Affirmative Action

[Yusuf Evans]

Unless your parents are from other countries, chances are, noone in the United States is 100% anything, but American. We have mixed with other cultures fast than any other society in human history. This is due to our way of life. The freedoms we grant, the rights of the people to choose.

The generation in the high schools these days are being taught to despise our society, simply because of a teacher or parent's idealogical views. Affirmitive Action used to be a really effective tool. It helped people of other nationalities get jobs that otherwise went to those of European ancestry. I am all for Equal Oppurtunity for everyone. However, of all the race boxes, every American citizen whose family has been here for more than 4 generations, should put a check in eithe the other or various box. Example of this are my children. On their birth certificate, I put down they are Japanes. Until the age of 18, both will have dual citizenship with the U.S. and Japan. My wife is full blooded Okinawan. Because of this, they have allot of her traits. My family, is another story. My father is Creek Indian and Welsh. My mother is English-Irish. Therefore, I have pale skin, yet my brother looks just like my father. When they tan, they look like Mexicans.

Affirmative Action is not a sin, but it is not to be used as a crutch. Abuse of anything can make that something good into something bad.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

So far almost every post in this thread has approached affirmative action as an issue of correcting past wrongs, leveling the playing field and/or harming inelligible groups and individuals through double standards.

Like every other controversy known to humanity, affirmative action is more complicated than how most people approach it.

Recently I watched a speech on the Supreme Court ruling in the affirmative action case a few years ago against the University of Michigan Law School. The speaker said that the Supreme Court's ruling in that case was different from earlier affirmative action cases. I think he was saying that it set a new precedent. Until then, it is my understanding, the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld affirmative action as Constitutional based on its use in correcting injustices. In the Univ. of Michigan case, however, it is my understanding that the court ruled that the university and the state had the right to use race (and maybe gender; I'm not sure) as a criterion in admitting law school applicants in order to create an environment of diversity. We now live in a multi-cultural society and in a world where national and cultural boundaries are being dissolved by globalization, the thinking goes. Therefore, for a person's education to prepare him/her to participate as a worker and a citizen in that multi-cultural environment it needs to expose him/her to a diversity of peoples and cultures, the thinking continues. Therefore, educational institutions like the University of Michigan have not only the right, but the responsibility, to admit a diverse student body. Graduates of the University of Michigan Law School won't be representing and prosecuting white people only, if you know what I mean. Therefore, exposure to the diverse backgrounds of the people they will have to work with in their professional lives is an important part of their preparation and training. The Supreme Court said something similar to what I just spelled out in the last several sentences, it is my understanding. And it is my understanding that based on the fact the the UM Law School has affirmative action in admissions to foster diversity, the high court ruled it Constitutional.

Using race in hiring and admissions decisions in order to correct past wrongs and level the playing field is one thing. Using race in hiring and admissions decisions in order for everybody in the organization to benefit from a diverse staff or student body is quite another.

People who only look at affirmative action as an issue of racial justice are oversimplifying the policy. Just like how everything else in politics, philosophy and theology gets oversimplified.

 

[one love]

If racism is forceful, then it is immoral. If not, so be it, move on.