Affirmative Action

I was just curious to see what people's thoughts were on affirmative action such as whether you are for or against it and why

we had a debate in my AP Gov't class about this and almost no one supported affirmative action including myself because I think people should just get in to places like college on their merit and not get special treatment just because they are of a certain race

thoughts?

 

No, no, no.

Affirmative action is made in place to ensure fair treatment.

 

it doesn't give protection to majorities so isn't it racist against the majority?

 

Protection defines to leverage or to counter. Therefore, it can be assumed that protection is therefore set in place to counter already established and represented majority.

 

Affirmative action is a policy designed to ensure fair treatment in the coming generations. It's a policy based on the assumption that some people have lower merit (e.g., lower SAT scores, lower MCAT scores, lower work ethic, etc.) because they were never given the opportunity to learn that. If you place an underprivileged person in a place a privilege, then perhaps his kids will be able to have high merit scores than they would have in a place of poverty?

I find it really hard to think that an AP Government class will be able to process this thought process wholly. I'm willing to assume that the majority of students in that class have always been in positions of privilege.


I do come from privilege, but I'm lucky. My mother is Alaskan Native; her mother grew up in a village and moved to the city when she was a young adult. Because of this, my grandmother experienced some severe culture shock---she was, in other words, in the "underprivileged" group. She then had five kids--my mother and her four siblings. All of these people have very high IQs (about 130 to 150 for each person), yet my mother is the only one with a college degree, and the only one who makes any more tan $30,000 a year. The statistical proportion of "gifted" to "genius" people from privileged youths who graduate college or who make more than $30,000 a year is not 1 in 5. I'd be willing to guess that the vast majority of 130-to-150 IQ people eventually get a degree and/or make $30k a year by the time they are in their late 40s/early 50s.

 

It's rediculous that someone should, for example, get a job based on their race rather than qualifications. Even if their race is darker than those with better qualifications, who didn't get that job because of their race. Equal rights does not mean equal representation through quotas of ethnic groups and genders.

In addition, it is not practically sound to disregard qualifications in favor of unrelated characteristics. To use an extreme example: If I need brain surgery I want a doctor who is good at brain surgery, not someone who became a brain surgeon because she is a black woman.


Also, there is no such thing as "reverse" discrimination.



Do note that I don't imply that black women are genetically predisposed to be lousy brain surgeons, so don't make a retarded reply about it.

 

This is exactly how I see it. How are people really succeeding if they are just given special treatment

 

Do all three of you fail to see the points that I made? Or were they tl;dr?

 

There is no guarantee that they are going to do better in a place of privilege and you don't always know that a person does bad just because they are in a less privileged place.

 

There's no reason they should be helped into positions they can't work towards and achieve on their own. Nobody wants underqualified employees.
In school or while being educated, they should be treated the same as others. If they cannot complete the same work following the same requirements as everybody else, they don't deserve to be credited for it.

 

That would require the whole society to be non-discriminatory, and we know that's not the case and never will be the case.

 

I think a lot of discrimination comes from the jealousy of those that see others being given special treatment when they themselves are expected to succeed on their own.