Affirmative Action Is A Necessity In Today's Socie

[SorianoFanHFW]

Craig's Ramblings

:hat

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Affirmative Action Is A Necessity In Today's Society

 

There's a huge problem in America and the problem is that America is capitalist. In a capitalist non-socialized system, the existence of seperate socioeconomic classes is expected. However, every society contains rich and poor, but ours decides that there is enough economic oppurtunity for those who work hard to better themselves (and those who don't lose everything.) Judging from the amount of immigrants that come to this country and make something of themselves, I believe that hard work does result in success.

 

The problem is that the lowest socioeconomic classes happen to be immigrants and blacks. They will make much less money then white people and pursue less education. This can all be attributed to the fact that there exists de facto segregated school systems, lack of work ethic (which I find ridiculous, all Americans are as lazy as white Americans), lack of good school systems, and or lack of the ability to save money. According to the 2000 Household Spending Report the average black household that makes $30,000, but spends as much money as the average white household that makes $50,000. If white people are in a hell of a lot of debt, I really feel sorry for all those black people that spend an equal amount of money with almost half as much money!

 

Now I am getting off topic. The average black household makes $32,657 while the average while household makes $46,260. This means that being born one race predisposes you to having less money and less oppurtunity. Furthermore, when one is subjected to heavily segregated schools where dispair has altered people's value systems, we have one hell of a problem. So the liberals come up with a great solution to recitfy socioeconomic wrongs dealt by a capitalist society...AFFIRMATIVE ACTION!

 

Are there two uglier words in the English language? To the white man he sees "reverse racism" and to the black man they see others questioning their ability and competence. Here's the truth: city schools suck. Blacks and Latinos disproportionately come from cities when compared to other races, so in order to level the playing field, it is only fair to practice affirmative action, right? However, the flaw in this logic is that there are eastern european immigrants and other poor people of races not covered by affirmative action, but are subjected to the same problems that all of those who come from a low socioeconomic class are accustomed to.

 

Affirmative action is racist, because it tries to rectify socioeconomic problems by considering race in the college admissions process or job market. It is a fact that one's skin color or ethnicity makes no difference, yet one can be black, come from a middle class family and go to a middle class school, and benefit from affirmative action- something is wrong here. Though whites have resisted affirmative action, and it has not made "the spalsh" whites have perceived, the truth still remains that a flawed and racist practice is still being used. Is some segregation okay? No. Neither is some race based affirmative action.

 

So how do you deal with the disparities between socioeconomic classes then? Under the 14th ammendment, everyone is guarenteed equal protection under the law, yet federal and state grant money goes to "rich" schools more than "poor" ones. If an equal education cannot be provided, and we as a society believe that there needs to be some measures to give those who were disadvantaged a chance, then we must have affirmative action be based upon socioeconomic class and or school system (when it applies to college admissions.) I had a friend whose name could of been from any race, and he did not include his race when he was filling out his college admissions papers for Northwestern. He included a writing of his that supported affirmative action and he made sure to mention that his parents went to city schools. I don't blame the guy, he was a poor guy who went to a decent suburban school, but he told me something along the lines of "Wouldn't it be funny if I benefitted from affirmative action because they though I could of been black?" He was accepted, but he's a smart guy and he deserved it.

 

The truth is that though he was from a low economic class from many others from our town, he might of benefited from affirmative action when he was given an education not typical of the "poor latino or black" stereotype. My point? Race should have nothing to do with it, and it says that in black and white in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Race cannot be a determining factor, but affirmative action justifes using race by using correlations between race and socioeconomic class. So here's a bright idea, just use socioeconomic class! Why should eastern european immigrants or poor white guys be excluded if they are typical of the group that needs help? By ignoring this, we are only perpetuating racism.

 

Did you read all of that? Here comes the question of ability. There are black people who go to my college. Some are smart and there are others that have a major lack of skill. Even though there are a lot of stupid white people too, at least higher percentage of them have critical literacy. I have no doubt in my mind that if the lesser skilled black people were given an equal education to whites, they would have comparable ability and skill. However, they don't! Are professors going to have to "grade the blacks and latinos easy" so they can get by because of injustice that exists? I have seen this first hand. One cannot go through life like this, because eventually lack of skill will catch up with you.

 

Some will say what I am writing right now is racist, but I am by no means trying to convey anything remotely racist. I believe I am speaking against racism. A diverse school or working environment can improve the school or job by including contrasting personalities and ideas. However, a line must be drawn where diversity and skill are measured in terms of relative importance. How could one think this is not important or essential? Should we put more black people in golf if many black athletes have not learned golfing skill yet? How about more white people is basketball? How about 25% of baseball's players being from a one half of an island, the Dominican Republic! Why then do we make an exception for not applying this same logic to sports? The reason is because doing this would ruin the talent pools in professional sports. This means that it is a necesity to draw the line where the need for skill and the need for diveristy are needed in their respective levels of importance.

 

Do I have any solutions for this problem? Even though I might be God according to Anselm, I must say that the only idea I can come up with is using percentiles. When a college wants to admit someone and at the same time make sure they have a good balance of diversity and skill, just use the class rank of the individual. It is my opninion that all races are equally intelligent, and because of this someone who is ranked in the top ten percent in one school probably is about as intelligent as someone else in that same rank in a different school. However, a college must know how a school derives rank (all schools are different.) When it comes to SAT scores, there can be a way to derive the average score for that person and how it ranks with others that are predisposed to bad school systems. Then it could be determined at what balance of rank relates to the ultimate ability and skill level of a student's zone of proximity. In this way the socioeconomically disadvantaged can be helped.

 

So what's my conclusion? Nothing should be assessed based upon race, and if one wants to rectify problems created by capitalism, they cannot be guilty of racism on their own part.

 

Source: my brain, my observations, http://www.cornellsun.com/articles/8322/

[DurableTear]

I'd like to add that... the more money we use on the War in Iraq... the less funding for education.

 

More dumber people in our society, great...

[Lcyberlina]

I agree that admission to a school should NEVER be based on ethnicity. However, how would you prevent otherwise "racist" schools from denying education to deserving kids of different ethnic background than they tend to prefer?

[SorianoFanHFW]

I agree that admission to a school should NEVER be based on ethnicity. However, how would you prevent otherwise "racist" schools from denying education to deserving kids of different ethnic background than they tend to prefer?

You really can't, we have the equal oppurtuntiny commission, and you can report ethnic prejudice in the hiring process there.

 

Martin Luther King Jr said, "Injustice somewhere is injustice everywhere." That means that we should resist all injustice, and that would include ethnic affirmative action.

[SorianoFanHFW]

I'd like to add that... the more money we use on the War in Iraq... the less funding for education.

 

More dumber people in our society, great...

that's all borrowed money anyway. we're selling out our future.

[g8trz2003]

I know of a few people who would be better off if they didn't spend so much money on clothes and fancy things. I know both blacks and whites. What does this mean? I believe that blacks are at a disadvantage to a certain extent. But, that you have to help yourself if you expect to get help from others. I read a column in the AJC about the columnist's mom who was so poor that she quit smoking because cigarettes cost too much. Some people need to make sacrifices if they are gonna get out of their whole.

 

But I'm a spoiled rich kid, so what do I know.

[Shamrock]

I didn't know all this good posting was going down in this forum. Good stuff. Anyway, Furmangator being a rich white kid makes it tougher to understand the problems of disadvantaged people, but its not impossible. I'm not sure if you were joking or what...I think public schools should mandate that high school students spend a year or a semester in a 3rd world country, helping build schools, clean up, whatever. With a different perspective of how things work in places outside the US, people would grow up more aware of the plight of many people on this earth and maybe not waste as much as they currently do...and possibly have more compassion towards them? Its a new idea I've been thinking about so I can't put it into easily readable ideas yet, but I'm working on it. Plus I'm sick...and I was at the MD v FLA basketball game last night. ugh.

[SorianoFanHFW]

The only joke was the title, but even that is an overstatement.

[g8trz2003]

i joked about how I wouldnt know anything about it....because frankly...playing football, I've befriended many a low-income friend. Without going into details, I've seen a good childhood friend get held down by a racist principle and a racist teacher. I mean, I really don't want to get into how I experienced it, because well, 1 i am lazy, and 2 It's complicated.

 

I am anti-affirmative action, but at the same token, I do realize that there is still racism going on in the school systems....unfortunately, 2 wrongs do not equal a right, so reverse discrimination gets us nowhere.

[Lcyberlina]

I think public schools should mandate that high school students spend a year or a semester in a 3rd world country, helping build schools, clean up, whatever. With a different perspective of how things work in places outside the US, people would grow up more aware of the plight of many people on this earth and maybe not waste as much as they currently do...and possibly have more compassion towards them? Its a new idea I've been thinking about so I can't put it into easily readable ideas yet, but I'm working on it. Plus I'm sick...and I was at the MD v FLA basketball game last night. ugh.

That is very interesting idea :mischief2

[g8trz2003]

I went on a mission trip where I built a house for a Mexican family my 9th grade summer. Just thought I would share that.