Affirmative Action: Because Equality Is Not Here Yet
Jul 08 '03 (Updated Jul 20 '03)
The Bottom Line Affirmative Action is a SMALL step in the RIGHT direction. Much more needs to be done if equality is to be achieved.
Colin Powell will not run for President. Her wife has told him if he were to run, he will have to do it alone. She will not be by his side. She fears for him the fate of the likes of Martin Luther King.
Hillary Clinton will not run for President.
One Republican, another a Democrat. Both gifted individuals who have carved lives out of the doctrine of personal responsibility, that mantra.
Polls show both can make it if democracy is an exercise of majority opinion. So what do they have to fear? The malice on the right end of the spectrum. Those organized, well-funded, more racist and sexist than your average Joe kind of individuals and organizations.
This country has never had a non-white, non-male President. John F. Kennedy was the last Catholic to have made it.
I make an example of the White House because it is oh so visible. But I do disservice. The vast majority of us are less lucky. We never think in terms of the White House as a possible listing on our resumes. Our stories go untold. The minor indignities, the monotone of discriminations, the glass walls and ceilings in all their puzzling geometries, the continuing social segregation.
Of course quotas are wrong. But they are not measured the way they ought to be. When the child of an alumni gets a front seat, is that not quota? Such quotas just so happen to favor the members of the historically privileged groups.
The white students and conservative groups behind the Michigan lawsuits tell us how organized and well-positioned those at that end of the spectrum are. They are going to make sure that any progress made toward equality stays piecemeal. That only baby steps are taken, if any.
Those from the historically disempowered groups are less lucky. They internalize the pain, perhaps too much, for too long. For fear of labels of "crying towels." You don't want to look whiney, do you?
The discussion has to be made more specific:
(1) Has there been historical racism/sexism?
Answer: Yes. Profoundly so.
(2) Has progress been made toward equality?
Answer: Yes. But it is not enough. Equality has not been achieved yet. Lunch counter segregation might be over. But social segregation continues.
As President Clinton pondered aloud once. That he does not worry too much about affirmative action, since it only touched those select few from the historically underprivileged groups who might have had the good luck to have a few opportunities to qualify for those job applications, and spots at universities. What he worried more about is those huge masses from those groups who are nowhere close to getting those scant opportunities. The larger question is how opportunities are going to be spread to those masses, for "talent is evenly distributed, what is not evenly distributed is opportunity."
At the college I attended, based solely on merit, many more women candidates started qualifying. So as to keep the gender balance, the school automatically switched to "affirmative action" for the white males. You don't see such auto mechanisms on behalf of the ethnic populations. Why not?
We are individuals, but we also are members of groups. The proof is the defensiveness among White Men on issues like affirmative action. It affects them. It challenges their historical, unfair position of relative privilege. And they don't like it.
If one of the largest handicaps IS based on race, how can that not be THE topic? Why such an attempt at denial?
Colin Powell has been wedded to the dictum of "personal responsibility" all his life, but at his first joint public appearance with George W. Bush on the campaign trail, he said, "Racism still exists." What does he mean? What do those at his end of the political spectrum understand when he says that? I would like to know.
So, if it exists, those who complain of it are not crybabies, but heroes who see things for what they are, and call a spade a spade.
Racism is a disease at the level of collective identities. You can not cure it solely with emphasis on the individual. A cellular malfunction can not be taken care of by sub-atomic level stuff.
Don't deny it. Accept it. And then personal responsibility makes more sense. I am all for it.
If it is about liberty, the conservatives should be at the throats of those to their right end on the spectrum who ARE racists and sexists. For racism and sexism saps at the promise of countless individuals. Liberty gets trashed by those ISMs. But I don't see much of that happening. Is the silence the voice of agreement? As in, I can't talk as ugly as you do, my public image of decency does not allow it, but will you please keep talking?
"So why does such an art-oriented, nature-loving, non-materialist, social radical like me, run on the Republican ticket?"
Jim. I have labelled you the crown jewel here at Epinions. You are one of the smartest, funniest people I ever met online. I am Democrat-leaning, but, in the heart of my hearts, I have wanted you to win, and I hope you do some day. And you are a Republican.
The very dictums of Liberty, and Personal Responsibility that drive you so against affirmative action drive me toward it. It is my love for Liberty that makes me so mad at racism which DOES continue to exist.
"...what I call "victimism;" the self-fulfilling perception or belief that one's lack of happiness or success is due to some oppressive factor outside of his or her control..."
It is not outside his or her control. There is the choice to work against that racism, but when that work is attempted, you call it victimism, derisively so.
"Everybody has problems and baggage."
But those from the non-white-male backgrounds tend to have problems that can wear collective hats. Not really that individual.
"I complained of having no shoes until I saw a man with no feet."
Curiously that is a Hindu proverb. The Hindus also gave the world the digit zero.
"... victory (or success, as the case may be,) is the result of a change in one's "perception;" not in one's "position." ..."
Wrong. Change in perception is necessary. But change in position is as well. A position of disadvantage can lead you to "success" due to positive perception, but mostly to "relative" failure compared to those with similar or lesser talents but better positions.
"The proportionate levels of poverty, crime, squalor, abuse, addiction, etc., we're forced to endure has historically been stacked against minorities and women."
That puts you one step ahead of many others in your crowd. Most will not even acknowledge this much.
So the only seeming disagreement is as to what ought to happen next.
"I'll always be a foot too tall to be a horse jockey and a foot too short to be a center for the Lakers."
Your physical attribute. By birth.
But racial and gender inequality can not be compared to this. To do so is to admit failure, to throw one's hands up and say those inequalities will always be there, so just make the best of the situation, folks.
Those inequalities will not always be there. Should not always be there. The question: how do we hasten their demise?
Then you introduce a process which I refer to as CHOPPING. You first try to disengage a person from his or her collective identity. You are not an Asian, you are just one free individual. Chopping step I. Then step II. Your reality began the day you were born. Anything that happened before that is irrelevant. Like the laws of physics in one universe do not affect that of the other.
Your POSITION today. How much of that IS due to YOUR collective identity? Say if you were equally hardworking, but born an Aborigine in Australia, would you be running for Congress? Or the great-great-grandson of a "theoretical" Swahili speaker? Would you still be where you are today?
Of course those collective identities and histories are relevant. Because they affect our respective POSITIONS. Like particles in physics. History has mattered. For those particles as for us.
Affirmative Action is not about "(e)vening the score" but about continuing the struggle against continued racism. And it is about equal opportunity, not distribution.
Where is the starting line, and is it equal?
"Nobody wins because no solution is ever reached, or even sought."
So what IS the solution?
"Connotatively, "pity" reeks of condescension. So does "charity.""
So when Republicans talk about charity substituting for government programs, what do they mean?
""Throwing money at a problem's visible symptoms" does not qualify as a solution; it's a diversion."
But then not putting your money where your mouth is might count for dishonesty.
"The truth is, we live in a perfect world..."
Do we?
"... It has once again declared that people of different races aren't equal and should not be treated as though they are..."
No. What the Supreme Court has said is, it has said racism continues to exist, and as long as it does, race can be a factor, one among many, in college applications.
"Lady Justice's blindfold and scales were intended to represent the idea that Justice is blind to whom her principles of justice and fairness apply; that justice is applied to individuals, not statistics or classes, that a practice deemed unjust for one, is unjust for all."
Lady Justice just happens to recognize that she is a SMALL institution in a LARGE, UNJUST, UNFAIR society, and she will take a few baby steps in the right direction to help out the sick society.
"3) Make quality education and/or useful training programs available to all citizens. Make further loans/grants contingent upon matriculation, or at least a show of serious effort..."
Bravo. Spread the opportunity.
"Pencils and paper would remain stationery."
??
"Oppressive situations and oppressive people can take your possessions, your lifestyle or your money, but they can't take away your capacity to be happy or your ability to succeed."
Oppression should be an illegal act, period.
P.S. I am FOR political correctness. African American is a better term than Negro.
(This review was written in response to http://www.epinions.com/content_3220414596
I Consider You My Equal, But My Government Does Not.
Jul 02 '03
by 29th_Candidate
-- which was written in response to another review:
Brotherman at 100: 100 things you might not have known about me.
Mar 26 '03 by brotherman
http://www.epinions.com/content_3186270340)
Also relevant to the topic:
rage and privilege
by voxpoptart, Mar 09 '03
http://www.epinions.com/content_92276690564
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