Personally I believe it is. Two wrongs don't make a right. Let the best man (or woman) get the job.
Affirmative Action... It's a form of discrimination.
- Thread starter AccruedExpenditure
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Gunslinger08
Lifer
- Nov 18, 2001
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HeroOfPellinor
Lifer
- Dec 27, 2001
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I agree in a way. I see the logic behind AA, I just don't necessarily think it's the best solution to the problem it attempts to remedy. Basically, it forces everyone to make up for the shady practices of a select few.
I think it should have some significance, but would prefer if income level was the more deciding factor.
It was proposed with good intentions (would work in theory, ideally, to dispell old boy's networks and such), but hard to execute fairly/as it was intended to.
Affirmative Action IS racist. There's no getting around it. As Tomato has suggested, it was a well-intentioned program to help insure equality of opportunity amongst racial categories, but it has proven to be more difficult in practice than in theory. One of the problems is that you have no way of differentiating between minority students from Fairfax county and minority students from the middle of the projects. In a financial-blind admissions process, there is almost no way to differentiate between socioeconomic classes on an application. The end result is that the former student most often gets the admit over a poorer White student from a worse economic background. But the program does work to the extent that it does get more minority and disenfranchised groups into college, I suppose.
Now the obvious answer would be to go to the root of the problem - our joke of a public education system, and reform it so that a.) it gets as much money as it needs, b.) the schools are not funded on local property taxes (as Vermont and some other places have done), eliminating the concept of 'rich district' 'poor district,' and c.) we have a higher quality of education through textbook purchases and better teachers attracted from the public sector. More equality with respect to elementary and secondary education combined with increased scholarship funds for the rising costs of collegiate education would level the playing field tremendously and the need for affirmative action in its current form would quickly disappear.
But in its current form - yes, it is racist, and it should be changed. But need it be axed entirely? Probably not - it should be phased out or modified as other changes to the state of American education are made...but as we know, no politician regardless of party will make those changes although he promises them in the lies he spews during his campaign.
Now the obvious answer would be to go to the root of the problem - our joke of a public education system, and reform it so that a.) it gets as much money as it needs, b.) the schools are not funded on local property taxes (as Vermont and some other places have done), eliminating the concept of 'rich district' 'poor district,' and c.) we have a higher quality of education through textbook purchases and better teachers attracted from the public sector. More equality with respect to elementary and secondary education combined with increased scholarship funds for the rising costs of collegiate education would level the playing field tremendously and the need for affirmative action in its current form would quickly disappear.
But in its current form - yes, it is racist, and it should be changed. But need it be axed entirely? Probably not - it should be phased out or modified as other changes to the state of American education are made...but as we know, no politician regardless of party will make those changes although he promises them in the lies he spews during his campaign.
Unfortunately the failure is that the people who implemented the solution did not see that this 'problem' is merely the symptom of a greater social problem, which is the gross inequality in education funding in districts throughout the country. You do not solve a problem of inequality by throwing a solution which is inherently unfair and unequal at it. Many districts operate on razor-thin budget constraints, and guess what? When there's a budget crunch, it is one of the first on the chopping block. As a student at a public university I am outraged at the way which education is marginalized on the priority of politicians when it should be one of the first.
You reap what you sow, and the American public is certainly reaping the dividends of what it chose to invest in the future of its children.
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
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What problem? AA is just another stupid @ss way the government tries to get involved in private affairs of PRIVATE businesses. A business should be allowed to discriminate however it wants to. Why force a business owner to hire someone he/she doesn't want? All that is going to do is cause major problems down the road.
I've noticed that places that sell nutitrition supplements for fitness, only hire people who are in good shape and have a tan. Should a law be passed forcing them to hire people who are grossly overweight? Of course not. It's just like how a group of men sued the restaurant Hooter's because Hooter's only hires young, attractive women. Completely outrageous. I suppose next they should pass a law making it so that Hollywood can't discriminate against people for different roles, look for Spiderman III where Spiderman is played by an overweight black woman. Give me a break.
I think not only is it racism but that it encourages racism as well as reverse racism.
It encourages racism by making people who deserved a job get upset when a less deserving person was hired, they grow to dislike the minorities. It also makes people never affected by AA irritated because they feel like jobs are being "given out" to undeserving minorities and encourages racism in the minorities because they assume all hiring managers are racists.
It encourages reverse racism because the minorities see AA as a necessity because it reinforces the idea that "whites will hire whites" and the minorities expect racism and live up to the "expectations" they think the white community has for them.
Either way you cut it just having AA supports racism whether it's real or not. If I knew black people had to hire me it would feel like I was being discriminated against whether I was or not.
It encourages racism by making people who deserved a job get upset when a less deserving person was hired, they grow to dislike the minorities. It also makes people never affected by AA irritated because they feel like jobs are being "given out" to undeserving minorities and encourages racism in the minorities because they assume all hiring managers are racists.
It encourages reverse racism because the minorities see AA as a necessity because it reinforces the idea that "whites will hire whites" and the minorities expect racism and live up to the "expectations" they think the white community has for them.
Either way you cut it just having AA supports racism whether it's real or not. If I knew black people had to hire me it would feel like I was being discriminated against whether I was or not.
The whole rationale behind affirmative action was it was supposed to redress prior wrongs. So the question is, how long does it need to be in place before we retrun to a level playing field? It really was not envisioned as a mechanism to keep the playing field level over the long haul, but continued because there was fear that once it was removed, the playing field would go way tilted. I've never heard of a real plan to maintain the level: perhaps quotas were the closest we had come, but the Supreme Court said quotas were unconstitutional.
Every politician knows AA is wrong, they are just too scared to get rid of it since groups such as the NAACP would cry foul, and play the race card. being called a racist, even if its just once, and even if its not warranted, kills a politicians career.
Whats sad is supporters of AA think its the only thing allowing minorities to get jobs, which couldnt be further from the truth. When i was in College, a woman wrote into the school paper complaining about certain movements to get rid of AA, she claimed removing AA would "Take away her 'right' to have a job" wow.
Whats sad is supporters of AA think its the only thing allowing minorities to get jobs, which couldnt be further from the truth. When i was in College, a woman wrote into the school paper complaining about certain movements to get rid of AA, she claimed removing AA would "Take away her 'right' to have a job" wow.
What problem? A little thing called hundreds of years of institutional racism. As others said, it hasn't worked very well in practice and isn't really all that fair, but to completely ignore the problem it tried to solve won't work very well either.
I find that its become nothing more than a scapegoat white people use to tell themselves that they really did deserve that job they didn't get.
"There you go again", using a strawman like Reagan's welfare queens to justify an otherwise totally reasonable position. I do agree that its a form of discrimination, but the truth is it DOES allow minorities to get jobs they otherwise wouldn't get (but its not the ONLY thing and I've never heard anyone claim so).
wtf are you talking about? "totally reaonable position" ? explain to me how discrimnating in favor of one race over another = rights.
"but the truth is it DOES allow minorities to get jobs they otherwise wouldn't get "
name one.
I was saying that your position was totally reasonable. I just didn't like the strawman method of proving it.
The place I work does use AA, and its better because of it.
Let's say you have 2 people trying out for the track team. Both run the 100 meters in 12 seconds. One has perfect form but the other has terrible form. Which one do you choose?
Why do we have it anyway? Why should colleges or other educational institutions care? Hell, if I was the cheif admissions officer, I'd take the brightest students and go down. I don't care if you're african american, native american, asian or austrilian. All I care is that you've got good grades...
halik
Lifer
- Oct 10, 2000
- 25,696
- 1
- 81
the problem AA is trying to address isnt necessarily defined by household income. AA is trying to address the problem of RACIAL segregation in the income distribution and education levels, not the gaps in income distribution. AA will in be unfair and racially biased, because it is addressing a problem that is such.
People seem to lose the point of this program in the scope of individual fairness, even though AA cannot be fair. You can't have a broad program that's trying to help a specific segment of population based on race.
I personally see programs as AA to be part of social engineering - if you can acknowledge that there is a problem and that problem is bound by the racial boundaries, you address it with a solution that falls within the same boundaries. If we can get the black income and education levels on par with the rest of the population, the whole society is better off. It might make us less efficent on short term basis, but in the end it will be beneficial for all (wellfare savings, crime rates, tax revenue etc. ). It's just that people cannot see the big picture
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