It will be tough to make a fair country through legislation when life itself is not fair. Can we vote on outlawing luck?
First of all I am talking about today, not 20 years ago. Secondly, my point about African immigrants (black) vs. American blacks is that the color of one’s skin can’t be the sole cause of failure if groups of the same color have different rates of success. How can someone from the West Indies succeed if all dark skinned opeople are discriminated against? And the African’s and West Indians are doing it often without being native English speakers.
One lynching. One bizzare hate filled case. It is not as if this happens daily. I wonder, do blacks kill more whites, or whites more blacks? If it is the former, is that proof of black racism against whites.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t “quota’s” illegal? Or is this just in Federal Institutions? That would certainly put any anectdotal story involving quotas clearly into the “urban legend” category. I believe that most of what is called “Affrimative Action” is giving minorities some extra points on tests, the way they do for vererans.
Since when has any college admissions policy been based on merit? It’s all “who you know” and “who’s daddy went there”.
Even if admission is based on some abstract thing like QPA or SAT scores there are a few things that tend to tilt the playing field. Blacks tend to be poorer than whites (and many whites have spent a lot of money making sure that things stay that way) and tend to attend poorer schools which tend to teach more poorly and therefore tend to score lower on standardized tests. So why not give a little bit of a break? Colleges have always had an affirmative action program, it was just for whites though.
Perhaps we should use affirmative action for as long as the US Government stepped on the rights of blacks. That seems fair. Affirmative Action for another 150 years. By then Hispanics will be the majority and maybe WASPs will have to fight for their rights.
Have none of you ever been in the south? Conservatives will openly tell you that they oppose welfare because they don’t want their tax money going to “those blacks.” South Carolina still elects Strom Thurmond to Congress, a man who ran for President what was basically the “keep the blacks down” party. There are still big problems in this area and I don’t see any other way around them for the time being.
Black immigrants from Africa and the West Indies have had the advantage of growing up in countries where they are not in the minority. They often have better educations and class backgrounds than most African-Americans. Why? Because for the most part they didn’t have to struggle against racism from birth in their home countries.
That is a point that I think some people in this thread have forgotten – racism is hurting black babies and children long before they are old enough to start applying to colleges or looking for jobs. It’s all fine and good to say that admissions and hiring policies should be color blind, but that’s only really fair if the entire country is color blind. If racism is preventing black children from getting the same quality of education at the pre-college level as white children then they are going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to getting into college even if the college admissions policy does not take race into consideration.
Fine…take CLASS into consideration…income…availability of good education, not RACE. In my examples above…both myself and the other student went to very nice, top notch suburban high schools. There are lots of poor whites too. Maybe not as high a percentage, but there are…they get the raw end of the deal too. If you want to give people a hand up based on their living conditions, that’s still not quite right, but it’s a lot more right than doing it based on color. Discrimination is not a good thing, but going the other way doesn’t help things.
I agree. Class has more to do with the issues of getting a good education. The poor rural whites that I went to college with had to take a lot of remedial classes. I was stunned that a highschool grad hadn’t taken algebra yet. But I think that that problem was endemic in parts of the south east.
I don’t see a big difference between the white denizens of the trailer park down my street and the black and hispanic residents of the projects near where I used to live.
However, The highschool to which the project kids go is the same one that my best friends (rich whites) attended. THey went on to college and are professionals. I know it is anecdotal, but if one actually goes to school and actually studies, then they can indeed make it to college. Colleges rarely know how good a particular high school is. THey look at grades extra curriculars and SAT scores. ANd if you don’t have an interview, they don’t know your race.
I think the problem is that many of the minority kids can’t get it together when they have a single mom who started having her family of 5 at age 14. It is doubly difficult when Mom dropped out of school at 13. There is a culture problem in certain minority communities. A problem of commonly held values. If you can figure out how to fix that, write a book. You’ll be a star.
You mean to tell me that white people were not part of the equal rights movement? Wow, congress must REALLY be a bunch of bumbling idiots if they were 1.) all white men (probably close to true) and 2.) still managed to let legistlature pass if they were not in support of it. Perhaps I see the world through rosy glasses, but I feel most people are in support of equal rights for everyone. But no one likes to be discriminated against...white, black or otherwise.
Does discrimination against white males happen: sure. Discrimination against every group happens these days, welcome to the US. Is the current discrimination against white males as bad as 200 years of slavery? Of course not,that is ridiculous. However, no form of discrimination is right. I figure a good percentage of minorities (if not most) are against racial quotas, and would like an "even playing field"
How do we correct racial hatred? How do we right the wrongs that it brings about?
Whites currently are three quarters of the American population. If all was evenly distributed they would hold three quarters of the jobs that determine advancement and acceptance.
That means that white-against-black discrimination would overwhelm any other, and very soon whites would hold MORE than three quarters of those jobs.
Affirmative action is an attempt to forestall this, to level the playing field, to insure that the game isn’t played with weighted dice.
I feel that it may lead to injustice. It is perfectly possible that a lesser-qualified man MUST be highered because of race.
However, laws and precedent are in place to try and prevent that. In New Jersey, two applicants of entirely equal qualifications were applying for the same teaching position. One was white, the other black. In order to maintain racial equity, the school chose the black teacher. The white teacher sued on the grounds of racial discrimination, claiming that race should not and could not be used as a determining factor, and won.
So does that mean AA will fall? I think not, but the struggle will go on, and AA will stay in place, with the struggle insuring that injustice will remain at a minimum. In the meantime, blacks will gain the equal footing they need, they will get the jobs that will help pay for their childrens’ education, and they will soon be on a level playing field, with the dice no longer shaved. At that time in the indefinite future, AA may still be necessary, but I hope not.