July 2003

Affirmative Action Isn't Fair... Oh, Boo Hoo Hoo

We can't help that we judge people by their looks. It's human nature. We notice if they appear to be 'our kind' or which kind of different - good, not-so-good, or bad - they are. Hair, skin color, jewelry, clothing, cleanliness…it makes no difference because something in everyone sets them apart from us, and right into another group which has been pre-judged for character.

Those among us who have come to terms with this tendency know that we can do little to prevent it. As humans, we still possess a pre-historic fear of the unknown. This instinct is not always used for bad, it can help us decide, at a moments notice, if we should prepare for trouble. There is no need to retrain our brains. What is necessary to prevent irrational discrimination on our parts is two things: one, a form of 'affirmative action' to compensate for discrimination; and, two, familiarity with different kinds of people.

Have you ever noticed that the kids who grew up in big cities had a more refined sense for people? At least, in our experience, that was true. Kids from big metropolitan cities grew up learning the difference between a smelly street performer and a filthy bum. They walked the streets and rode on the subways with every kind of person possible. Their experience made them less susceptible to the ignorant discrimination capable of people like us, who came from the 'burbs. In the 'burbs, everyone was pretty much the same, and all the rest of you were subject to further, more discriminating, review.

We're not saying that forcing people to live with one or more of every kind of person will make the world a happy place full of peace and less discrimination, but we don't think it will hurt. The University of Michigan's Law School's affirmative action initiative was designed to graduate lawyers with diverse experiences, the kind you get by having discussions of law with minority points of view. Their goal was to generate well rounded graduates without sacrificing high quality. That they have done, and the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so in that manner.

The undergraduate admissions program, however, tried to accomplish the same ends, but poorly executed. They applied the standards of affirmative action to the age-old traditions of favoritism. The fact that you could get 20 points just for being black is just as silly as the 20 points you still get for being an athlete, or the points you get for being a legacy student, or for playing an instrument. The point system is not blind, and that is bad. Oh well.

All this was done in an attempt to protect us from ourselves, which is something that seems necessary on a daily basis. The point of affirmative action, essentially, is to even the playing field and eliminate as much unfair advantage as possible.

Now, we hear a lot of the right wing nuts in this country crying bloody murder because of it. These people only look at race as a factor and declare that being a minority under affirmative action is, in fact, an unfair advantage.

Pretty much any member of a minority group can tell you this is horseshit.

Because of the course of history of the United States, minorities have become primarily pushed into socio-economic underclass, while the white middle-class mainstream keeps right on chugging along, making money and sending their kids to college.

In discussing affirmative action, it is necessary to examine history. The detractors of affirmative action today make an argument against a historical perspective in saying that it is unfair to be held accountable for the sins of our ancestors - slavery and such open bigotry and hatred that say, the Irish or the Chinese once had to suffer. However, it's only fair to say that if this should be true, then it is just as unfair to ignore the conditions that continue to keep minorities down. Otherwise the white, middle-class mainstream is merely perpetuating bigotry.

One of the biggest lies told in connection with affirmative action is the grand myth that anyone can "pull themselves up by the bootstraps". This is simply not true. If you have a historical perspective, you can see that most whites, even if poor, have a much easier time pulling themselves out of poverty. Because of history, a white man in the same situation as a black man has a better chance of succeeding. Since the end of slavery, black America has had to suffer tremendous oppression, particularly in terms of income. The black man was never really given a chance to succeed. By keeping in minorities in high-density, low-income neighborhoods with terrible schools, the traditional "family values" that conservatives love so much are basically forced to crumble.

While white America was doing well in the suburbs with mom staying home while dad goes off to work, then the kids eventually enrolling in well-funded public schools, the minorities in America were living in homes where both parents are often forced to work multiple jobs to support the family, with horribly neglected schools. Over the decades of the 20th century, this leads to less and less supervision of children. Well, what can be expected to happen? Should children be expected to behave like moral, upstanding adults in the absences of adult supervision? Should parents be laid all the blame in this, since they were never provided an education that would get them into college, not to mention the financial aid, resulting in the inability to land a job with high enough pay to for child care?

All the while, white America ignores the whole situation, believing that all of their social responsibility for the fall-out of the ill treatment of minorities ended with the Emancipation Proclamation.

So as we can see, minorities in America (and at one time this included white minorities- that's how precise our bigotry is in this country) were never really given a fair shake. But until Americans stop playing the blame game and take some actually responsibility for the welfare of their fellow citizens- show some actual compassion, affirmative action will be needed. If we, as a nation, actually provided the equal opportunity for all Americans that our founding fathers proclaimed, we will need programs that offer a leg up to those have been kept down so long.

So really, the notion that affirmative action provides an unfair advantage to minorities is laughable. As wrong as it is in principle, until all Americans are given the same level of opportunity at all stages of their lives, it should be expected that those who have managed to escape economic and social oppression should be given a little favor in hiring.