Does it matter which demographic is being discrimated against? If so why?
Affirmative action, yes or no?
- Thread starter shesulsa
- Start date
Does it matter which demographic is being discrimated against? If so why?
1. Not my word. I don't see AA as discriminatory. It attempts to level a field that has been tilted in one direction for centuries. I don't find that egregious.
2. If you choose to see it as being discriminatory, you would have to concede that it discriminates against heterosexual white men. I don't see a qualified white male as having a difficult time finding work when an equally qualified black man is hired in his place. I also find it historically and culturally blind for a heterosexual white male to find this problematic.
That's my take on it.
I would see any program that makes employment, education, benefits, etc. available to a person based on race, gender, or sexual preference as discrimanatory. Using one form of discrimination to fight another form of discrimination has never made sense to me.
So far all the posts have looked at AA from an ethnic viewpoint.
Until the late 1960s very few older women were in the Australian workforce. Once a woman married she was expected to have kids and stay home to look after them and her husband. Wages and costs were such that most families could live on one wage. There were very few women in the professions, no judges, few barristers, no commercial airline pilots etc, etc, and where women worked, they were paid less than men to perform the same job.
Economically things changed in the 70's and many families found they needed two bread-winners. Women were still excluded from the top positions.
Affirmative action legislation was introduced in 1986 and 20 years later it is a totally different environment, not so good if your a man.
What I am suggesting is that affirmative action should be not seen as an inappropriate person being employed over a more qualified one but more, where there is a choice available a demographic balance is maintained. Eventually the AA should not be needed. :asian:
Until the late 1960s very few older women were in the Australian workforce. Once a woman married she was expected to have kids and stay home to look after them and her husband. Wages and costs were such that most families could live on one wage. There were very few women in the professions, no judges, few barristers, no commercial airline pilots etc, etc, and where women worked, they were paid less than men to perform the same job.
Economically things changed in the 70's and many families found they needed two bread-winners. Women were still excluded from the top positions.
Affirmative action legislation was introduced in 1986 and 20 years later it is a totally different environment, not so good if your a man.
What I am suggesting is that affirmative action should be not seen as an inappropriate person being employed over a more qualified one but more, where there is a choice available a demographic balance is maintained. Eventually the AA should not be needed. :asian:
Twin Fist
Grandmaster
Satamayor is clearly an unqualified failure as a judge, and was only nominated because of her race and gender.
yeah, satomayor isnt the point, but you brought her up to try and get people to back down. White people HATE being called racist, and usually? they just walk away.
Media Matters?
media ****ing matters?
seriously?
epic FAIL
there is literally NO source more biased.
yeah, satomayor isnt the point, but you brought her up to try and get people to back down. White people HATE being called racist, and usually? they just walk away.
Media Matters?
media ****ing matters?
seriously?
epic FAIL
there is literally NO source more biased.
Empty Hands
Senior Master
Every piece of evidence available shows you are wrong. It's either extreme partisan hackery or racism/sexism that makes you persist. Pick one.
Alito had an overturn rate of 100% (2 out of 2). Naturally, he is highly qualified. I wonder how you can even respect yourself here.
I expected that. They show their work, as my old math teacher used to say. The cases filed, and the cases overturned, for each district. You can check their numbers if you like. Which you won't.
I know you won't pay any attention to the evidence, or to my original actual point, these posts are for the benefit of others.
celtic_crippler
Senior Master
To say discrimination is wrong and then say that someone should be shown preferential treatment because of race or gender in the same breath is hypocrisy.
Somehow that simple fact escapes some people. That's what I don't understand. Can somebody please explain that to me? :idunno:
Somehow that simple fact escapes some people. That's what I don't understand. Can somebody please explain that to me? :idunno:
Yes. That makes sense in a vacuum: All other things being equal, it would be hypocritical to discriminate while maintaining that to do so is wrong. On these grounds I would oppose affirmative action for the blue-eyed, even though I myself am a member of that class.
But the discrimination practiced against African-Americans (say) was wrong...yet it happened, and has had lasting effects. Earlier Empty Hands mentioned this study:
Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination
So, discrimination is wrong...and it still happens. Is it so clear that fighting fire with fire, though unfortunate, is really the wrong response?
Phoenix44
Master of Arts
I think you should be able to use affirmative action...ONCE.
Yes, past discrimination, bad circumstances, and bad schools do hurt people. If your mom is a crack whore and you don't know who your father is, I think you deserve a break...ONCE.
For example, if you need affirmative action to get into Brooklyn Technical High School, then you don't get to use affirmative action to get into Harvard. Why? Because you just got a great education at Brooklyn Tech, that's why! That should mitigate your crack whore past, so you should apply to Harvard on your own merit.
If you go to state university, and you decide to get some affirmative action points to go to Harvard Law, fine, but then you don't get any points when you're applying for a job--because you just got a Harvard diploma, which should be more than enough to get you a job.
I think that's fair. I don't think it's fair for you to affirmative action your way from nursery school to Yale.
I also don't think you deserve affirmative action because your ancestors, but not you, suffered discrimination. If your great great grandfather was a slave, but both of your parents are physicians, you don't need affirmative action.
Yes, past discrimination, bad circumstances, and bad schools do hurt people. If your mom is a crack whore and you don't know who your father is, I think you deserve a break...ONCE.
For example, if you need affirmative action to get into Brooklyn Technical High School, then you don't get to use affirmative action to get into Harvard. Why? Because you just got a great education at Brooklyn Tech, that's why! That should mitigate your crack whore past, so you should apply to Harvard on your own merit.
If you go to state university, and you decide to get some affirmative action points to go to Harvard Law, fine, but then you don't get any points when you're applying for a job--because you just got a Harvard diploma, which should be more than enough to get you a job.
I think that's fair. I don't think it's fair for you to affirmative action your way from nursery school to Yale.
I also don't think you deserve affirmative action because your ancestors, but not you, suffered discrimination. If your great great grandfather was a slave, but both of your parents are physicians, you don't need affirmative action.
yorkshirelad
Master Black Belt
Show me where TF's or anyone here has been racist. That comment was just plain out of order. Might I remind you that the reason Sotomayer isn't appropriate for the Supreme court is not because she is not qualified. It is because SHE has made RACIST an SEXISTS comments in the past and she doesn't seem to get what the role of a judge is. To believe that policy is set by the courts is damn right dangerous.
You would be the first to cry foul if Alito, Thomas or Roberts had made the same comments about Latina or Black women as Sotomayer had made about White males.
One more thing 'Media Matters'.......Come on now.
yorkshirelad
Master Black Belt
I know on particular African American who was screwed by the AA system in the US, because he claimed he was African American and was in fact white. The only problem with this was that he was the only real African applying. If Americans sttopped using designations like African American, Irish American and Italian American and started using the term American instead, maybe we all could move forward.
yorkshirelad
Master Black Belt
I do think that that is an important point that YL made there in post#52.
The clinging to 'ethnicity' for advantage is, it seems to me, a retrograde step in terms of social integration and advancement. It's also one that I think is a false appeal to 'sympathy' and appears to be very much a development of the past few decades.
Almost all of us that are posting here I would hazard a guess have status of a slave at some point in our family history. I know I do and nearly all of the non-noble families of England do. If it wasn't the Saxons, it was the Romans, if it wasn't the Roman's, it was the Normans, if it wasn't the Norman's it was the aristocracy ...
The only difference I see in the cases that fall under the AA banner is the relative shortness of time - a century or so rather than millenia. That's still three generations or more.
It sounds harsh and I know that people who don't know me well will judge me badly for it but it really is time to let go of racism/sexism/ageism as easy reasons not to try on your own account. As I said earlier, prejudice takes many forms in many different places and Affirmative Action is only targeted to those quarters where a sense of collective guilt is traded on. That is wrong.
The clinging to 'ethnicity' for advantage is, it seems to me, a retrograde step in terms of social integration and advancement. It's also one that I think is a false appeal to 'sympathy' and appears to be very much a development of the past few decades.
Almost all of us that are posting here I would hazard a guess have status of a slave at some point in our family history. I know I do and nearly all of the non-noble families of England do. If it wasn't the Saxons, it was the Romans, if it wasn't the Roman's, it was the Normans, if it wasn't the Norman's it was the aristocracy ...
The only difference I see in the cases that fall under the AA banner is the relative shortness of time - a century or so rather than millenia. That's still three generations or more.
It sounds harsh and I know that people who don't know me well will judge me badly for it but it really is time to let go of racism/sexism/ageism as easy reasons not to try on your own account. As I said earlier, prejudice takes many forms in many different places and Affirmative Action is only targeted to those quarters where a sense of collective guilt is traded on. That is wrong.
celtic_crippler
Senior Master
No...her own words prove YOU are wrong.
As stated in the initial post that started this thread I recognize that she has a done a good job as a judge for the most part.
HOWEVER...and it's a BIG "HOWEVER" ...
She has stated, knowing that the view she took at the time she was stating it as evidenced in the footage of her stating it, was contrary to the very foundations our country were founded on and that it contradicted the constitution and that her view was contrary to maintaining the very balance of power between the 3 branches of government.
That, more than her remarks about Latinos and women, should be more of a concern to any citizen concerned with the direction this country has and is taking.
Have we simply strayed so far over the last century + that people don't even recognize that we haven't been a "constitutional" country in as much time!?!?!
Don't you realize that once you give up a freedom or liberty that you'll never get it back? Just look at income tax for crying out loud! People just accept it and go on about their day..dum-dee-dum.
It drives me bonkers!
JUDGES ARE NOT INTENDED TO, NEVER HAVE BEEN INTENDED TO, AND NEVER SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO LEGISLATE FROM THE BENCH!!!!
Does no one see the absolute danger in that? :tantrum:
What frightens me is that so many people want to give up the rights, protections, and priviledges I am supposedly garaunteed by the constitution.
WTH, the constitution has just about become some ancient relic at this point and the principles of the Founding Fathers an outdated ideal... Who cares anymore? Nobody...that's who..."grumble..grumble..."
Two wrongs don't make a right.
You can try to rationalize it all you want but it's still wrong all day long.
I could cite different examples untill I'm blue in the face but those that support it, support it and probably will never see the other side of the coin to consider why it's a bad idea.
You rape my wife so I get to rape your wife and on and on and on. It's not ethical to "punish" one person or group of people for a wrong done to another person or group of persons.
The Jews get it. They're probably the most persecuted group in the history of man and how often do you see them crying? They don't! Perhaps we should take a lesson from them?
There's no justification for wronging anybody for any reason.
:soapbox: End rant. I apologize if I offended anyone.
That only works if everyone agrees to do it at once...and even then, this 'new beginning' would begin with african-Americans disproportionately poor, incarcerated, etc. But someone can 'try on his own account' very hard and still suffer from a stereotype that "most" of his group don't do so. At hundreds of applicants per job during times like these, a small disadvantage like that can tip things away from you every time. The U.S. is about 14% African-American...many desirable occupations are not. There are many reasons for that, but discrimination and the lingering affects of laws that are not over a hundred years old--see e.g. the Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed when I was an infant in order to prohibit not serving customers who are black in your restaurant (or the Civil Rights Act of 1968 regarding renting apartments and buying housing)--still affect people. There are still many people alive who went to legally segregated schools, and more who went to effectively segregated schools. This isn't the ancient past. When I was in kindergarten it was still legal to not rent an apartment to someone because you didn't like the color of his skin. (The story is a bit more complicated than I'm indicating--this is federal legislation that applied throughout the U.S.; individual states had the right to prohibit these things prior to the federal laws being passed.) The effects are still with us. They're real. A colleague of mine--a light-skinned Ethiopian tenured professor--tells us he feels the stares as we walks around our overwhelmingly white town. Until about 5 years ago he had been for many years the sole black professor at our school of well over a hundred faculty.
The statistics make it clear that an African-American child is more likely to be born poorer, with less access to well-child care, and in a more violence-prone area with worse schools. When she must 'try on her own account' she does so, on average, from a considerable disadvantage...and then there's the very real employment discrimination faced by African-Americans even with literally equivalent resumes, as the previously cited study shows.
The discrimination is already out there. If not AA, how to address it? Is "keep a stiff upper lip, old chap" all we'll offer--advice?
Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
Convenient reasoning that leaves whites privileged and black disadvantaged.
Any solutions?
Twin Fist
Grandmaster
sure, stay in school, get good grades, EARN thier way into college, get a degree, get a job, and do everythign that whites do to get to the same place?
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Yeah, like be born rich, the son, grandson and great-grandson of Ivy League grads, so it doesn't matter if you don't have the brains God gave a turnip-you'll go to a good boarding school, get into an Ivy League school, graduate from both with mediocre grades and have a ready made "position" waiting for you upon graduation?
-whew!- THAT FELT GOOD.
Honestly.
But blacks start further back from that same place, on average. Like the ski lodge full of young girls looking for husbands, and husbands looking for young girls, the situation is not as symmetric as it appears.
Is that fair?
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