Why I support Affirmitive Action, and why you should too..

[I'm Cleo!]

Elrohir,

Well, if some people in the society are racist, and act on that, then members of the minority in that society are affected by racial discrimination, even if not every member of the majority would be considered "racist." I think when people say that a society is "racist," that's generally what they mean. If there's some likelihood that any given black job seeker will meet with discrimination that a white job seeker would not, then there's racial discrimination that, presumably, should be remedied. How do you remedy that without taking race into account?

Cleo

 

[Patroklos]

Exactly the way we remedy safety standard abuse and tax evasion, or pretty much any illegal activity.

 

[Elrohir]

Elrohir,

Well, if some people in the society are racist, and act on that, then members of the minority in that society are affected by racial discrimination, even if not every member of the majority would be considered "racist." I think when people say that a society is "racist," that's generally what they mean. If there's some likelihood that any given black job seeker will meet with discrimination that a white job seeker would not, then there's racial discrimination that, presumably, should be remedied. How do you remedy that without taking race into account?

Cleo

Primarily, I'd say you remedy that by punishing companies that break the law. You don't do it by instituting an unfair and racist program - that's even worse than doing nothing. (Because at least the original racism is personal; this is institutional and governmental) Fine corporations that repeatedly offend, and after a certain number of cases, publish their names so that people can boycott them. (And up the fines significantly) Infiltration of major corporations is also an option; if you can gather evidence that there's a stated policy of racial discrimination, then prison terms for upper management might be in order. This of course will require a good amount of funding - but probably in the millions, rather than billions, and benefits from being equal in regards to race, instead of racist. And it'd probably be both cheaper, and more effective than the current system.

Go after the people who do bad things - don't punish people indiscriminately.

 

[I'm Cleo!]

Patroklos (edit: and Elrohir),

Through regulation and government enforcement? That's a lot more work for government attorneys, and it's really difficult to prove. Relying on private suits that job seekers might not have the money for stacks the deck in favor of employers.

I don't know how I come down on it, but it's a tough question without easy answers.

Cleo

 

[Nike Zeus]

El Mach, do you think that AA will actually end racism in our society, or that our society will stop being racist in a few generations? Otherwise, what is the logic in having race based AA as a temporary measure?

 

[El_Machinae]

That sounds an awful lot like what you're arguing - if there's a difference, could you clearly state it for me?

I'll try. Maybe re-read my previous descriptions after reading this.
Your family never took anything from black people. You've always treated them with Christian honesty, never differently than anyone else.

When your parents (as teens) went looking for jobs, they got better jobs than black people (with the same resumes) could have gotten. You've directly benefited, and you're in a much better position than the black child will be.

Now, if you go back (or forward) a few generations, the cycles become important. When you're looking for a job, you have an advantage over a black guy who had all the advantages you did. But here's the rub, for him to have the same advantages you do, his parents would have had to be harder working than your parents were.

Then correct those specific wrongs - go after companies that hire less qualified whites over more qualified blacks. But creating a whole system based on giving blacks stuff because they're black is no better. It's just as bad.

Neither system will work completely. We've already got anti-discrimination laws. We've already got AA. There are many solutions, but (in the end) one solution won't be a catch-all. It's not like AA is going to go away soon, so it's nonsensical to use it to propagate further racism.

I am not racist, nor are my parents, not are most of the people around me. If you want to call yourself and your friends and your family racist, then that's your affair - but it's insulting for you to me and mine in such a presumptive way.

I don't know why you two are having such a problem with this.
Can you accept that we treat attractive people differently than ugly people?
Can you accept that we treat women differently from men?
Can you accept that we treat a person differently, based on first impressions? Or on the clothes they're wearing?
Now, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we catch ourselves doing it, and correct it. But sometimes we do.

Why's it so hard to accept that we implicitly treat people differently based on race?

If they don't show up for the interview, then why do they deserve the job? I don't expect to get a job if I won't show up for an interview, why should anyone else? If I were an employer, I wouldn't hire someone too lazy to come to an interview. I wouldn't care if they were white or black; if you don't show up, you don't get a job.

I was responding to the idea of having a government agency send out false resumes. There's a long tradition of weeding out people at the interview, if one is bigoted.

But there are poor white people now! I see them every day - poor white folks who have no money and no resources, and your programs don't help them because they have the wrong color skin.

Here's the difference between us: I want to help the poor, those who don't have much. You just want to help poor blacks. I don't think your system is particularly effective even at that, but even if it were, it'd still be unjust because it only focuses on some of the disadvantaged.

You're envisioning a strawman of my position.

Of course AA doesn't help poor white people. That's not what it's designed to do. My buying fair trade organic coffee doesn't help poor white people either, but it's not designed to. My opposition to bombing Iran certainly doesn't help poor white people either.

I support all types of systems to reduce, minimize, and eliminate poverty. I'm all over the place. But different problems require different (and multiple) solutions. There's an historical (and ongoing) problem with endemic racial poverty & racism, and part of the solution is to get more black kids raised in middle income homes and get them employed in middle income jobs.

Heck, it's only a couple generations. We have other issues which won't go away for hundreds of years (ecological overconsumption, for example)

 

[Zarn]

Elrohir,

Well, if some people in the society are racist, and act on that, then members of the minority in that society are affected by racial discrimination, even if not every member of the majority would be considered "racist." I think when people say that a society is "racist," that's generally what they mean. If there's some likelihood that any given black job seeker will meet with discrimination that a white job seeker would not, then there's racial discrimination that, presumably, should be remedied. How do you remedy that without taking race into account?

Cleo

Education. Just teach people. Throwing more racism into the mix does not solve anything.

Also, if you don't like a company... boycott it. Companies love profit.

 

[El_Machinae]

El Mach, do you think that AA will actually end racism in our society, or that our society will stop being racist in a few generations? Otherwise, what is the logic in having race based AA as a temporary measure?

No, AA won't end racism. I don't know what will. We really should just screw until everyone is brown, but we're not doing that.

But we're sure to become less racist. I'm betting on it. It was only 50 years ago when people thought is was okay for black people to have to sit in a different part of the bus. As well, once there's a more even distribution in economic power, it's not really something that AA will be able to fix. AA is a fairly large hammer.

 

[Nylan]

All AA does is take racist policies of the past and invert them. How is that not perpetuating racism and actually negative to society? When should it be "stopped", when will people know when everything has been "paid back"? They won't.

Seriously, why can't anyone give a straight answer as to why benefit based on socio-economic status wouldn't be better? Isn't AA racist in that it automatically assumes the minority is poorer?

 

[Elponitnatsnoc]

http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2008/02/13/HigherEd/Without.Affirmative.Action.Asian.Admission.Rates.Rise-3206465.shtml

Look, it can be seen that the system hurts Asians, no? Can't it be argued that another minority has been disadvantaged? It's not as if we haven't suffered and don't continue to suffer from racism.

No, no... you see we only can only use affirmative action against minorities who are associated with being victims of injustice. Plenty of Jews were lynched in the USA too and discriminated against (my family had to change their last name and move b/c of anti-semitism in America), but society only remembers Jews being murdered by Europeans. Thus, we don't owe them anything

Countless Chinese and Japanese died building the railroads. But who really knows about this? Thus, we don't think we owe them anything, especially since many (but not all) Asians have been very successful.

And what about the Germans ("damned Dutchman [sic]", their RC churches were burned down. And what about the Irish ("Irish need not apply")? And what about the Muslims (racial profiling)? Of course, the Italians were disrciminated against too.

America is unique in it's extreme intolerance of immigrants and other cultures. Bizarre, given that we are a nation founded by immigrants... Every single group has been discriminated against at some point. And who are we, is anyone, to say that slavery was "worse" than the virtual slave labor, discrimination, and jingoism experienced by every other ethnic group. Yet, some have pulled themselves off the ground and some haven't. Should we now penalize the Jews for being successful members of society while reward the blacks (with AA) for contributing most of the prison population?

I find it extremely disturbing that we try to make up for our wrongs to only certain ethnic groups and actually think we are making things "fair". "Evening the playing field" is a phrase I sometimes hear. The playing field is already even. A racist is just as unlikely to hire a Moshe Rosenkrantz as he is to hire a Tolken Black as he is to hire a Ramon Sanchez as he is to hire a Yu Wei.

When your parents (as teens) went looking for jobs, they got better jobs than black people (with the same resumes) could have gotten. You've directly benefited, and you're in a much better position than the black child will be.

Not entirely true. And I don't think believe in this "eye for an eye" treatment. If you disadvantage a race, shame on you. If you disvantage every other race to make up for it, you haven't learned a thing.

Why's it so hard to accept that we implicitly treat people differently based on race?

Then why not advantage every single minority instead of just some?

But we're sure to become less racist. I'm betting on it.

I'll need to stop by a Pale Blue Dot to collect my money.

 

[Merkinball]

Why do you think most marriages are 'within race'? - El Mach

Because white guys don't know what they're missing?

 

[I'm Cleo!]

I also think we have to note that people are using very different definitions of "racism." Some people are using it to describe any government policy that draws classes on the basis of race; others are clearly referring to a system of invidious prejudice based on race. With the first definition, Affirmative Action falls within the definition of "racism," with the latter, I would argue more-commonly-used definition, it doesn't. Cf. the debate in constitutional interpretation between the "colorblind" and "anti-caste" principles in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Cleo

 

[El_Machinae]

Not entirely true. And I don't think believe in this "eye for an eye" treatment. If you disadvantage a race, shame on you. If you disvantage every other race to make up for it, you haven't learned a thing.

I could be convinced that other minorities should be included for consideration. Canadian aboriginals are included in our considerations.

To all: Let's look for some statistics on this 'disadvantage' foisted onto others.

Go to your local medical or law school (if they have AA). Find out the acceptance rates in the "non AA portion" of their admissions, and look at the MCAT/GPA distribution. Then find the portion specifically for their AA component, and look at the MCAT/GPA distribution.

What portion of the AA 'recipients' underperformed the lowest performer of the regular recipients?

I'll need to stop by a Pale Blue Dot to collect my money.

The poetic allusions expressed by this sentence are awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

 

[JollyRoger]

So long as we have affirmative action for the grandsons of admirals (McCrash), I see no problem to have it for other reasons.

 

[Nylan]

What about me? My ancestors were forced into slavery. Why don't I get a check or a ticket to Yale? Oh, that's right. Race is the only factor you care about, and I happen to be white.

If you're going to "repay" people for past injustices, you'd better saddle up and get ready to pay for every misdeed that's ever hurt someone's standard of living. Otherwise you're just scratching the surface, and as a result screwing people over, which is completely conterproductive. If this forum had a seal of epic failure, I would use it. AA simply fails to do what it claims to do and yet still manages to make things worse.

 

[Elponitnatsnoc]

I could be convinced that other minorities should be included for consideration. Canadian aboriginals are included in our considerations.

My contention is that practically every single ethnic group has been discriminated against at some point in American history. And I do not like judging the suffering endured and concluding that "well X suffered more than Y, so let's reward them". I don't think anyone should be rewarded if others are not.

 

[El_Machinae]

Nylan: You already get Affirmative Action in our society. If you and a black man show up for the same job (and have the same resume), you're more likely to get the job.

So go collect your paycheque. Quit whining.

My contention is that practically every single ethnic group has been discriminated against at some point in American history. And I do not like judging the suffering endured and concluding that "well X suffered more than Y, so let's reward them". I don't think anyone should be rewarded if others are not.

Do other ethnicities have the endemic poverty and do they suffer near the same levels of discrimination? Pop them into the list.

 

[Merkinball]

So long as we have affirmative action for the grandsons of admirals (McCrash), I see no problem to have it for other reasons.

Well that's your problem. McCain (McCrash is totally tasteless dude) shouldn't have gotten in, and neither should unqualified anybodys of any race.

 

[El_Machinae]

So long as we have affirmative action for the grandsons of admirals (McCrash), I see no problem to have it for other reasons.

Don't alumnis (as a whole) pay a fairly large chunk of change to the Universities? People should be allowed to buy improved stations for their children.

 

[Nylan]

Nylan: You already get Affirmative Action in our society. If you and a black man show up for the same job (and have the same resume), you're more likely to get the job.

So go collect your paycheque. Quit whining.

What world do you live in? I'll only get the job if he mumbles and comes in with his pants down to his knees, and even then it's a stretch. If he's all pressed up he's more likely to get it, thanks to the AA mentality of our society.

I find it amusing that these affirmative action advocates think that they can play God. We can't even begin to make right all the mistakes of the past, all we can do is put them behind us. Instead, we'd rather perpetuate them.

EDIT: I'd also like to point out that all of my whiter friends and I have had extreme trouble getting jobs the past six months, whereas a number of minority druggies I've shared classes with have been fortunate enough to switch jobs 3 to 4 times during the same time period, as well as my minority friends of equal credentials. How do you make right such an anomaly? Oh that's right, your system CAN'T.