Pass the Collection Plate: Here's My Two Cents

One of the major arguments propagated in anti-affirmative action rhetoric today is the belief that affirmative action is a biased policy that perpetuates racial inequality and, by dismantling the policy, America will somehow return to the colorblind and fair society it never was.

(john) This is not true at all. What the colorblind argument says is that color conscienceness has led to many of the problems in post-Civil War America. The way to remedy those problems, the argument contends, is to realize that the constituion IS colorblind and begin applying the principles of justice indiscriminatinately. They point out that the way to bring down the color divides is through color blindness, not through enhance color perceptions. As Justice Scalia opines, "We are all one race here. It is American."(/john)

According to APA Online, "It was racial classification, not socio-economic status that prevented Thurgood Marshall's admission to the University of Maryland's law school."

(john> Yes, but regardless of the racial discrimnation against Thurgood Marshall, he suceeded in becoming one of the most brilliant litigants and NAACP strategy lawyers in the 20th century. He also become a Supreme Court justice, no small distinction in itself. What does this show about affirmative action? That Thurgood could have, and did, suceeded without it even in the face of rampant discrimination. It also shows that the if the law were to remove barriers, a negative action against discrimination, rather than persue preferences, a postive action of discrimination, the brilliant people, regardless of race, rise to the top. (/john)

This country has always considered race when admitting college students or hiring employees, thus affirmative action is by no means a new policy. (john) Just because some wrong X was committed in the past, it does not justify updated versions of X in the present.(/john)

According to Julian Bond, "White males make up 92 percent of the U.S. Senate, 80 percent of the U.S. House, 90 percent of the nation's newspaper editors and 80 percent of the tenured faculty at the nation's colleges and universities." Something is wrong in America when approximately 40 percent of its inhabitants are minorities, but government intuitions, businesses and academia continue to be white-washed.

(john) Statistical variations between population size and 'representation' have always existed and will continue to exist across human societies. Moreover, showing statistical variations does not conclusively and incontrovertiably prove discrimination. Lightning strikes men more often than women even though women make up a majority of the world's population. To use this statistic to 'prove' that lightning has gender bias is as fallacious as quoting numbers from Bond on the government's racial composition. Instituions of governing and learning do not exist to paint pretty statistical pictures for those who are interested in seeing pretty statistical pictures; they exist primarily to better equip everyone to persue his conception of the good life. (/john)

but why all of sudden when race is considered for the minority do all these assumptions that the bar of academic and intellectual excellence has somehow been lowered? (john) This is because for elite colleges there exists a very small pool of non-Asian minority applicants. The limited supply and the high demand creates a situation known as a 'shortage.' Colleges, in their infinite social wisdom, are relatively unconcerned about the underlying reasons for those shortages: failing schools, broken homes, lack of drive, lack of divine blessing, etc, but are very very concerned about fixing the shortage in the short-term through mismatching applicants. They take what would otherwise be first-rate students, were they competing at the right level among their peers, and place them in universities that are above their level. (/john)

I contend that these very assumptions illustrate the perpetuation of discrimination in America. (john) Actually data shows that there actually exist an acheivement gap betwen Asian and whites, whites and non-Asian minorities, and between Asian and non-Asian minorities. Professor of Lingusitics John McWhorter has done some excellent research into the field of the 'achievement gap thesis' and Professor of Economics Thomas Sowell has used empirical analysis to offer some competing theories of why this gap would exist. (/john)

The age of white male superiority is over, so get over it. It is time for this country to live up to the hypocritical rhetoric of equality and justice for all that it has proposed for so long. (john) It seems bad that an otherwise uniformed yet innocous article could so easily turn into junior varsity race-baiting and the good ole 'One Minute of Hate' against THE MAN (always trying to keep us down). Not only has the author of the piece pontificated unemcumbered by knowledge, she confesses in the pages of the D that at her core, she is at best, self-decieved and hateful and at worst, a mere echo of an opinion that could have been intelligent. (/john)

Posted by John Stevenson at 10:02 AM |