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Hhmm...then let me describe something that happened to me. Once upon a time I applied for entry to nursing school. I had a 4.0 GPA. I was refused entry due to the fact that they had a quota of minority students they needed to fill (yes, I was specifically told this fact by someone in the know). Interestingly enough, those minority students also had less-stringent requirements in order to get into the school. So how is that giving them "a boost if all other things are equal"?
Don't know about you, but I'd rather the nurse taking care of me was chosen from the highest-scoring candidates rather than given a job or entry to school just because of their racial heritage. I don't care what color you are, I'd just want you to have been a good student.
So employers need to consider educational history in terms of admission requirements and academic performance, because that's what makes you a "good student" and these "good students" make better employees?
affirmative action is a sacred icon created when the civil rights movement was taken away from its founders,
its founders expelled, then becoming the exclusive property of a few special interest groups. this will change. not right
away but it will. these movements have been both harmful & helpful. like most draconian laws,
the original intent was good. i have a dream.
Last edited by Huckleberry3911948; 03-07-2008 at 07:38 PM..
Accurate or not, there is a view that Whites have a disproportional share of wealth and oppertunites. Largely, this is true. My hangup is that people seem to think that came about out of some oppression of people of color, and from that we "owe" them. I don't deny that lower-income people of color face serious barriers to advancement, but more of that stemms from being low income, not of color.
As far as AA itself goes, many people may view it as unecessary and hurtful, but sometimes that old-school mentality of "White is Right" rears it's ugly head. Here in Philly, the local construction unions are 90% white in a city that's 2/3rds Black. Something is amiss about that....
The bottom line is, "nice" and moral behavior just can't be forced, and any government efforts to do so are at BEST, a "blunt instrument". Forcing people to "Do the right thing" is just going to be clumsy--period.
There is no doubt at ALL, that AA has opened up opportunity to people who, if AA never existed, would simply have gotten "left out". AA, in this case, did GOOD, and some GOOD people benefitted..
On the other hand, I could relate "Horror Stories" that would make ANYONE angry (I won't, not wanting to start a 'war' here), about the "bad side" of AA (specifically, in the US Post Office), in which many people simply openly, and without shame, regard AA as nothing more than an 'entitlement' (like winning the lottery), and no more connect it with "work" than they do with anything ELSE. I've seen this lead to a general, office-wide malaise, in which sullen AA 'beneficiaries' simply sit by and refuse to work, while other races fume in resentment, ambitious blacks suffer the 'embarrassment' of being lumped in with the 'losers', and the supervisory staff cowers in FEAR of the 'abusers'..because many of these guys have been suspended, or even terminated, for things EVEN UP TO and including PHYSICAL ASSAULT---then, after months, after many EEOC and Union grievances, they return in "triumph", with full back-pay, into their former job, now completely IMMUNE from any discipline, secure in the knowledge that no 'pipsqueak' front-line supervisor would dare LOOK at them after that.
THis is the BAD side of AA, and it's difficult to describe just how damaging it can be for morale, for ALL the races, when these abuses happen, in so MANY respects. Like the old saying goes, "You Can't Legislate Morality", and AA, like the Labor Unions, protects the useless and the lazy, while at the same time benefitting the deserving.
(this may say as much about Postal management's failings as it does AA, I realize)....
And WORST of all, Guys that can barely put together a coherent speech in English, are 'Runnin' the Free World". Guys have the ability, with a simple phone call, to start NUCLEAR WAR, who can't even PRONOUNCE it....
Ok, lets take your assumptions here for a second.
If we are assume that a persons intelligence and wisdom is discerned by their speech, then we have to apply that to all now don't we? So are you saying anyone who misuses words like the above are dumb, uneducated, and just plain stupid? I honestly hope you wouldn't think that, because I know people who forget more in a day than most brilliant people learn in a life time and yet they speak in often "plain" and seemly contrary to "highly educational" speech.
Red, sorry that happened to you, that is not what the law intended. The caveat, and you quoted it, was "all other things being equal."
What you were victim of was not AA, but a management misinterpretation of it.
Yet when I was first applying to be a police officer in California, all of the state ran organizations did the same as Red described. I also was turned away several times, but I was told to my face (sorry, we are only hiring blacks and women at this time).
This was also a common occurrence in most of the State jobs. Funny ain't it? You can almost accept seeing that "misinterpretation" with a private business, but a government one? Sorry, AA is crap. AA is racism, pure and simple. You can paint it any way you like it, but then it just sounds like the same reasoning that the KKK uses to claim their superiority over others. Racism, plain and simple and Dr. King would be shaking his head seeing how things have become.
Yet when I was first applying to be a police officer in California, all of the state ran organizations did the same as Red described. I also was turned away several times, but I was told to my face (sorry, we are only hiring blacks and women at this time).
This was also a common occurrence in most of the State jobs. Funny ain't it? You can almost accept seeing that "misinterpretation" with a private business, but a government one? Sorry, AA is crap. AA is racism, pure and simple. You can paint it any way you like it, but then it just sounds like the same reasoning that the KKK uses to claim their superiority over others. Racism, plain and simple and Dr. King would be shaking his head seeing how things have become.
Not when you're saying the principles of AA are based on the same principles as the KKK.
If we are assume that a persons intelligence and wisdom is discerned by their speech, then we have to apply that to all now don't we? So are you saying anyone who misuses words like the above are dumb, uneducated, and just plain stupid? I honestly hope you wouldn't think that, because I know people who forget more in a day than most brilliant people learn in a life time and yet they speak in often "plain" and seemly contrary to "highly educational" speech.
Obviously the post was done in 'jest'. But yes, to SOME extent, what you say holds true. It's not an 'absolute indicator', but it's certainly a SIGN of intelligence (or a reasonable facsimilie of it) or at least willingness to learn, that gives a person the motive, and allows him the abilty, to speak clearly and properly...and sloppy, incoherent, awkward speech is certainly an INDICATOR of mental laziness or lack of ambition---at the same time it MIGHT be an indicator of a speech defect, the onset of insulin shock, or the effects of narcotics. It MAY even be a sign of the belief that "to INFLUENCE 'regular folks' (such as voters) you have to get down to their level and TALK like 'regular folks'..and what could be more 'regular', than a generic Texas accent"? Maybe that's ALL it really is....after ALL, the man, in THEORY, is a "Connecticut Blue-Blood"...and I've never actually HEARD how he talks, in private. What do I know?....
Certainly 'native intelligence' and higher education are not the same thing...but without SOME degree of intelligence, education would be futile...
BTW, my post concerned the President of the USA...does that 'job-title" mean its holder is necessarily the possessor of vast intelligence? Certainly not--in fact, I believe an INORDINATELY high "IQ" might be a hindrance to the duties of the President. Someone who was TOO thoughful and intelligent may be totally unable to relate to the "Good Ol' Boy" atmosphere of politics, 'back-slapping', 'baby-kissing', and 'hand-shaking' required to be elected, and may be handicapped by such a high degree of integrity and honesty, that he'd be unable to get "down and dirty" enough to be able to "wallow" in the pig-stye we call "Politics", and thus be totally ineffective in that office.
This was also a common occurrence in most of the State jobs. Funny ain't it? You can almost accept seeing that "misinterpretation" with a private business, but a government one? Sorry, AA is crap. AA is racism, pure and simple. You can paint it any way you like it, but then it just sounds like the same reasoning that the KKK uses to claim their superiority over others. Racism, plain and simple and Dr. King would be shaking his head seeing how things have become.
I can vouch for this. Many years ago, in TWO instances, I was informed that I'd done quite well in testing, but I wouldn't be hired, because there was a moratorium on whites at that time.
No one, I don't think, could intelligently make the claim that AA wasn't racism, because it obviously IS. What its defenders would say is, "yes, it's racism...a controlled and socially-sanctioned racism, which was put into practice to combat a WORSE, and more RANDOM racism, in the past".
It could be compared to chemotherapy. Every doctor knows chemotherapy is, quite literally, the deliberate administering of a highly toxic substance to an ALREADY sick patient--in essence, "poisoning" the person. Doctors "poison" these people in order to remove a GREATER 'poison", that of cancer. People usually voluntarily undergo the misery of chemotherapy for the GREATER good of 'continuing to live'.
But we can't expect people to ENJOY chemotherapy, even though it benefits THEM. And we CERTAINLY can't expect people to "enjoy" Afirmative Action, just because it benefits someone ELSE. It involves lots of character and "selflessness" to see the 'sense" in that. Some folks have it, while others get understandably "grumpy"..
Not when you're saying the principles of AA are based on the same principles as the KKK.
I am not concerned with the reasoning behind which form of racism is acceptable or not. That would be the point I was making in a way. Someone saying "my racism" is better than "your racism" doesn't change the fact that both are racism. The end result is the same and both are wrong.
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