Affirmative Action

[migrendel]

I support race based affirmative action at present, but would support quotas if a critical mass cannot be met. I picked option one.

Brown v. Board of Education is fifty. The Civil Rights Act is forty. Before then, there were 350 years of brutal and ugly history, spanning from the first slaves brought to our shores, to Jim Crow's obnoxious prescence. Considering that the barriers to overcome that tragic legacy only fell within living memory, and racial discrimination still lives in the hearts and minds of many, I cannot expect the situation to be the same for people, regardless of race. That is why affirmative action is not yet obsolete.

It never fails to mystify me how some will insist on rigid, pure equality in one area, and ignore the broader inequalities it remedies. That shows a complete failure to see the forest for the trees. In order to treat some people equally, we must treat them differently. It doesn't work in any other fashion. We cannot let the spirit of equality give license to a long and sorry history of bigotry. We mustn't let our society's materialists forget that no matter how abject their poverty, the burden of being a minority is not one they will ever have to bear. Because of all of that, the work continues.

[migrendel]

You're right, Muon2. Our concept of race has very little factual foundation. In fact, it is primarily social. But that is how virtually every person in our nation understands race. Since affirmative action is addressed to the society at large, it must be in reasonable conformity with how society views race. It would otherwise be incompatible. I have optimism that for many people, exposure to other races will show to them that they're really not that much different from you and me, and the old ideas about race will lose their powerful hold.

[migrendel]

I know you just wanted to be obnoxious, Carl Hayden, but you accidentally raised a fairly serious point. Does the perception of superior athletic talents among minorities incline those who recruit potential athletes to scout those populations more vigorously? The only problem with answering that question is that no one has really studied that issue.

[migrendel]

Perhaps the line between humorous and annoyingly crass is one that does not reveal itself to you easily, but trust me, when it comes to tossing off the bon mots, you're no Dorothy Parker.

[migrendel]

If I am so far off in what your intent is, why don't you just stop writing post addressed to me? It would save you time that you can spend talking to other posters who would more readily understand what you are trying to convey, and would save me the annoyance of reading whatever pointed grievance you wish to air on that particular day. It's painfully obvious to me, and I would imagine to everyone else, that you have made a sport of heckling me. If you don't like my views, fine, but I see no reason why you need to be as rude as you have consistently been to me.

[migrendel]

The whole point of affirmative action is integrating, not segregating. It brings minorities in environments where they can learn and work alongside whites. It causes exposure, promotes understanding, and I feel that it continues the work of the humane legacy left to us by Brown and other cases.