"Un" Affirmative Action

#1

Some feel it is necessary, some feel that it isn't...Since nobody that I know of is in a position to really make an immediate difference, I am more interested to in finding out where peeps stand on the issue...

My feelings are mixed...I am black, not rich, etc...But I'd be lying if I say I've ever felt any sort of real social contraption preventing me from doing what I want to do in this world...One of my girlfriends aptly told me, "You live a charmed life..."

Maybe she's right...I understand the struggle...But, I don't UNDERSTAND the struggle...I can sympathize, because I've been there, lived, it, but I haven't had a personal experience w/it...

I beleive AA is necessary, but it is almost certainly reverse predjudice, isn't it..? Or, are the principles different..?

I ask all to participate to keep in mind that we are family, and that swords are forged only in fire...But I'm really interested in finding out any weaknesses and misconceptions in myself, and vice versa...So, be as it may, say what you want, and do get your point across...

#2

It's a half-assed guilt trip to try and make amends for centuries of biased social constructions; most of which we have no control over.

It makes as much as sense as making entrance exams easier for Universities.

I think it is a ploy, and it is demeaning to those who truly aspire to learn.

then again, that's kinda of the view I have about college...

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#3

I too have mixed feelings about AA. As a semi-liberal, do-gooder type, I recognize as Adiriel as aptly said that it's to make amends for years and years of prejudice and discrimination. However, is it socially redeeming to lower the standards of a job/educational institution in order to "even the score"? Isn't that the same as saying, "Well, you just couldn't make it in the real world, so we'll make it easier for you to get in"? That just seems demeaning to me. I've known lots of people in my time, white, black, brown, yellow, whatever... I don't admire or respect them for what color their skin is or what they've been handed in life; it's all about what they do when the ball is in their court. I know I feel better about myself when what I have is from what I've worked for and struggled for, not from what has been given me.

I expect I'll post more later after the ball gets rolling, but just wanted to put some early thoughts out there.

#4

Just to be clear, I thought that Affirmative Action is kind of the thing that they are doing in the NFL, where a huge percentage of the players are Afro American, and the coaching is way low...I think that a head coaching vacancy comes up, they have to at least interview a potential black coach...I thought that was fair, and the reason for them doing that, got me thinking about something else...

Alot of practices have been attributed to racism, when really, I don't think it is anything like that...I think that as a 20 something black male, I am more likely to hire someone that I can relate to, IE, a twenty something black male, and then a twenty something black female....

I thought that Affirmative Action was pretty much companies being regulated in their hiring, to not give somenone underqualified a position, but to make sure of diversity...Because of the way things are in this society, it is HARD to tell whether or not what you are stuggling for, is the result of a gift or not, regardless of your race...

That's the irony of the issue...It could go either way, depending on who is cuttin' them checks...

#5

I've been in medium-small companies that fall under the Federal guidelines where, because of racial percentage quotas, they had to hire a less qualified minority over a WM. To have hired the more qualified person would have exposed them to fines and penalties, withdrawal of contracts, etc.

#6

My own interactions with Affirmative Action are in the Goldy State, and I feel I need to explain my own bias.

They are fucked up. California is a state so bass-ackwards they make it easier for non-Americans to go to school than actual citizens! And then ask the people they refuse to let go to school for donations to pay for the tuition of our "Friends from overseas!" Then, when they don't get enough donations, the pass measures to direct taxes to compensate the Universities. So, naturally, when they had the chance to demonstrate how little they know about racial distinction. Woot! they jumped on that shit like it was a new line of GAP clothing that had sexual harrassment lawyer ads on the labels.

In california, affirmative action isn't just bias towards race when considering new hires. It is also about actively changing your current racial demographic. That means people get laid off, when they have not actually deserved to lose their jobs. That is why their needs to be systems analyst unions, I guess.

I have not been hired for not being a woman, not being a minority, not being unskilled, having too much experience in a related field, having a miltary service record, and being a meat eater! All of this after getting laid off from a position I earned in a company I loved for essentially not being a crippled black woman from overseas.

Ironically, I only have one semester of community college, and couldn't find a job to compare with the one I lost, so my company gave the 85 "people" (if the white male is still truly a person) they had to get rid of uncontested unemployment. Aint' that something,.. they evened out the number of whites and blacks gettin welfare checks too! Yay for progress!

I during that period of unemployment was not hired for jobs that were not mine for lack of experience or qualification, but all of the above are stupid! The worst is when you are fired because your company has two many white males, and the HR and finance are trying to "diversify the cultural and ethnic representation within the workforce", or you are not eligible for academic benefits because of your ethnic origin.

Affirmative action says this is ok, as the white males will be able to find a new job easier. So? What bout the job I loved? Why couldn't I keep that one, where I had worked for respect (despite having little college education) working for a company that I believed in and had a consistent work record?

How come they couldn't hire me back when the black woman they hired to take my place dumped the job in two weeks, and went to work at Nordstroms in the shopping center down the street? I had the best qualification you could ask for, nine months of experience in the position that was CREATED FOR ME after I saved them over 75,000 dollars in the first three days I was there.

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#7

All interesting points...Like I said, I can't really speak from that whole "white man holding me down" bit, cause there ain't a man alive, black or white, that can do that...I am a true student of the idea that we are our own worst enemies...It seems like a cop out that people blame the fact that they can't get ahead on an unseen enemy, and hit glass ceilings...My life has been quite the opposite...

However, the fact remains that in these United States, Afro Americans were held captive, and forced to do labor...And for doing that, they got nothing but a century more of oppression...Had the gov't stepped in and done the right thin from the beginning, there would be no excuses, would there..? You send what is relatively a savage out into the world, what do you expect..? It's not like slaves were going to school, learning how to read, etc...In that regard, many Afro Americans are behind...It wasn't that long ago, we couldn't have went to a university...

Meanwhile, Native Americans are on small reservations true enough, but they have MANY things in the form of reparations that other minorities do not...Other ethnic groups not included, because slaves did not willingly immigrate...

QUOTE(Jaco)AYHJA, you being a black man in the supposed most racist state in the entire supposed racist nation, don't you think you would be the hardest hit by severe racist ideology of those around you? Hell, from what I get to hear from black comedians you would have been strung up at birth. But fortunately none of this is true. How many lynchings have happened that you can remember?
*random info*some quick numbers on lynchings from the Negro Almanac: 3,442 blacks, 1,294 whites lynched between 1882 and 1962. Between 1947 and 1961 lynchings averaged less than 1 per year.*
*race comparison* on average, more whites are murdered and raped by blacks in a single year than the sum total of lynched blacks in the last 100 years

You can't really believe that...I'm not saying that there isn't alot of black crime...But...C'mon man...Really...Can't go by the books, the Rosewood Florida massacre lists 6 people, when witnesses both black and white, list that number in the hundreds...

And what does rape and murder (and relative to race at that) have to do with Affirmative Action..?

#8

Oh and as far as lynchings I can remember:

A couple of years ago, a woman walked into our Mortage Office in need of a home loan...We couldn't help her, because she didn't have a job...Regardless of circumstance, banks do not lend to people that don't have jobs...

You see, she came home one day and found her Son hanging from a tree in her front yard, lynched by the neck...

He was 15 years old...

Apparently, all the publicity she got cost her her job...The suspects were all white males...No arrests were made...She sat there in tears telling her story, and by the time she got finished, we all were crying...She couldn't even get into her front door, without thinking about he boy, and just wanted to leave...

This was in Houlka, MS....

When's the last time you remember a lynching..?

#9

lynching and reparations are completely different subjects.

The main topic is affirmative action, which is essentially is taking an active part in educational and professional "balancing" of the racial demographics in America by using race as a mandate for the job or academic requirements.

Reparation is a unrealistic goal, as there is no way it will really be achieved. Mainly because the damage done extends before the origins of this country, and includes Spain, England, and France - who did most of the "importing."

Plain and simple, manpower is a resource, and it has a long history wrought with cruelty and imbalances of power.

The solution can not be monetary compensation for descendants of slaves. Because that would actually work against the notion that slavery is inhuman. It would in fact put a dollar amount on the cost of a slave. If you gave every minority American with a ancestry of slavery even a modest 50,000 dollars, the value of the dollar would drop so much that it would bankrupt our country, and we would be sucking Japan's dick for a cheeseburger.

hell, some people might be even willing to go back into slavery for 50,000 a head... *shudder*

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