ah well man, i am hesitant to get into a discussion about affirmative action because for some reason this topic pushes buttons like no other. guess it was pretty obvious i am for it, haha, i can't hide my true feelings.
so far as the civil service deal, that goes along with my whole point that the black educational experience isn't as good in this country. i mean, the same score would seem to indicate that men are smarter than women, and there is no evidence to substantiate that is the case.
i think affirmative action is a good thing. obviously it is a form of discrimination, and no doubt some white people are going to lose out on some positions because of it. but let me put it this way, i feel that black people are a substantial disadvantage in what is an overhwlemingly white power structure. affirmative action is intended to give minority groups that don't have access to the same advantages and avenues as white men a chance to succeed, then hopefully make more money, live in better neighborhoods, send their kids to better schools, ect.
affirmative action was meant to aggressively address the racial division still very present in the country and create a stronger foothold for minorites in the establisHydromaxent. i'm a white male from an affluent background, and no way in hell do i think others like me deserve to or should be running and owning everything. we don't have any less right to do so if we can, but i think it is clear that black and other minority societies have tremendous problems stemming from lack of access to opportunity and destitute communites. the percentage of white millionares over black millionares is higher, the percentage of black people living in poverty is higher, incarceration rates are higher, almost no blackk CEO's, fewer doctors, alwyers, architects . . . the list goes on, and it's the same for hispanics as well. certain groups in this country don;t have the same resources and access, and just because you don't see them every single day doesn;t mean they aren't there and don't deserve a shot at elevating themselves. in every interview i've seen with young minority delinquents, gangbangers, whoever, they always respond to the question of "why crime" with a response of "why not? how else can i get ahead."
it may be possible for them to get ahead other ways, but fat chance telling that to a kid who was bounced through a thousand foster homes or was raised by an uncaring realative because their single mother of a father on death row died of a drug overdose, and they're surrounded by easy access to drugs and violence. plenty of white people go through this too, but again, the numbers are disproportionate, and being that i have traveled in differing white groups, whether it be at my parents country club, listening to my fellow students, realatives, any number of what you could easily call the white establisHydromaxent, there is still a degree of racism that very much exists. i found this to be true when we lived in sherman oakes CA, when we lived in Vermont for a few years, and the rest of my life down here in sweet old VA. society at large is not a fair open playing field of sympathetic white people if you're a minority, it's an uphill struggle where any advantage can make a tremendous impact, and i embrace the idea of minorites getting these opportunites, even at the expense of equally hard working white people. it's a long time coming if you ask me. even many of our white ancesotr, be they irish, italian, whatever, were once considered something of a minoirty and discriminated against. it seems sili to have a system excluding certain nationalities now, and i seem the same deeply flawed nature in an all-white power structure.
i don't mean to characterize all black and ethnic communites as rotting hellholes, but if you look at the statistics a young black male has at making it in life compared to a young white male, it's quite frightening. imagine you're a black person, or a black parent for that matter; everyone always says "i would want my kids to be successful on their own merit!" well i say if i was a minority you better believe i would be all for affirmative action, and as a plain old white boy i'm all for it too. people see affirmative action as unfair to those losing spots, i see it as fair to those gaining them. if the government we to take the 87 billion bones proposed by bush for iraq and spend it on a massive public works project to overhaul the 100 worst schools and minority neighboorhoods in the country, then maybe i would say we don't need something like affirmative action, which is basically free, but thats never going to happen.
i'll be mailing off a small mountain of college applications shortly here, and if i were to lose a spot at one of my top schools due to affirmative action, i can honestly say i don't mind. social equality is at the very heart of affirmative action. i believe that programs like it must be continued and encouraged. if this is truly the land of opportunity, then certain things must be changed. we didn't get rid of slavery and emerge with a bill of rights and so on through all popular movements and programs, people, especially us white people, are notoriously afraid of social change. if a black kid from the middle of yonkers new york that struggled through four years at a violent public school with underpaid unsympathetic teachers can even step on the same palying field as a white kid that grew up in the suburbs and never had to face that kind of reality, then i say he's earned a spot at the college, even if the white kid got a 1400 on the SAT's and the black kid got a 1370. college and job admissions are more than just about numbers as well. students are people, and labeling them by race might seem dehumanizing in some respects, but in a program designed to help people succeed that have so many more reasons to fail, i see it as a very human and appropriate gesture.