I recall a series of demographic pie charts from an old National Government textbook. They displayed what percentage of the U.S. population belonged to which ethnicity over a period of years, as well as the predicted ethnicities in the years to come. If the trends continue as predicted, it shouldn’t be too long before whites are a minority.
When and if this happens,
Will caucasians be eligible for affirmative action?
Should caucasians be eligible for affirmative action?
And you think that the white economic and political elites will somehow become impoverished and disenfranchised? While the ratio of whites/nonwhites is shifting, the money and the power will still remain firmly in white hands.
When white people have been enslaved for 200 years, then after emancipation become second-class citizens of their own country, shut out from climbing the ladder of education and employment, relegated to menial jobs and shantytowns, THEN you might have a case.
The latest predictions show that it will be at least 30 years, perhaps 50 years, before the U.S. is majority non-white. That prediction makes no assertions regarding the ability of whites to maintain wealth and political power, so it would probably be even longer before whites could be realistically treated as second-class citizens and denied the opportunities of citizenship. (And even then, a majority will continue to have “white” ancestry for many years beyond, because the demographics talking about “non-white” actually include people who will have a mixture of ancestry–including whites.)
If the “non-white” population ever got together as a single cohesive group and systematically denied whites their rights and opportunities for a sustained period so that the white population was relegated to a role in society which prevented them from exercising their freedoms of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, then it might be possible that a set of legislation could be justified to ensure that their rights and opportunities were restored.
Given that
then
-> the need for Affirmative Action for whites is almost unimaginably small into anything resembling a foreseeable future.
IMHO, no. See, the whole concept of “minority” has always been a bit of a red herring. The reality is that certain groups have been relegated to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder no matter what there relative numbers are. A striking example of this is South Africa during Apartheid, where whites dominated the country even though they were by far a minority, demographically speaking.
I imagine that even in areas of the US where whites are in the minority, there are plenty of opportunities for whites to get into top colleges and grad-schools; get good jobs, etc.
On the other hand, there is still a lot of discrimination against non-whites in the US, particularly blacks. So, to the extent that the point of affirmative action is to counter discrimination, there’s really no need for it for whites, even when whites become a minority.
gotta concur with the others,
the purpose of affirmative action is to counteract the generations of negative action taken against minorities.
In order for that to be necessary, well, we would need to opress white people for years and years,
not that it wouldn’t be fun and interesting, but i just don’t see it happening
now, there are societies that are geared toward the advancement of white people.
If you can get past the funny uniforms…
oh yeah, forgot something
just because a person is outnumbered doesn’t make them a minority
a minority is a person who has limited access to power because of some characteristic.
skin color
gender
sexual orientation
blah
blah blah
There do exist in our society people of color who have access to all of the opportunities and privileges that anyone else has. This makes them non minority people of color.
but they are the minority of the minorities, not the majority of the minorities. the majority of minorities are minorities and will even continue to be so after they are the majority
so when the hispanics manage to breed enough to outnumber the whites, yeah, they will have more numbers, but that doesn’t mean the same as access to education, jobs, and political power.
Yes, it does. That is why South Africa, Rhodesia, and a few other places were known as “minority rule” states.
People who lack power and/or wealth may be identified as disenfranchised, oppressed, poor, or any number of words. but minority specifically means a group that is outnumbered. Changing the meaning of the word simply creates confusion.
not allowing language evolve in order to make it more useful halts progress, but i think that’s another debate
I’m no expert (I can’t even pretend 
), but during the early 1900’s weren’t Irish and Italian immigrants treated as second-class citizens, and all the bad that went along with it?
Can we even define what “white” is?
True, however, attempting to impose one’s idiolect or randomly changing the meaning of words that currently have commonly accepted meaning simply confuses the audience.
“There’s glory for you.”
Will whites be the minority?
In the 2000 Census, whites are 75% of the population.
Next is Hispanics (with could be many races) with 10-13%, and blacks with 12%, Asians (again, many races) less than 3%.
I don’t see any of these groups passing whites anytime soon. While it may be possible the other groups combined could pass whites, that wouldn’t make the Caucasians a minority.
Some things I think are worth considering in this debate:
Just because you were harmed doesn’t necessarily make it someone else’s responsibility to compensate you, to be forced to compensate you, or mean that only a certain SORT of compensation is acceptable. That’s an arguement we can’t just assume, but must strive to make.
Minorities were without doubt unfairly harmed by history: but that is NOT the same thing as saying that other people benefitted from it and owe them compensation. Especially when speaking economically, jobs and the like are not ultimately a zero-sum game by any means. If they were, that would mean that women and blacks could never have entered the job market in large numbers without impoverishing an equal number of white men, which is nonsense.
This isn’t even the way it works in most non-racial situations: very often the person that does the harm ends up hurting lots of people in addition to the target: and then dies or otherwise leaves the picture. It’s not clear that the other parties
“benefitted” from the harm in any meaningful way, just because they were harmed less. Some people may have been hurt more than others, but it’s not at all clear that this means which should strive to achieve a parity of equal harm done to everyone. If Tommy punches John, who bumps into Tim, then Tommy disappears, it doesn’t follow that Tim, who was only a little bit hurt, should then compensate John for the damage Tommy did: even if getting puched makes John do worse at school than Tim.
And there IS something very misguided with the idea that discrimination ONLY hurts the targeted minorities. It also hurts everyone deprived of the prescence and talents of those minorities. When Jim Crow laws prevent a white person from legally hiring or working for an African-American, they are deprived of important opportunities as well. How can anyone possibly argue that slavery and Jim Crow didn’t hurt the fortunes of most white people too? To argue that would require asserting that the talents and contributions of African-Americans aren’t specially worth anything to whites, or have no special benefits to society, which is just as racist as anything you hear out of David Duke’s mouth.
Last I checked, Hispanics, Asians, and other non-black minorities had not been enslaved in the U.S. for 200 years. I suppose this disqualifies them from affirmative action?
And as long as we’re talking about enslavement, approx. 3000-2500 years ago my Greek ancestors were conquered by the Romans, taken from their homes, and forced to work as slaves. If this had not happened, I might have ended up in a better social and financial situation than I am in now. Don’t those wacky Italians owe me some form of compensation?
So 150 years is the same as 3000 years? Do you not see the inanity of this comparison?
:rolleyes:
The thing is, unequal opportunity based on race and sex is still a reality in the US. In the manufacturing plant I worked in four years ago, blacks were only hired to work in one section of the plant. One who worked on the shop floor was transferred to this section. I don’t know how the pay or opportunities in that section compared to other sections of the plant. Also, at that same plant, when a man volunteered to cover the receptionist’s desk during her lunch hour, he was told only women could do that job. I know, because I got stuck with it.
As I understand it, affirmative action was intended to redress the fact that non-whites were denied access to jobs and schools because of race alone. Since, last time I checked, the vast majority of those with power in the US, including top officers at companies, congressmen, judges, and university presidents are still white males, I don’t think that’s going to go away any time soon.
Oh, meatros, you’re right. At the turn of the century, Irish and Italian immigrants were discriminated against, as were immigrants from Eastern Europe. I’m drawing on a project I did back in Junior High, I think, so I’ll be happy to defer to the experts, but I think there was even a song to the effect of “No Irish Need Apply”, not to mention signts reading “No Dogs. No Irish.” Even in England, people disapproved of my grandfather marrying my grandmother because she was half-Irish.
CJ
I see the inanity of 3000 years as well as the inanity of 150 years. Who gets to draw the line and say “Past this many years, it doesn’t matter”? On what basis will that line be drawn? I don’t think I should get paid any money for something that happened to my ancestors, nor do I think anyone should. If the system has been fixed (i.e, no more discrimination), there’s nothing to complain about. If the system, or parts of it, have yet to be fixed (i.e, there is still discrimination), then take the case to court, and, yes, I digress, you can be awarded a cash settlement. I don’t need to pay anyone anything, because, as it stands, I have yet to keep other people down based on immutable genetic characteristics.
To quote Ben Folds, formerly of Ben Folds Five, from his epic song Rockin’ the Suburbs:
It wasn’t my idea
It wasn’t my idea
It never was my idea
I just drove to the store
for some Preparation H*
But, we are now getting away from the OP. So I Ask again:
If whites ever become a minority,
Will whites get affirmative action?
Should whites get affirmative action?
I hope not.
No. All people should be judged by their own abilities; Race should not be a factor.
AA is not a personal policy. It is an institutional one.
Sure. But in the real world, it affects individuals.
As does discrimination. Since we have not erased discrimination, yet (although we are doing better), and since the effects of discrimination are reflected in the lives of individuals, AA is one of the methods intended to redress that discrepancy of opportunity.