  one, I've had a relationship relationship with Project twenty one for better than a
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  decade now, and it is a group of conservative thinking men and women who,
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  oh, by the way, happen to be black. I'm looking forward
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  to the day that we don't have to make those kinds of distinctions. But
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  there's a reality here, Melanie, and that is that there are many on
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  the illiberal left side of things that will simply call you, as they do
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  Clarence Thomas or any other achieving black person in this country, well, you've
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  just compromised your culture and you don't really get it. Yes, I've heard
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  that many times. Feel free to tweet me at jvoc Diva on Twitter and
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  send the nasty tweets. I'm here for it. I've heard it many times,
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  and you know what, I do not care because I am busy out
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  here trying to be more successful and make this world a better place. So
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  if you lispend your time criticizing myself and other people who look like me that
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  are out here trying to be successful promoting liberty and freedom, family, entrepreneurship,
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  and conservatism. If that's how you want to spend your time, it's
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  a free country, have at it. But we're going to continue to do
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  what we do here at Project twenty one, and that is to promote the
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  values and principles that we think are not only beneficial for black and brown people,
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  but beneficial for all. Melanie Collette Withers abilities stand by. We're gonna
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  take a quick break, come back in seventy seconds after a quick check of
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  weather in traffic, and I'm going to share a thought that I've carried and
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  talked about on this program for due for two decades. Keeping in mind,
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  I had a son ten Florida and M University. I'm very close with with
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  a lot of the members of the faculty out there and have had great relationships
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  over the years. But I have a theory I'm gonna run by Melanie next
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  on the Morning Show like a fine wine. Ah, excuse me, man,
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  Please have some more water. The Pellegrino, yes, sparkling. This
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  breeze is very nice. Good morning, and welcome to the Morning Show with
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  Preston Scott. Back with Melanie Collette with Project twenty one. She is a
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  business technology expert, entrepreneur, and a political commentator. Background in corporate operations,
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  organizational management experience, and as you heard, an educator as well I
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  have. Obviously, we are based here in an educational kind of hub between
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  Florida State University Florida A and M the state college that's here. Melanie and
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  I have four years commented to folks that one of the big challenges that HBCUs
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  and programs like Affirmative Action just will never ever deal with is the law of
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  diminished expectations and that for generations now, too many in Black America have been
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  victimized by that law. Do you agree one hundred percent, wholeheartedly agree with
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  that. One of the things that tends to happen, and it's audacity for
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  me, but that tends to happen is that people will ask you about your
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  education where they don't ask your white counterparts. I happen to live in an
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  area that is predominantly white, and so many times when I'm in professional faces,
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  I get asked what I would characterize as quote unquote the oddest question.
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  But I but I absolutely know why they're asking. When I'm the only one
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  who looked like me in the room in a professional space or an education space
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  or something like that. I taught computers on a college level, and many
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  times I was either mistaken for a student or somebody else who worked there,
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  but not an actual adjunct professor, which is what I was doing. So
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  so you know, it is in the same situation when I taught high school,
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  you know, parents night, I would get asked tons of questions about
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  my background. Why but probably because I was the only black teacher in the
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  entire school and they wanted to know how I got there. Obviously I was
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  an affirmative action higher. Like I said, for me, it was a
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  black cloud and it probably still is. That just follows me around my career
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  when people wonder how did you get in this space? How did you get
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  in that space? When many times, you know, my education and background
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  matches or exceeds that of my counterparts that don't look like me. What's so
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  great irritating, But what's so sinister about at all, Melanie, is when
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  you break it down to prospective college students and high school students that are enrolled
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  in schools right now, you're telling them, you know what you're really not
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  capable of getting into these great institutions without a little help. And that's been
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  the part that has just been insulting to me because of the people that I
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  personally know, friends that I personally have, that don't need those artificial aids.
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  They just need the opportunity to achieve, and they will. But because
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  we've diminished our expectations through affirmative action, we have a lot of kids that
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  have built in excuses. I have, all twelve years of my time in
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  the classroom, and even when I was taking education classes, I have fought
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  against this new narrative. I cannot tell you how much trouble I have gotten
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  in with Principles over these same kinds of programs and ideologies and teaching. And
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  many times we would be, you know, I would be in a professional
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  development meeting and some facilitator would come in and say that exact thing, that,
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  you know, these lower standards basically are better for black and brown students,
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  and I would raise my hand and express the way I completely resented that
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  sentiment and that it was complete, absolute buffoonery. And had it not been
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  for the high standards that my teachers had when I was going to high school
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  in the eighties. I would not have I would not have a master's degree.
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  I would not have published the forward to a book. I would not
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  have written many, many published articles for political blocks, nor would I be
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  a political commentator. And I would lift off all the things that I've accomplished
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  thanks to miss Jenkins read in high school bringing me. And never was did
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  my parents say to me, well, missus Jenkins must be a racist.
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  What they said to me was do better. Look at that red ten,
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  study what she wrote, and do better. But that is not what they
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  are teaching that. That's not what they're teaching teachers today. They are teaching
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  teachers that black and brown students are lesser. And I absolutely resent that.
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  And I've ended up in the superintendent's office, you know, a time or
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  two because I expressed that I felt as though it was ridiculous. And do
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  you know that three white men in my teaching career looked at me right in
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  my face and told me that I did not understand the racism that I didn't
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  understand. My dad was a PhD. And did it the old fashioned wayber
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  part, it was like online school. I have a master's degree, all
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  my sisters have college degrees. But I don't understand. I don't get it.
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  But okay, Melanie, you can never get enough good advice from white
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  liberals. Oh Man, when you're a black conservative, just remember they're not
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  liberals, they're illiberals. Now, I appreciate you coming on the program today
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  and I look forward to having you back sometime. Thank you, Thank you
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  for having me. My pleasure. Melanie Collette with us this morning on the
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  Morning Show with Preston Scott