# Anybody Who Really Supports Affirmative Action? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 5, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874 "2011-07-05T03:36:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/41 "2011-07-05T23:40:26Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s your second attempt to drag interracial marriage into this thread. Don’t blame Qin, I brought it up, as part of my belief that we should encourage racial blending where it occurs. Perhaps I sounded overly prescriptive. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/42 "2011-07-05T23:47:52Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > No reason the Huxtable kids should get affirmative action because their black while the trailer trash kids don’t. What are your thoughts on women getting AA when they’ve grown up alongside their Huxtable brothers? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/43 "2011-07-05T23:54:18Z")
I think AA has it’s place. I support a program where using race or gender, regardless of which group it is, should not ALWAYS be ignored when weighing candidates. For instance, if a school is comprised of nothing but women faculty and a male submits an application for a position, I think there is justification for using gender as a hiring criteria. Not the top one, or second to the top one, but still an important one. But if I’m hiring for stockroom staff at a grocery, I don’t believe race or gender should come into play at all. I’ve seen AA-like policies make government inefficient. For instance, as a state employee, I cannot buy a simple staple machine from anyone. I have to go through a laborious process of selecting a SWM vendor (small/women/minority-owned business). Usually, it will boil down to one or two vendors…because there are few vendors who have bothered to fill out all that craptacular paperwork to become SWM eligible. It doesn’t matter if the vendors have a tremendous mark-up on their products. It doesn’t matter if the business is actually run by a guy and his wife is the president in name only. All that matters is that there is an illusion of fairness being kept. But it’s not fair, it’s not efficient, and it’s not how things should work, IMHO. If I want to buy a stapler, I should be able to go to any office supply catalogue and buy it. It’s coming out of my grant money, so if I get ripped off, then it will be my responsibility. As it is now, if I get ripped off, it’s the government’s fault for forcing me to go with a SWM vendor. No one that I work with likes SWM. No one. As for AA in schools, I still remain ambivalent. I think diversity does have its place and I think a school should feel free to pick and choose candidates based on things beyond grades and test scores. But I think it does stigmitize minority students unfairly, and makes white students who are denied entrance feel unfairly penalized. “Life isn’t fair” is one answer to this, but that also applied when minorities were explicitly barred from institutions. And we all know that wasn’t right. So I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2011, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/44 "2011-07-05T23:58:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth \*\*To be clear, by the way, I don’t think affirmative action is the optimum solution. There are kids like Jamal out there who happen to be white, too, and they need and deserve a helping hand just as much. And there are black kids who are born into wealthy, stable, supportive families, who are already getting all they need. In the ideal world, we’d give help to whomever needed it. But lacking that, affirmative action is still better than nothing. That is just it though. It is a hopeless mix of ill-defined goals based on group performance versus individual performance. Do we need affirmative action help Jews out that don’t go into historically non-Jewish jobs. They were a persecuted minority by any stretch but it would be hard to argue that they need systematic help as a group for anything now in the U.S. The same is true with females. Affirmative action will need to be reversed to favor males if college graduation trends continue. What if the females are simply better at following through with school now and the need for help is over? These are government programs so they are fairly slow to move. How much micromanaging of this plan do you want to do? If it is a lot, why not just break it down to the individual level to begin with where such a thing could conceivably have a place if there is one? I find it hard to believe that anyone would not find it absurd that Will Smith’s black children need systematic help in anything yet the hard studying white child from impoverished Appalachia deserves it less. The counter to that is we can’t worry about the subtleties of every situation and have to define it based on broad groups. In other words, you will help people that don’t need help in favor of those that do because of an ill-defined goal and everything will work out to better magically for everyone because of liberal quasi-religious beliefs. That is just rainbows and unicorn thinking as no place in rational discussion. Come back with an actual plan with real and measurable goals with well defined criteria for that plan and then we can talk. Hint: a series of inspiring posters is not a good plan. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/45 "2011-07-06T00:44:04Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > That is just it though. It is a hopeless mix of ill-defined goals based on group performance versus individual performance. Do we need affirmative action help Jews out that don’t go into historically non-Jewish jobs. They were a persecuted minority by any stretch but it would be hard to argue that they need systematic help as a group for anything now in the U.S. The same is true with females. Affirmative action will need to be reversed to favor males if college graduation trends continue. What if the females are simply better at following through with school now and the need for help is over? These are government programs so they are fairly slow to move. How much micromanaging of this plan do you want to do? If it is a lot, why not just break it down to the individual level to begin with where such a thing could conceivably have a place if there is one? > > I find it hard to believe that anyone would not find it absurd that Will Smith’s black children need systematic help in anything yet the hard studying white child from impoverished Appalachia deserves it less. The counter to that is we can’t worry about the subtleties of every situation and have to define it based on broad groups. In other words, you will help people that don’t need help in favor of those that do because of an ill-defined goal and everything will work out to better magically for everyone because of liberal quasi-religious beliefs. That is just rainbows and unicorn thinking as no place in rational discussion. Come back with an actual plan with real and measurable goals with well defined criteria for that plan and then we can talk. Hint: a series of inspiring posters is not a good plan. I don’t think anyone is claiming affirmative action is perfect. But racism is a real problem not just something that black people and liberals made up. We tried the hands off approach for a hundred years and it didn’t seem to be making any progress. So I think a more direct intervention was justified and affirmative action is a part of that. And it does seem to be producing better results than the hands off approach. So if you’re proposing abolishing affirmative action, you need to offer an alternative that works at least as well - and doing nothing doesn’t meet that standard. In your own words, come back with an actual plan with real and measurable goals with well defined criteria for that plan and then we can talk. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/46 "2011-07-06T03:27:52Z")
> [@villa](#): > > This strikes me as extremely unlikely, because there is no requirement under any law that a city be required to “dumb a test down enough for minorities” so presumably any government law suit on the basis that a city “can’t dumb a test down enough for minorities” is doomed. > > Unless, of course, you are seeking to poison the well by presenting the lawsuit in a your own terminology rather than represent the actual grounds of the suit, that is… They redid the test twice going to outside sources to construct a bias free test. [It’s been going on since 2006](http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/as-police-force-shrinks-hiring-held-up-by-lawsuit-1099189.html?cxtype=rss_news). The lawsuits don’t challenge the content of the test. They simply state that if not enough minorities pass, the test is discriminatory. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/47 "2011-07-06T03:29:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So if you’re proposing abolishing affirmative action, you need to offer an alternative that works at least as well - and doing nothing doesn’t meet that standard. In your own words, come back with an actual plan with real and measurable goals with well defined criteria for that plan and then we can talk. Ok, I know you didn’t expect a real answer but I will try. If you want to keep affirmative action, create an AA score for every single person computed when they graduate high school. The base factor is 1 and it represents the multiplier that person is eligible for in terms of base financial aid for future schooling. If you are a white male from a middle-class suburb with two parents at home, you would have a score of about 1 for this AA factor. The multiplier wouldn’t be determined politically at all. It would simply be based on detailed comparison demographics for people most similar to you. It would take into account your family income, family marital status, parental profession, race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and specific geographical location with their associated current outcomes. This is easier than ever to do know with the wealth of data that is being tied together electronically and mined. It is just a variation of what private marketing companies already to with demographic data. As your very specific demographic group drops or rises in educational achievement, each person in that group would be eligible for more or less grants, loans, and scholarships not just for college but also trade schools. This AA based funding wouldn’t apply after schooling has stopped for a certain number of years and wouldn’t apply to employers themselves. It would simply serve to increase the opportunities for the next crop of underrepresented groups no matter what those might be. That is just a rough idea I made up. It could be done because variations of it are done by marketing companies with the wealth of information now available for mining. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/48 "2011-07-06T03:43:37Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > The base factor is 1 and it represents the multiplier that person is eligible for in terms of base financial aid for future schooling. You’re talking about financial aid, but the most contentious affirmative action issue is for admissions, which is rather separate. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/49 "2011-07-06T03:54:41Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > You’re talking about financial aid, but the most contentious affirmative action issue is for admissions, which is rather separate. Money and admissions aren’t completely separate things. The goal with the plan I outlined isn’t to affect admissions for specific programs by law but private colleges are free to do it if they choose. Most schools don’t have competitive admissions at all and, of the ones that do, it is of questionable utility to admit students that are underqualified in test scores and GPA because a disproportionate amount of them will drop or flunk out. This already happens. The real goal is more indirect and long-term. It wouldn’t be to get a certain number of black students into the University of Texas law school for example. It would be to increase opportunities for all disadvantaged groups according to the statistics and allow them to choose what accredited programs to use the money for. The larger goal is to build up an educational base within that group over time for whatever they decide to do and hopefully get them on good enough footing so their factor becomes 1 as well. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/50 "2011-07-06T04:38:22Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > The real goal is more indirect and long-term. It wouldn’t be to get a certain number of black students into the University of Texas law school for example. It would be to increase opportunities for all disadvantaged groups according to the statistics and allow them to choose what accredited programs to use the money for. The problem with this approach is that most people’s biases and prejudices are not based on statistical analysis and data mining. Those are the longterm behaviors we are trying to counteract (in addition to building a more inclusive and diverse community). Do you think think somebody walking down the street would be any less afraid of a “scary looking” black guy just because he happens to be Will Smith’s son? A women doesn’t clutch her purse a little tighter because she has determined the man’s education background, home life, and economic status make him statistically more likely to rob her. The hiring partner at a firm may might still pass over a resumé with a black sounding name even if the person is far more qualified and competent than the other applicants. People react to superficial things. Any system we put in place should keep that in mind. That’s why a more rigorous approach isn’t always a practical thing to do; especially when the real world criteria people use is not rigorous at all. Just as it would be more precise to paint a house with a single hair, a roller or paint sprayer is much more effective. Even though you sacrifice some precision, you can get the job done well enough in the vast majority of cases. It would be far better to tweak the system we have mow with means testing (or something like that), than to devise some system that measures something imperceptible to most people in order to change their perceptions and reactions. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/51 "2011-07-06T08:45:41Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Try this, **Qin**. For 100 years my family has been systematically stealing half your family’s income. Every paycheck, half is deducted and given to us. Every tax refund, every lottery win, every interest or dividend payment – we got half. A few years back, we came to the shocked realization that this was wrong, evil. So we stopped doing it. That means that you and I can compete on equal footing now, right? Except that my family is twenty times richer than yours, on that hundred years of ripoff – which we did not give back. > > And here in Kudzu County, Jim Bob done got named Federal funds admijistrator, and of course he gave all the contracts to Good Ol’ Boy Conszxtruction, just like always. And Miz Pearl’s wholesale business, of course she’s going to supply the Federal offices here with all the supplies they need – why, her family’s been in the business since 18 hundred forty and two! And Rufus Washington Construction, proudly African American owned and managed? Well, they can build the Black Baptist Church and pave county route ten, just like always. Ramasakhara’s Wholesale? Let them sell to their own people. > > Getting the picture now? Affirmative action works to ensure that the tax moneys all of us pay get spent evenly among all of us, not those who have an in. And too, it makes sure that those who were systematically shortchanged in the past are sure to have a leg up. Pastor **Polycarp** , had I not grown up im Kudzu County I might be offended by that tale. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/52 "2011-07-06T09:31:10Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Well people were throwing around “Asian-American” as if it were another race. And if “people” all jumped off a bridge… Also, way to miss my point - which is that “race” can _easily_ be shown to be a useless concept for the purpose of deciding things like historical disadvantage. “Hmong-American” is a more useful concept than “Asian-American” for classification purposes. Just like I wouldn’t class a recent Black Botswanan immigrant to the US as “African-American” for the purposes of AA, so clearly “Black” is a useless term here (and it of course shouldn’t bear pointing out that “African-American” in the narrow sense of “Black-slave-descendant” is closer to “Hmong-American” than it is to “Asian-American”.) Much better to go with smaller, _actually-existing_ groupings, like ethnicity or tribe - if you can’t go with personal histories for some reason like expense or efficiency. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/53 "2011-07-06T09:39:20Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > How about this. Instead of affirmative action based on race, we do it on the basis of economic circumstances. Because instead of a simple ID/BC check, you’d need a full certified financial history. It raises the expense of the process. But more importantly, AA isn’t just about improving the lot of the appointee, but correcting entrenched systemic demographic imbalances in large organisations - you’re not going to get business management in a country like South Africa to (poorly, but better-)reflect the actual makeup of the country if you just replace rich Whites with poor Whites. All that means is that you’ve enriched another generation of Whites (at the expense of Blacks again.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/54 "2011-07-06T09:41:18Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Ok, I know you didn’t expect a real answer but I will try. If you want to keep affirmative action, create an AA score for every single person computed when they graduate high school. The base factor is 1 and it represents the multiplier that person is eligible for in terms of base financial aid for future schooling. If you are a white male from a middle-class suburb with two parents at home, you would have a score of about 1 for this AA factor. The multiplier wouldn’t be determined politically at all. It would simply be based on detailed comparison demographics for people most similar to you. It would take into account your family income, family marital status, parental profession, race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and specific geographical location with their associated current outcomes. This is easier than ever to do know with the wealth of data that is being tied together electronically and mined. It is just a variation of what private marketing companies already to with demographic data. > > As your very specific demographic group drops or rises in educational achievement, each person in that group would be eligible for more or less grants, loans, and scholarships not just for college but also trade schools. This AA based funding wouldn’t apply after schooling has stopped for a certain number of years and wouldn’t apply to employers themselves. It would simply serve to increase the opportunities for the next crop of underrepresented groups no matter what those might be. That is just a rough idea I made up. It could be done because variations of it are done by marketing companies with the wealth of information now available for mining. It’s a possible idea. Although I’d probably go with a birth baseline rather than a graduation one. It’s easier to address a problem the earlier you start. Start eveyone a zero and then monitor the progress through life. Shift the numbers and see if there are groups that are falling into the negatives. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/55 "2011-07-06T09:42:28Z")
BTW, no-one (well, not me, anyway. I don’t know about _those_ guys) who favours AA is saying there can’t also be \*other \*programs based on other criteria like financial need. ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/56 "2011-07-06T12:07:56Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > What are your thoughts on women getting AA when they’ve grown up alongside their Huxtable brothers? Same problem. I have a real problem with government going into a business and telling them who they have to hire. Is the government going to pay the difference when the woman or minority they were forced to hire turns out to be a total screwup and costs the company hundreds of thousands of dollars? Incidently, I don’t think that AA for gender is needed at all at this point. Women have an easier time finding jobs than men do. This is a Mancession. ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/57 "2011-07-06T12:09:18Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Because instead of a simple ID/BC check, you’d need a full certified financial history. It raises the expense of the process. > > But more importantly, AA isn’t just about improving the lot of the appointee, but correcting entrenched systemic demographic imbalances in large organisations - you’re not going to get business management in a country like South Africa to (poorly, but better-)reflect the actual makeup of the country if you just replace rich Whites with poor Whites. All that means is that you’ve enriched another generation of Whites (at the expense of Blacks again.) Or here’s a whacky idea. You get the government out of the Hall Monitor business altogether. But if you want them to help the unfortunate, make sure you determine that they are really unfortunate. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/58 "2011-07-06T14:52:59Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > Or here’s a whacky idea. You get the government out of the Hall Monitor business altogether. As I said, we tried that for about a hundred years. It didn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/59 "2011-07-06T15:00:18Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Getting the picture now? Affirmative action works to ensure that the tax moneys all of us pay get spent evenly among all of us, not those who have an in. And too, it makes sure that those who were systematically shortchanged in the past are sure to have a leg up. Affirmative action is discrimination, no matter which way it goes. We spent a century digging ourselves out of the hole of discrimination, only to turn around and jump right back in. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874/60 "2011-07-06T15:15:32Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Affirmative action is discrimination, no matter which way it goes. We spent a century digging ourselves out of the hole of discrimination, only to turn around and jump right back in. Who said we actually dug ourselves out of that hole to begin with? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-who-really-supports-affirmative-action/587874.md?page=4)