How do you feel about affirmative action?

Replace it with true antidiscriminatory practices

ok let me get this out first, I am not racist AT ALL!! Now back to the story

There are some teachers and adminstrators I have to put up with due to affirmative action that wouldn't last a week based on merit. They know it too and, I think, revel in it. They've adopted what I call the "lil jon" mentality, where the world owes them something because they are black. This irritates me to no end because I know if I was that slack in my duties I'd get canned. I think affirmative action was a good idea back in say 1960. Now it has gotten to the point where people take advantage of it.

I know this will offend someone but, oh well. Its my opinion.

I definitely believe that the disadvantaged should be given a hand up, but policies based on race are inherently racist. We need colorblind policies as badly as we need a colorblind society.

I definitely believe that the disadvantaged should be given a hand up, but policies based on race are inherently racist. We need colorblind policies as badly as we need a colorblind society.

A. Diversify the enthicities attending college
OR
B. Provide opportunities to ethnicities classically not attending college

K, maybe I'm being horribly dense here, but I'm not really getting how these are so very different?

And it's not really about intent to me. It's about what happens when it's put in practice.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Picking a one person over another based on race is still discrimination. AA is saying we are guility of the sins of our ancestors. Let's punish people today what was done long ago. Not saying there are not racist people still in the world.
It is nothing like it was years ago. Plus we do have laws in place to protect peoples rights.
It is unfair and not right to tell someone "Oh you would be perfect but we have to make this attempt to make things look right"

AA is a empty victory. Work hard and it boils down to what gender or skin color you have.
If I found out the only reason I have my job is because I fit a statiscal profile set forth to make the company look good. I would be very upset.


Rox

Actually, AA is saying that bigotry is still extant - and it is.

K, maybe I'm being horribly dense here, but I'm not really getting how these are so very different?

And it's not really about intent to me. It's about what happens when it's put in practice.

Discrimination of any sort is wrong and goes against the fundamentals upon which this country was based.

Furthermore, AA is itself inherintely bigotted because it's saying to minorities, "You need the help of the white man because you can't do it on your own like we can."QUOTE]

Kiamat, the discrimination built this nation and the racism was built into the constitution for a long, long time. That is not a small thing. That is not going quietly into the night just because we see the flipside of favoritism.

What IS inherently bigotted is the idea that AA is essentially "You need help from the white man because you can't do it on your own"

Consider this: For centuries, racism kept entire generations from being educated, earning a healthy wage and growing culturally. That is not a small thing and setting the dial back at zero after centuries of -5 is not going to make up the lost time. Poverty is poverty generation after generation. Making bad choices is passed down from generation to generation. You HAVE to lift a person to help him out of a hole. You cannot simply ask him to start building a ladder from roots and grass.

favor him and help him until he can do it for you in return. the argument for ME is: I dont' think AA does this well at all. But modern favoritism is NOT the same as racism.

~Lefty
~Lefty

If anything is decided based on race it IS racism, I don't care what fancy disarming terms you hide it behind. It may not be *hateful* racism, but it is racism.

Lets say I owned a buisness in a very racist area, although I myself am not racist. I know if I hire a person that the area hates based on their race, this could effect my buisness, so I don't hire them - I'm not personally being racist, but the action was still a racist one.

It truely IS about intent. The only meaningful arguement behind race is what to do about it. Anyone who thinks racism started in the USA cotton fields is clearly lost and arguing the wrong points and anyone who thinks that affermative action is keeping racism alive is merely being facile. Racism is as old as the apes who came before us. It is as deep within our psyche as physical attraction is.

Again, I ask: Are we making last-ditch efforts to promote minorities in education? ~OR~ are we simply trying to plant seeds of equality in a higher-learning invironment? (Are we sneaking equality into our lives so we become used to having eachother around?)

The answer makes a HUGE difference and I think it's important to think about it long and hard. One answer seems to be rediculous. The other, useless unless we give it two or three generations. The lesser of two evils just might be the answer you didn't think was the CORE issue. I'm sorry i made it seem like the two questions were similar. That was trickery on my part and I'm sorry but they really are HUGE differences with huge outcomes. Intentions are everything.

~Lefty

If anything is decided based on race it IS racism, I don't care what fancy disarming terms you hide it behind. It may not be *hateful* racism, but it is racism.

Lets say I owned a buisness in a very racist area, although I myself am not racist. I know if I hire a person that the area hates based on their race, this could effect my buisness, so I don't hire them - I'm not personally being racist, but the action was still a racist one.

Lefty, I don't want to come off as too condescending, but I went to UMich, too, so I know the flavor of BS that's peddled there.

You talk about AA in terms of theories and ideas. That's well and good. You're a college student.

However, things change when you get into the real world. When you go to interview for a job and are told, as my husband once was, that you had the high score on the civil service exam but there's no job for you because you're too male and too white, that takes it out of the realm of theory and smacks it down in the reality of your life.

Saying that AA perpetuates racism is not "facile." It's been a reality for several people. And really, the very subtly nuanced differences in intent make little difference (I still don't understand what you're getting at there, sorry). It's what happens because those policies in place that have formed my opinions.

I'm not a college student and I'm very much entrenched in the "real" world. I am aware of employee statistics and I do NOT think they are healthy nor accomplishing anything. You tell me that I treat AA "in terms of theories and ideas" but I don't understand your meaning. Affirmative Action is a method, it is a policy, so the ideals and social patterns distilled that policy into practice. We have to examine those intents and assumptions of the founding thinkers. We all agree they were wrong. AA is a complicated subject for sure and it's broken. I have NOT, in any single sentence, defended it. I merely want to show you both sides of the argument of what it's failing at. Straight out of the mouths of NPR, CNN and the many mouths who breath life into the subject. We no longer know how to fix the problem of a sterile life. AA is NOT the answer but we don’t' have any GOOD answers, either. That is as much clarification on my views as I can offer. Sometimes splitting hairs is the hard work nobody wants to do without monitary compensation.

~Lefty

If anything is decided based on race it IS racism, I don't care what fancy disarming terms you hide it behind. It may not be *hateful* racism, but it is racism.

Lets say I owned a buisness in a very racist area, although I myself am not racist. I know if I hire a person that the area hates based on their race, this could effect my buisness, so I don't hire them - I'm not personally being racist, but the action was still a racist one.

Equality has to be FORCED on the educated population so that they, in turn, can force it on the lay person.

So how do we give everyone a fair chance?

Equality cannot be forced. Attempting to do so breeds resentment on the part of those who are forced out to make room for the artifical equality, and dependence and reliance on the part of those who are 'helped' by the practice.

You or I, none of us, can do that. It can only happen as society changes. Until then, "fair" is only a false term for "not the one being shafted this week".