Affirmative Action
Affirmative action works. There are thousands of examples of situations where
people of color, white women, and working class women and men of all races who
were previously excluded from jobs or educational opportunities, or were denied
opportunities once admitted, have gained access through affirmative action. When
these policies received executive branch and judicial support, vast numbers of
people of color, white women and men have gained access they would not otherwise
have had. These gains have led to very real changes. Affirmative action programs
have not eliminated racism, nor have they always been implemented without
problems. However, there would be no struggle to roll back the gains achieved if
affirmative action policies were ineffective. The implementation of affirmative
action was America's first honest attempt at solving a problem, it had
previously chosen to ignore. In a variety of areas, from the quality of health
care to the rate of employment, blacks still remain far behind whites. Their
representation in the more prestigious professions is still almost
insignificant.
Comparable imbalances exist for other racial and ethnic
minorities as well as for women. Yet, to truly understand the importance of
affirmative action, one must look at America's past discrimination to see why,
at this point in history, we must become more color conscious. History Of
Discrimination In America: Events Leading To Affirmative Action. The Declaration
of Independence asserts that all men are created equal. Yet America is scarred
by a long history of legally imposed inequality. Snatched from their native
land, transported thousands of miles-in a nightmare of disease and death-and
sold into slavery, blacks in America were reduced to the legal status of farm
animals. A Supreme Court opinion, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), made this
official by classifying slaves as a species of private property.
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