Affirmative Action

OK, so I'm ready to talk about what Affirmative Action really does. I'm tired of calls of 'reverse discrimination' or 'reverse racism'. And, I am certainly tried of arguements that race shouldn't be a factor in admissions. Here we go...

The following is the origional text calling for Affirmative Action, part of executive order 10925. I put the call in bold. Note, there are no calls for quotas nor 'reverse discrimination'. (http://www.eeoc.gov/abouteeoc/35th/thelaw/eo-10925.html)

PART III-OBLIGATIONS OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS AND SUBCONTRACTORS
SUBPART A-CONTRACTORS' AGREEMENTS
SECTION 301. Except in contracts exempted in accordance with section 303 of this order, all government contracting agencies shall include in every government contract hereafter entered into the following provisions:

"In connection with the performance of work under this contract, the contractor agrees as follows:

"(1) The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. Such action shall include, but not be limited to, the following: employment, upgrading, demotion or transfer; recruitment or recruitment advertising; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation; and selection for training, including apprenticeship. The contractor agrees to post in conspicuous places, available to employees and applicants for employment, notices to be provided by the contracting officer setting forth the provisions of this nondiscrimination clause.

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Following this order, Johnson discussed the reason for the order in a speech at Howard University:

"You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: 'now, you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.' You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you have been completely fair . . . This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity—not just legal equity but human ability—not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result."

And, finally the program was enforced through Exectutive Order 11246: http://www.eeoc.gov/abouteeoc/35th/thelaw/eo-11246.html Note that there is no change to the origional call.

While, not calling for quotas, the Bakke case in 1978 made the practice of using quota's illegal.

Again, in 1995, Clinton reaffirmed the illegality of quotas stating a call for the elimination of any program that: "(a) creates a quota; (b) creates preferences for unqualified individuals; (c) creates reverse discrimination; or (d) continues even after its equal opportunity purposes have been achieved."

So, as we can see, the claims made my many are directly false. Now, the issue is whether or not race should be a factor in admissions.

It seems quite clear to me that the experience of folks of color has the potential to make them stronger people, harder workers, and more well rounded than whites. It seems to me that when you grow up faced with racism, discrimination - both blatant and systemic - you would develop strength of character and aquire additional skills.

Studying racism has shown many of the "disadvantages" racism gives to whites: http://lipmagazine.org/articles/featbrasel_145.shtml (text below) How can we argue these shouldn't be considered in applications/hiring processes?

That is my peice for the day.

Here is Wise's text, there is more in the article:

On a basic level, one might consider the harms that come from racial privilege if, by virtue of that privilege, one remains isolated from others. So, to live in an almost all white neighborhood, thanks to past and present housing bias, as about 85% of whites do, means huge advantages in terms of wealth and assets, but also means that we're cut off from the experiences, cultures and contributions of people of color—to our own detriment in terms of being functionally literate and interculturally competent for a country that is increasingly non-white, and a world that never was white to begin with. And while that isolation and ignorance might not have mattered in an earlier era, now it does.


Even more though, I think a system of privilege often has the effect of setting up those who receive certain advantages for a fall. What I mean is that dominant group members quite logically come to expect certain things, and to have a sense of entitlement as a result of their relatively privileged status. And that can leave a person unprepared to deal with setbacks: personal, professional, or whatever else. The coping skills that oppressed groups have to develop to survive, are not as "needed" for dominant groups, and the result is sometimes tragic.


I started thinking about this in the wake of the multiple white suburban school shootings, and also data I was coming across that indicated disproportionate pathological and dysfunctional behavior among whites in various categories.


I mean, general crime rates are disproportionate in communities of color and poor communities, due to socioeconomic conditions that are correlated with crime. Yet specific crimes, like serial killing, mass murder, child sexual abuse, or drug use, and other dysfunctions, like suicide, eating disorders, or alcoholism are mostly found in the white middle class. And whereas everyone, right or left, would seek to explain "why" in the case of dark and poor folks—the left saying economics and structural causes, the right saying genes or cultural flaws—when it comes to white and middle class dysfunction, the question, "why," isn't asked.

Or if it is, the "causes" are inevitably located externally—the video games, the music, the movies—and never viewed as possibly intrinsic to the group in question or the environment in which that group finds itself. But I wonder, "why the disconnect?" Why are some crimes or dysfunctions disproportionately dark and poor, and others disproportionately white and middle class or above?


I would suggest that part of the answer is that in this culture, whites are dominant, and tend to develop a sense of control, entitlement and expectation as a result, unlike non-dominant groups, who through experience know that obstacles and barriers are part of their everyday experience. And since dominant group members have not had to deal with major obstacles to our advance, or in terms of our being accepted and valued in society, we really haven't had to develop those coping skills. So when the going gets tough, so to speak, we, more so than others, are more likely to react in a manner that seems so bizarre that it literally defies logic.


So if you look at the various pathologies that are disproportionately found in the white community, what are they? Almost all pathologies about "control" and rage—serial killing, mass murder, sexual sadism on the one hand; and then internally directed control pathologies on the other hand, like suicide, eating disorders, alcoholism, drug abuse, etc. The pathologies that are disproportionately in communities of color are not about control in the same way—they are largely what could be called "survival" pathologies, and pathologies related to deprivation or perceived deprivation.

So what I am trying to ask is whether there may be dysfunctional aspects to white, middle class culture—and the advantages that come from being white, male and middle class—in terms of building up expectations, generating a sense of entitlement, and causing a sense of invincibility that leads folks to let down their guards to serious problems or pathologies?


In other words, is the system of racial privilege that benefits whites so much ultimately planting the seeds of those same white folks' self-destruction and social entropy?