Time's Klein on Affirmative Action

[MrMon]

"Diversity" is code for "We want people who look different, but think alike."

To automatically assume that people who look alike also think alike and that people who look different also think different is, well, racist.

[jaxmike2]

being against affirmative action does not make one racist. being for affirmative action DOES make one racist, by definition.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/racist

[HeavilyArmed]

From today. Is Sowell still black? Or have his years of conservative commentary turned him white like Clarence Thomas?

[andyfox]

An argument that has been made for affirmative action is that to not have some kind of affirmative action program is racist. That is, if we believe that blacks and whites, given the same preconditions, would attain equal status in the society, the fact that they have not must be due to deficiencies in societal structure that cause blacks to do less well. So affirmative action, in effect, levels the playing field by "making up" for those deficiencies. What affirmative action looks for, then, is equality of results as a true measure of an unbiased society.

[HeavilyArmed]

[ QUOTE ]
What affirmative action looks for, then, is equality of results as a true measure of an unbiased society.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a fatal flaw, historically speaking. Equality of outcome has never occured in any society I know of.

Now if you're prepared to assert that on every metric, black and white potential is exactly equal then the equality of outcome test makes a perfect test of systemic racism. But that would be a foolish assertation.

[kurto]

[ QUOTE ]
Now if you're prepared to assert that on every metric, black and white potential is exactly equal then the equality of outcome test makes a perfect test of systemic racism. But that would be a foolish assertation.


[/ QUOTE ]

Its more amusing seeing people question that there is systematic racism.

[Money2Burn]

If systematic racism is at play, why does it not seem to effect Asians in our society? This is a white system set up by a white society. If we really believe that inherent biological differences make our race superior why would we set the system up only to hold back african americans and hispanics? I don't question the statistics proving these things, however I question the reason that is said to be behind them.

[andyfox]

Equality of outcome was the goal; I don't think affirmative action advocates expected it would be achieved. But they expected that the goal would be more closely approximated with affirmative action than without. And they would argue that, indeed, systemic racism exists and thus needs to be countered by affirmative action.

I have recently picked up (but not yet completely read) a book by Ira Katznelson called "When Affirmative Action was White." The author claims that economic policies enacted during the Great Depresion and in ensuing decades excluded blacks from attaining social parity and widened the gap betwen white and black living standards. In Lyndon Johnson's landmark "To Fulfill These Rights" speech of June 4, 1965, he pointed out that in 1948, 8% of black teenage boys were unemployed (less than the figure for whites), but in 1964 the figure was 23% (compared to 13% for whites); that in 1955 thru 1957, 22% of black workers wer out of work at some time, but by 1961 thru 1963 the figure had grown to 29%; that since 1947 the number of white families living in poverty had decreased 27% but by only 3% for non-white families; that in 1940 the infant mortality rate of non-whites was 70% greater than for whites, but that in 1962 is was 90% greater.

Katznelson claims that Social Security excluded most blacks until well into the 1950s; that the labor laws of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations secured minimum wages, maximum hours, and the right to join industrial and craft unions, but blacks who worked in agriculture or as domestics (which was the great majority) were excluded from tehse protections; that when uions finally made inroads in the South, where most blacks lived, Congress changed the rules of the game to make organizing much more difficult; and that the GI Bill perpetuated the racism that had marked military affairs during the Second World War. So government itself contributed to blacks falling further behind.

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
if we believe that blacks and whites, given the same preconditions,

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They don't have the same preconditions. Blacks and whites, in general, come from very different cultural and social backgrounds in this country. When they are given the same cultural and social backgrounds, they do tend to perform similarly. So affirmative action is just racism.

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
So government itself contributed to blacks falling further behind.

[/ QUOTE ]

No surprise there. They're still doing it today with programs like affirmative action.