Is it just me or does the price structure of the cookies show how Affirmative action critics tend to blow the issue way out of proportion. Well the pricing structure for women is in line with what they are paid dollar to dollar -vs- men. The pricing scheme for African-Americans and Hispanics is just shameful IMO.

Perhaps if these AA haters would focus on solving the real problems that create disparity amongst demographics, like how the drug war unfairly targets minorities and the pay gaps between men and women, we would have no need for AA as we would quicken down the road to equality.


Story

<font color=cadetblue>I personally think that the bake sale was a great idea to protest AA.</font>

Yeah, who cares if they want to give both black students at SMU a discount on cookies? :D [img]tongue.gif[/img]

What are the real problems, because as far as AA goes the only problem I see is giving people a hand out based on skin color instead of ability. If you had to go have surgery would you rather get worked on by the less qualified doctor who was hired based on the color of his skin , or would you rather be worked on by the best doctor regardless of his color? How would you feel if you were going to a university and found out that if you were a minority that the school would give you a free ride because they have to meet a quota, but because you arent you have to shell out $30,000 just to get an education. The road to eqality isnt AA, it is leting people succeed or fail on their own merit , not the color of their skin.

Actually AA gives people opportunity based on ability and use skin color as a factor on order to reflect the diverse nature of society. Its purpose is not to give hand-outs to unqualified people, but to prevent racists from denying the people they are prejudice against opportunity. Is there a better method to prevent racists from stopping the on-going creation of a diverse and intergrated society?

The idea that any or every minority that gets a position because of a race factor is less-qualified than any other applicant is wrong and unproven. In away it actually belittles the idea that minorities can be equal candidates.

Quotas have been illegal for a long time BTW, so no quota is going to prevent me from getting a job or into college. To be honest, I dont care how anybody else pays for their education and I applaude them for having and taking every opportunity to better themselves.

I beleive when one door closes, many may open, so I would rather congratulate someone elses success and continue on my own path of opportunity rather than waste my time playing the victim.

If you ask me, If AA does actually discriminate against me for my white skin, it does so not becasue I am white per se, but for a better society where racisim is openly discredited and eventually weeded out of our collective and individual mentality. That's a sacrifice worth having IMO.

[ 09-26-2003, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]

Ah, but use of skin color as a factor belittles their ability, too, doesn't it?

My most recent thoughts on this were not exactly on-point, but I'll post them anyway, since AA has been brought up:
_____________________________________________
assure you -- if I ever win the lottery I WILL be establishing a scholarship fund that only gives money to whites. It has been a long-time dream of mine. I wouldn't do it if I didn't feel all the other special-interest scholarships prejudiced whites, either.

I was privy to a conversation among black law student graduates one day. They all readily admitted that they did not study for the LSAT's, because they knew they'd get to go to a law school they wanted because they were black. I'm not misrepresenting their words, here. They also didn't study in law school much, because they knew they'd get a job no matter what -- black lawyers are a commodity law firms and state/federal governments search long and hard for. I'm not saying these people weren't capable of doing the work (the did study for and pass the color-blind Bar Exam) -- I'm pointing out they chose not to because they knew they had an easy road.

And, on a separate rant, after 40+ years of the Civil Rights Act encouraging governmental and private assistance to minorities, what really irked me is they felt entitled -- yes, ENTITLED, to such treatment. Why? They never suffered a plantation owner's whip. They never had to sit at the back of a bus or use a separate water fountain. They are no more ENTITLED to the repairations of their ancestors' suffering than I am LIABLE for the wrongdoings of my ancestors. The theory of levelling the playing field and correcting a historical imbalance is the ONLY one that ever gave an excuse to use affirmative action -- the repairations theory illogically and impermissibly assigns blame to those who did not do the wrong.

When my wife interviewed with the State's Attorney in Chicago, they asked her if she knew how hard they searched for qualified hispanic candidates. They go out of their way to hire them -- no matter what the law may say about the impermissibility of quotas. While I was borrowing like a bandit to pay for law school (including apartment rent, etc.), my wife was able to mitigate her borrowing by getting thousands of dollars a year from private organizations that just give money to latin law students (she's also more frugal than me -- but, that's another story).

Here's an interesting point. My wife is very light-skinned, as am I, as you'll see if you take a peek at Stealthy's. My wife dropped her latin last name when we married (due to an estranged relationship with her father). Theoretically, any children we have (nature willing), could completely ignore their latin heritage and completely integrate into white America. Should they? Well, I know come time for college scholarship applications, I'll certainly be encouraging them to check the "Latin/Hispanic" box because of the HUGE difference in benefits it makes. It'll be their decision, but minority status is POWERFUL.

So, the deck is stacked against my people. Until we wise up and just quit separating ANYBODY out by race, I'll be trying to help my group make it along. I didn't make these largely-meaningless black/white divisions in our society, but I'm forced to live in them. So, my white's-only scholarship may someday be a realized dream. And, I won't disguise the name or its purpose. Remember, I'm making a point -- and certainly never pass up the chance to PISS PEOPLE OFF.
________________________________________________

[ 09-26-2003, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

It sounds like you feel guilty because of what color you are.People should not be judged based on some random accident of birth. If you dont get a job it should be because you arent qualified for it , not just because you are white. Not giving you a job because you are white doesnt make society better, it just makes you poor.

It sounds like you feel guilty because of what color you are.People should not be judged based on some random accident of birth. If you don't get a job it should be because you aren't qualified for it , not just because you are white. Not giving you a job because you are white doesn't make society better, it just makes you poor. </font>[/QUOTE]Your gonna have to do better than that...LOL thats laughable...I feel guilty because of what color I am because I prefer safeguards against racism rather than the lack of them.

Funny as it is, due to my fathers adoption, and the loss of the records concerning his birth, I really only know 1/2 of what "race" I am other than human, and thats 1/4 Greek, 1/4 German.
I actually got beat up once for being a "spic" because evidently I have features that suggest Hispanic or Greek depending on who you ask. As a child I endured racial slurs usually geared towards Asians for my somewhat slanted eyes and dark hair.

If I were to feel guilty because of my race, its because I belong to a race(HUMAN) that is hateful and violent to one another because of superficial differences. I would rather feel proud of the progress my race (HUMAN) is making to become a better society because of things like AA.

Me not getting a job because another candidate got it in a reflection of the diverse society we live in is no problem to me. No guilt here about that.

If AA is the temporary cost for giving no quarter and no budge-room to bigots to practice their evil ways, I am actually rich in a way that no money can make me and I feel quite the opposite of guilt for helping continue to make an open diverse society.


Show me proof that racism and racial disparity is truly history and I will proclaim success for diversity and call for the end of AA.

Until then tell me another way to prevent racist bosses from making the opposite kind of hiring practice based on skin color: the bigoted, segregated kind, and I will call for an end to AA.

In all honesty, the only people I've ever known to use a skin color preference in hiring were minorities. I would never hear it, of course, but being a minority my wife gets to hear it all the time. You would be appalled at the number of minority bosses/mentors/professors she's had who remind her of her duty to help promote minorities. [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img]

Of course, since you can't tell she's a minority (people usually guess she's Greek or Italian or Russian), we also get embarrasing situations where we're in the company of white folks who talk about hispanics in a derrogatory way. We usually let them wallow in their ignorance because the excuses they make when you inform them of what they're doing are worse than the insults.

Anyway, prejudice exists on both sides and always will -- but it is infinitely rarer today than it was in the 50's.

Note that the Supreme Court's recent AA case speculated that AA may no longer be needed in the future -- and guessed at 25 years from now.

Well, what if you are more qualified? I can tell you undeniably that my wife's office hired less-qualified minority candidates. Look at my examples above -- those students who didn't try for s**t in law school, banking on the race card, obviously have horrible records. Now, in Chicago the State's Attorneys only hire about 1 in every 15 people they interview. I cannot possibly imagine there were not better candidates -- they just happened to be white.

[ 09-26-2003, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Potentially, but that's what is called a trade-off. It differs greatly from the idea that less-qualified people are getting jobs based on skin color in the idea that using race as a factor helps gaurantee a diverse workforce/student body under the auspice that bigotry wont be tolerated from beginning to end. So if someone feels beltittled because race was used as a factor, they can take solace in that. It's a matter of perception IMO.

I bet the black law student who does study and does excel on all tests gets the job over the slack-jawed yokels who were bragging about not studing and getting a free ride. I also bet there are black students who know that and use it to their advantage. Every system has its flaws and exploitations, one must weigh these flaws against the potential benifits.

Okay. But, for me, if you add this trade-off with the Entitlement trade-off, you are setting the minority communities up for long-term failure. AA tells them they will always be looked down on by some because they had a helping hand in getting the job, and over time it creates the entitlement problem.

My wife's coworkers are likely the only attorneys I know who don't care about current events, don't read, have never encountered philosophy, and never watch the news. They slacked in law school and slack at work. Obviously, they have untapped ability. Had they had to work like the rest of us, they may be better off for their efforts. They would be more learned (yes, smarter), more aware, and would probably enjoy life a bit more. They would pass on more of these traits to their kids, and their kids would like "ask" you things rather say things like "I be axe-ing you dis" (yes, it's true, exact quote).

Look, we know that welfare creates a treadmill that hampers families for multiple generations. AA is exactly like welfare -- it's a dole. Accordingly, it will create long-term problems for the community as the community falls into this whole Entitlement philosophy.

Well in a strange way, AA could actually gaurantee that minorities dont go 'overboard' in "lifting their people up" any more than a majority could.
That is when whites become the minority, they could use the very same method to insure they get a fair shot. Works both ways. Of course when we have finally and definitely gotten past race in how we judge people then it will be a none issue.
Well thats unfortunate, but you guys are better than me in way, because I have a bad habit of laying the direct smack-down on racists banter. I would give little room in for excuses as I angrily departed company. The song 'racist friend' by the Specials sums it up for me:

"If you have a racist friend,
now is the time now is the time
for that friendship to end."
It is rarer and definitely better hidden, and I agree that AA has an end in the future when it is clear that social conditions and opportunity are equal in every community. That could be 25 years or 10 years. All we have to go on is statistics really, so when the statistic reveal equal pay and social conditions maybe then we can declare victory and phase out the measures we used to get there.

The thing is I can't beleive that there aren't better candidate that aren't white as well. I can't just assume that every minority plays the race card, that would be presumptious. Like I said in my last post, it's a trade off that the system gets exploited.

This is the reasoning I started this thread out with, even though it may not be perfect, I think some critics of AA exagerate its flaws with out comprehensive facts to back up the hype. I CAN respectfully see why people take issue with it.

Okay. But, for me, if you add this trade-off with the Entitlement trade-off, you are setting the minority communities up for long-term failure. AA tells them they will always be looked down on by some because they had a helping hand in getting the job, and over time it creates the entitlement problem.

My wife's coworkers are likely the only attorneys I know who don't care about current events, don't read, have never encountered philosophy, and never watch the news. They slacked in law school and slack at work. Obviously, they have untapped ability. Had they had to work like the rest of us, they may be better off for their efforts. They would be more learned (yes, smarter), more aware, and would probably enjoy life a bit more. They would pass on more of these traits to their kids, and their kids would like "ask" you things rather say things like "I be axe-ing you dis" (yes, it's true, exact quote).

Look, we know that welfare creates a treadmill that hampers families for multiple generations. AA is exactly like welfare -- it's a dole. Accordingly, it will create long-term problems for the community as the community falls into this whole Entitlement philosophy. </font>[/QUOTE]Alright, this is not overstating the issue and reveals an exact flaw that is inherent in the idea of giving a man to fish rather than showing him how to do it.

Ideally AA would not be the former and comes from the idea of the latter. It should be an enabling device that says if you do the work and excel, no racist can keep you from the job/school training you are equally entitled to to do.

I guess the question is: How do we keep the safegaurd, make it an enabler, but not make it a self-defeating entitlement?

Simple. Get rid of AA, yet keep the anti-discrimination rules. Getting rid of AA programs won't change the Civil Rights Act.

If you must insist on AA, keep in MINIMAL. I mean MINIMAL. And only for a short while longer.

And, ditch programs that lead to an entitlement philosophy. Rather than giving minorities an easy route into college and a job, give them opportunities in schools. Require that state grants, be they jobwise, moneywise, or otherwise, won't be given to the best minority student -- but rather the best minority student who can meed X, Y, and Z standards. Once a school gets 0 out of a possible 10 scholarships one year, it'll get its ass in line.

Remember, though, you cannot stop the private sources of funding -- such as the UNCF and the NAACP. No way to keep a private group from discriminating. It's their money, and they can do as they please with it.

[ 09-26-2003, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Sounds good to me! The only issue I have is if you get rid of AA and fall back on laws to stop discrimination the only recourse is reactionary. Your not really helping instill diversity, but merely punishing those who would practice disrimination if it can be proven they are doing so. Barring direct proof, it would take distinct patterns of discrimination to ever make a case and any recourse would come long after the fact.

AA does have the benifit of being preventative. AA creates diversity, which I think is the best preventative measure for a future without discrimination.

I do agree, from thinking of this discussion mind you, that AA needs to be an enabling device, not one like welfare entitlement. I hadn't thought of it in those terms before.

Thanks for the discussion! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Racial discrimination is racial discrimination - don't wrap it up in cutesy phrases like "affirmative action" - call it what it is, racial discrimination.

Is there anywhere else in the world where such practices are legal?

As far as in the interest to create an intergrated society, no where else I know of.

How else do you create a racially intergrated society from the ashes of one that was sharply segregated?

<font color = lightgreen>While working for the TX-DOT Area Laboratory in Denton with two black co-workers one permanent state job became open. Despite my education (double major in chemistry and mathematics), the fact that I had worked in laboratory settings before, and that I had already been at the job longer than one other candidate I didn't get the job. I had more education, more experience, and a better overall job performance review, so why did he get the position? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

In short, all I need to know of "Affirmative Action" is that race does matter! It sure as heck isn't about "finding the best person for the job" or any of that nice-sounding crap. [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img] I know that supporters say that Affirmative Action isn't a quota system, but it has the appearance of being a quota. Affirmative Action hurts everyone.

edit: by the way...if you can afford to attend SMU you don't need a discount! </font>

[ 09-27-2003, 02:33 AM: Message edited by: Azred ]

So we get rid of Afirmative action, right, since it only benifits minorities, correct?
I found this nice little pro-AA statement that helps put giving preference to citizens in different perspective.

Source-“Angry White Guys For Affirmative Action”

More of that exaggeration and overstatement I was referring too. :rollseyes:

You obviously perceive that AA has hurt you since someone else got the job you referred to, whether thats the case or not, there is no need to take it out on the many people who do indeed get ahead in life because of having one preferred status or another by such a blanket statement.

[ 09-27-2003, 03:11 AM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]

More of that exaggeration and overstatement I was referring too. :rollseyes:

You obviously perceive that AA has hurt you since someone else got the job you referred to, whether thats the case or not, there is no need to take it out on the many people who do indeed get ahead in life because of having one preferred status or another by such a blanket statement. </font>[/QUOTE]I have news from the author - white kids from working class neighbourhoods were being sent to die abroad too: and they didn't appreciate the fact that some *RICH*/well connected kids were avoiding the draft. There were many white-middle class kids who went on to die and get maimed in Vietnam too - and it's a little offensive to hijack the war as a 'black man's only' war.

Many white people died in WWII as well - and true enough the very rich/well connected managed to get their sons placed in 'safe' postings then as well.

What we are talking about here is about the power (financial and political) of the elite - not neccessarily of the 'white'.

So do non-white people not get to enjoy these 'benefits' then? Or again, are we talking about the rich/poor divide rather than race once more?

The problem with the new insidious racial discrimination is that it masquarades at redressing old wrongs - when instead it creates new ones.

There are BETTER and fairer ways of approaching the equality issue. Take universities in the UK for example. In the majority of cases, when you apply to a university, you do it via a central clearing house. The clearing house notes your entry qualifications/expected qualifications and allocates you a REFERENCE NUMBER.

This REFERENCE NUMBER is then passed on to the universtity along with your expected entry qualifications and the University makes you an offer, via the clearing house, on that basis. At no time does the university know your name,age, sex, race or the size of your parents bank account until it has already made you an offer of a place...

[ 09-27-2003, 09:24 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

I see where you are coming from Skunk. What I found most interesting from that article is the fact that preferential consideration is given for all sorts of classes of people, but people tend to only gripe when it is applied to create racial diversity and equality.

Also, I welcome alternatives to AA that will reinforce diversity as well as safeguard against bigoted hateful prejudice discrimination.

Finally, my main issue here is not to defend AA per se, I am still learning about it and since so far I think it is worth having rather than not I have taken the defend AA position.

My real issue is some critics of AA demonize it completely with exaggeration and go so far as deny anything good has or could come from it.

Lemme see if I got this straight: The university says that AA is bad when selling cookies, but good when admitting students?