Affirmative Action

[thessalonian]

this is a bit like whites shot indians and stole their land so I am in favor of letting indians shoot whites and steal their land.

[thessalonian]

there are people who won't vote for Jacob on American Idol tonight because he's black. So should Jacob be spotted some votes because of this?

[Amppax]

[quote name='Maggie' timestamp='1304555639' post='2237243']
Then again, we did hire a president with a full name of Barack Hussein Obama. Even though some racists do go around quoting his full name as a way to imply he's an eeeevil Muslim. That's how his name was printed on the ballot and enough Americans saw it and still picked him for the highest office in the land that he won. Easily. Even though it's pretty much the opposite of a white-sounding name. They picked him over John McCain, aka the whitest man in the USA. I mean if those Americans had no problem hiring someone with that name as POTUS I am sure they would hire that name for VP of Advertising or CFO, CIO, or CEO or Mid-Level/Low-Level Peon in their enterprise.
[/quote]


[quote name='Maggie' timestamp='1304556762' post='2237262']
That's another point I forgot to make. How much affirmative action is really appropriate in a country where the freely-chosen leadership is minority race? No doubt our society has racist elements but can you really call it a racist or sexist society when much of the leadership is black, hispanic and/or female? I mean these are the people WE picked to lead us.
[/quote]


We've had 44 presidents. 1 has been a minority. We've had 1930 senators. 21 have been minorities, 35 have been women (from senate history website). Sorry there is no way i'm going to be able to find data for the house of reps, which is unfortunate, considering it is the one that i would assume would have the most minorities (but c'est la vie), but i would assume it wouldn't deviate greatly from the numbers for the senate. Going onto the Supreme Court, we've had 112 justices (yes this was on wikipedia, made my job soo much easier). out of these, we've had 4 minority members (Thomas, Marshall, Brandeis, Sotomayor [please correct this if I am wrong, i just glanced down the list] and 4 women, for 7 total. I don't know about you, but that would indicate to me that most of our leaders historically have been of one group: white men. Now i realize that you are talking about now. I just though that would be interesting to some people.

[dUSt]

[quote name='thessalonian' timestamp='1304557528' post='2237274']
this is a bit like whites shot indians and stole their land so I am in favor of letting indians shoot whites and steal their land.
[/quote]
That's ridiculous. That would actually be like me arguing that black people should enslave white people and create laws which make white people less than human, until white people are so marginalized and segregated from mainstream society that they fall into a state of hereditary poverty.

That's hardly what affirmative action is, and I'm surprised you're even trying to make that analogy.

[philothea]

There was a time I was generically opposed to affirmative action because it wasn't "fair" and it was "racist" ... and then I grew up and saw the world around me and how black people are treated on a day-to-day basis even now. (And I grew up poor and a good portion of my friends were black, so I should have known better.)

A couple years ago there was a huge blow up on my writing community, dubbed "RaceFail" where a whole lot of educating happened -- some of it a bit rough. But it was important for those of us who never have to deal with racism learn what it's like to be subject to it every moment of every day for an entire lifetime. What that does to your economic prospects, social ties, confidence, self respect. It's disastrous.

I don't know if race-based quotas in certain environments are the right answer, but society has to do [i]something[/i]. The burden should not be on the victims. It's up to rest of us to make it better, and since we can't change everyone's mind all at once, some kind of positive action toward those who are discriminated against is the only answer.

Here's a good, and somewhat famous, primer on racism, and how privileged white people are just by virtue of being white: http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

[Tearz of Wine]

I believe affirmitive action is racism with the intent to remove racism, and there fore it is still racism. and if you've seen american history x you see that this type of thing also creates more racism.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' timestamp='1304549833' post='2237174']
I don't think it makes sense to discriminate against people today because people discriminated in the past. I also don't think it makes ANY sense to say well of 100 people we have to hire 5 minorities to meet some made-up quota. What if 10 exceptionally qualified minorities show up ? You only have to hire 5 and then 5 good people miss out on a job.
Why not just hire or admit or whatever the best qualified people that meet the criteria of the job? And who gets to decide who is a "minority"? What of a person of mixed ancestry? Do you then reserve a number of slots for people who are mixtures of various groups? This maybe sounds like nit-picking but it isn't. On a geneology forum we were recently were discussing DNA ethnicity testing, and evidently some people are doing it to claim minority status to get scholarships designated for specific groups, such as Native Americans. They don't look Indian, were not raised on reservations but can claim inidan ancestry just to get special status. THat is just BS.
[/quote]
According to DNA testing, my family are Italian. Who knew. Anyway, ideally people would only look at the person to see if they are a good fit for the position, and skin colour or name would not be considered.

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1304554925' post='2237230']
Point taken. I'm not convinced affirmative action is the best solution either. I actually think it should start with schools and maybe even incentive programs for big businesses to move into poverty stricken areas with something other than minimum wage paying jobs. I don't know. I don't have the answers. I'm just not dismissing affirmative action as quickly as others because at least it's something--even though it may cause more grief than good.

I am convinced of one thing though, that it isn't "unfair" to white people. If that is the argument that continually arises, then a better solution will never materialize. I can think of many other more legitimate reasons affirmative action isn't the solution, but taking the "unfair to white people" stance just makes me laugh.
[/quote]
I'm inclined to agree for the most part. I think it's gone too far in some cases, where a posting specifically states that they'd prefer a woman or minority (yes, I've seen such a post, for a university lectureship). Obviously that is an abuse of the system. I don't know a better way to go about things than AA at the moment, though I don't think AA is the best way. I know things aren't all lollipops and rainbows now. I know my cousin and her husband have faced discrimination because they have different skin colours, and that's not good. Again, the ideal is that employers would just see a person, and wouldn't take their skin colour into consideration either way. Of course, ideally there also wouldn't be a gap in education and opportunities and such.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1304573300' post='2237420']
That's ridiculous. That would actually be like me arguing that black people should enslave white people and create laws which make white people less than human, until white people are so marginalized and segregated from mainstream society that they fall into a state of hereditary poverty.

That's hardly what affirmative action is, and I'm surprised you're even trying to make that analogy.
[/quote]

It's the perfect analogy for the "War on Poverty," and its little hydra heads of welfare, food stamps, and Section 8 housing. It's like a big, condescending government pat on the backs of black people, while saying, "You're right, black people. You [i]can't[/i] make it on your own. Here, have some handouts from the nice rich white men. Don't even try to improve your lot in life, because if you start making over X, the benefits disappear, and you'll fall back into impoverishment."

It's wrong and racist to force someone to hire someone because of his skin color, as opposed to hiring him on the basis of his skills.

~Sternhauser

[HopefulBride]

OK here is how I interpret affirmative action (aka how I think it should work) say for example you have two candidates for a job, both have the same credentials both have the same experience. However one is Hispanic and the other is Caucasian. It should also be mentioned that your workforce is 90 percent Caucasian, 5% Asian 4% Black and 1% Hispanic. In this instance, Affirmative Action would give the Hispanic candidate preference over the Caucasian candidate.

I do not agree with hiring/admitting someone with less credentials over someone way overqualified because of their gender, color of their skin etc. because it is a disservice to the person you are hiring (they are in a job/academic program where you are potentially setting them up for failure) and also it may affect their self-image and they might realize that their talent was not enough to get them the job/admission since the basis was their ethnicity. This is why I mentioned in an earlier post that I think it should be treated the same way VA preference is treated.

So Do I think Affirmative action is wrong? My response to the OP would be this question: How do YOU interpret Affirmative Action?

[Winchester]

We recently had some affirmative action at work. Seven people who didn't study got court ordered promotions because our tests discriminated against people who answered questions incorrectly.

Race is not culture or socio-economic status.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1304562675' post='2237341']
We've had 44 presidents. 1 has been a minority. We've had 1930 senators. 21 have been minorities, 35 have been women (from senate history website). Sorry there is no way i'm going to be able to find data for the house of reps, which is unfortunate, considering it is the one that i would assume would have the most minorities (but c'est la vie), but i would assume it wouldn't deviate greatly from the numbers for the senate. Going onto the Supreme Court, we've had 112 justices (yes this was on wikipedia, made my job soo much easier). out of these, we've had 4 minority members (Thomas, Marshall, Brandeis, Sotomayor [please correct this if I am wrong, i just glanced down the list] and 4 women, for 7 total. I don't know about you, but that would indicate to me that most of our leaders historically have been of one group: white men. Now i realize that you are talking about now. I just though that would be interesting to some people.
[/quote]
Obviously the only factor would be unjust discrimination and outside causes. Culture and life choices within the person or community would certainly not affect this and "white male" is a very specific, not overly broad category at all.

[ParadiseFound]

I think it's wrong to judge just by skin colour. What if the white guy is Polish or South African or whatever instead of American?

[ParadiseFound]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1304551911' post='2237189']
Also, have you ever thought about what it takes for a black person to have the "same qualifications" as a white person. Realistically? Wouldn't it be safe to assume, depending on the most probable scenario, that the average black person would have to work a lot harder than the average white person to achieve those "same qualifications"? Is [b]that[/b] fair? Why should black people have to work harder to achieve the same results? Not fair at all if you ask me.
[/quote]
I understand where you're coming from, however you simply can't judge how privileged a life someone has had by how much melanin they happen to have in their skin. What if it is the white guy who's had to fight his way through substandard education whilst the black guy cruises through an expensive private school?

[Groo the Wanderer]

Get over it everyone!

When it comes down to it, we're all Mesopotamian anyway. sheeze!



now play nice

[Winchester]

[url="http://www.amazon.com/Economic-Facts-Fallacies-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465022030/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304618311&sr=1-1"]Economic Facts and Fallacies[/url]

I've been reading this. While there are more resources to read, this book gives more information than is typically provided by short news reports and asks some worthy questions.