MacRaven - Dave Haxton's Weblog

Tue, 14 Mar 2006

Colleges Open Minority Aid to All Comers

The whole idea of "affirmative action" just irritates the Hel out of me. If "Jim Crow" laws were wrong (and they were), if racial prejudice is a moral lapse (and it is), then it's equally wrong to legislate racial quotas, and to demand preferential treatment based on race. And that's all affirmative action really is: racism in reverse. Despite what the advocates for privilege say:

Advocates of focused scholarships programs like Theodore M. Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., challenge the notion that programs for minority students hurt whites. "How is it that they conclude that the great evil in this country is discrimination against white people?" Mr. Shaw asked. "Can I put that question any more pointedly? I struggle to find the words to do it because it's so stunning."

Let me help you, Mr. Shaw. Number one, nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has said that the "great evil in this country is discrimination against white people" - they're saying that the great evil in this country is racial discrimination. Period.

And if you don't think it's possible to discriminate against white folks, how would you explain the recent incident in Portland, Maine? That's not blacks discriminating against whites: it's whites discriminating against whites! But beyond all the fluff and posture, it is what it is. Racial discrimination.

And that, my friend, is always bullshit, no matter who's doing it to whom.

Amid threats of litigation and pressure from Washington, programs created for minorities are being opened to white students.

(link) [New York Times]

/Politics | 4 writebacks | permanent link

On 3/15/2006 08:44:18
Arwin wrote

Mission Accomplished

I can't argue with your logic. Too bad people aren't machines where a specific input generates a specific known output. I do think there needs to be some sort of mechanism to help minorities which have been discriminated against catch up. I don't know what that method should be. Maybe the Laissez-Faire method you seem to be advocating would the best in the long run. It certainly eliminates the backlash where discriminating for a specific race instead of against it may in the long run backfire. In defense of affirmative action: Things certainly have changed for the better since we were kids though. I don't know if you remember the old Riverside amusement park which used to be located near current site of the zoo. Well this institution met its demise when the Civil Rights Act forced this park to admit blacks. Whites, including my family, stopped going. I was too young to know why we stopped going and only learned of this from a friend of mine who is several years older. I was appalled to find this out. Part of the reduction in racial tension has to be a result of affirmative action. We probably wouldn't see minorities in roles they are now were it not for affirmative action. This would perpetuate the perception blacks are inferior to whites.... of course the flip side of affirmative action is folks thinking if not for affirmative action this minority person would not be be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc. As you can tell I'm very ambivalent on this subject. Maybe the more important part of affirmative action is that a cross section of the unskilled work force is now representative of the general population. If not for affirmative action, I doubt high paid factory jobs would be going to minorities. Companies don't seem to change their MO unless forced to by either the market or government. I will be glad to see affirmative action go assuming it signals "Mission accomplished".... and not the faux statement made by Bush. On the lighter side: I wish various minorities would decide what they want to be called and stick with it. African Americans used to prefer being called negroes, then black, and now of course African Americans. I don't know if Asian Americans ever accepted the term oriental or not, but of course now it's Asian American. It doesn't matter to me which term a minority prefers, just stick with it for more than a decade. :-)

On 3/15/2006 09:45:40
Dave H wrote

Name calling...

I'll stay out of your ambivalence on affirmative action, except to remind you that the Civil Rights Act itself should not be confused with quota programs. However... As for what to call "minorities", may I suggest "human beings", or "people". I don't make it a habit to insist folks call me a "European American", so I guess I don't see much point in prepending my ancestors continental origins to my nationality today. Just a thought. Thanks for the comment, and Be well, Dave H.

On 3/15/2006 11:15:33
Arwin wrote

Politically correct

I realize the civil rights act is separate from affirmative action. The point I was trying to make is where we are now in regards to race relations is hard to separate from affirmative action. Could we have been more successful without affirmative action? Who knows? There is no way to tell. My opinion is we probably wouldn't be as successful in overcoming prejudice based on race without affirmative action. Your opinion is just as valid (I'm sure you are glad to hear that :-)) I don't mean to name call. I'd just like to be able to differentiate in a description one human being or person from another without giving offense. For example you might be in a conversation with someone and say, "I was talking to the African American at..." so the person you are talking to can picture who you are talking about if you don't know a name. I just find it amusing how politically correct changes over time. The older I get the harder it is to keep up with. :-) It is phony as hel when a white person says, "Oh he's an African American. I didn't notice. All I saw was a person." Bulllll! Noticing the difference isn't the bad thing. What you do because you notice a difference is what counts.

On 3/15/2006 12:55:40
Arwin wrote

Clarification

I re-read my first post and I want to leave no room for misinterpretation. In my first post I wrote I was appalled, I was appalled that my family stopped going to Riverside Amusement park because it was no longer segregated, not appalled because Riverside went out of business. Riverside went out of business not because of the Civil Rights Act, but because people were bigots.

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