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There is also the effect of
pampering. It can make any individual lazy and unmotivated. Affirmative action
does nothing but build walls to separate us more, and pollute our work
atmosphere with tension. An angry backlash towards the recipients of affirmative
action appears prominently in the work place. An example of affirmative action
backlash comes from the article When an Advantage is Not an Advantage. I
recently got a large chunk of government funding in a program that didn't even
have any sort of affirmative action ranking. Yet, almost all men I talk to
including my father, assume there was at least some component of consideration
given to me for being female (Cohen 18). Affirmative action weakens the spirit
of the individual by making them think the reason they got the job or grant was
because someone felt sorry for them.
Some women believe affirmative action will
benefit them in the beginning because there is an incentive to hire women. This
will do more to hinder than to help in the long run. Here is a quote from an
article opposing affirmative action. I think affirmative action helps to get a
female an interview but once on the interview and once on the job, it gives
males a basis for their resentment and skepticism of females... (Cohen 18). This
can cause additional tension between men and women that was not there before
affirmative action. Another side effect is how pampering can make a person lazy
and unmotivated to excel. This is exactly what affirmative action does. It makes
sure that women and minorities are pampered to make up for lost time. Well, lets
take a look at what all the pampering in the past has done for the white male.
Look at the college graduation numbers of today. Eighty percent of blacks
attending college graduate, while only 55% of white college students graduate.
These numbers alone show what discrimination did to help the white male to
achieve a lazy attitude of I don't need good grades, I am white I'll get a god
job. This is a dangerous attitude in 1996, because in some situations a white
male needs to be over qualified to compensate for small bonus points some
minorities receive. By pampering any single group the long-term disaster will
outweigh the short term relief. Discrimination is not the problem that plagues
society. This is shown with the increase of women in the work force. The number
of women in the computer industry has increased 93%, in auto industry 89%, and
in pharmaceuticals 78% (Dunkle 44). Thirty years ago this was not the case, and
affirmative action forced American employers to open their eyes to the benefits
of diversity. Affirmative action in 1995 is beginning to resemble Soviet
Communism in 1969.
Outside the sheltered elites, the majority of people loathe
it. The circumstances in which it was dreamed up no longer exist (Sullivan E15).
Now it is time to end affirmative action and focus on what is holding down
minorities today. Let us turn our sites on poverty, poor family life, poor
schooling, for these problems are colorblind, and can hinder an individuals
chances for success more than anything else. To equal the opportunity of
minorities for employment we should educate and prepare them, not force them
into the work force or universities. Guadalupe Quintanilla, the assistant Vice
President for Academic Affairs for the University of Houston, stated,
Affirmative action has been distorted and abused. We need to take a second look
at it. I think affirmative action has opened a lot of doors, but it has been
misrepresented. I'm for opportunity, not special treatment. The majority of
people in this country are open-minded and willing to work with people without
considering their sex or color. So I think we could do away with set asides (Dunkel
42).
Problems with equality in our work force and universities can not be blamed
completely on discrimination. The problem today is colorblind poverty.
Affirmative action actually hurts the lower income individual of any minority
group. Thomas Sowell, in his 1990 book, Preferential Policies, used an
international survey of affirmative action programs to show the consequences.
The benefits of affirmative action went overwhelmingly to people who were
already better off., while the poorer members of the same groups either did not
gain ground or actually fell further behind (Richardson 4C). The wealthier
neighborhoods have better school systems, which in turn offer greater resources.
If we bring equality to our school systems, a rise in minorities in the work
force will soon follow.
Some universities here in the United States have based
enrollment on College Board's and SAT's or ACT's, none of which show
intelligence levels. These tests rather show the standards of education that the
individual has encountered. The gap between mean SAT scores for black and whites
is 938 for whites and 740 for blacks(Shipler 16) These test scores sometimes
become the discrimination against minorities. Another form of evaluating
students is where the Universities and government need to focus, to establish a
standard in education that spans across all levels of income. Affirmative action
is definitely not the answer for equality in this day in time. Affirmative
action has balanced for thirty years on a moral threat. It is now time to apply
new moral threats, not towards the employers and colleges but towards the
government. For it is the government that needs to change its polices. The
government needs to take action towards the real problems of equality: poverty,
not the bad white man from the past. Affirmative action is simply the same old
discrimination in reverse.
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