♠ LIBERALS PLEASE ANSWER ♠ What is so great about Affirmative Action?

Question

With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society based on merit NOT skin color.

Answer 1

I could not agree more. Several of my African American friends resent affirmative action. It seems to imply that Blacks are inferior to whites and need this to be able to compete. There are many Blacks who do NOT need a leg up. They are more than competent on their own.

I see that I have thumbs down. I guess they believe that Blacks are inferior to whites. Must be liberals

Answer 2

Affirmative action was never a perfect system, but at least it was an attempt to resolve serious inequities. When affirmative action was first proposed in the 60's, minorites were stuck in an awful school system, they had a significantly higher chance of being taught by uncertified teachers, over-croweded and stuck in dilapidated buildings than compared to white students. A very small percentage of minorities were admitted into universities and they fared poorly compared to white students. Affirmative action attempted to balance out this difference and allow minorities to advance. It was misguided, because the best way to resolve the issue would have been to guarnatee an equal standard of education for all, and then let people advance on their abilities and drive, but at least it attempted somtehing.

Also, your last sentence is completely ridiculous. It is easy to champion a system where the deck is totally stacked in favor of a dominant group. Being color-blind and depending on merit is a great ideal, but how can you champion that in a system that for most of its history has guaranteed that minorities will not be given the same tools or opportunities as whites.

The best quote that I have heard regarding the blacks and the root cause of many of their modern day problems comes from Roger Wilkens.
"Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving discrimination, and only 30 involving anything else."

Answer 3

Leaving aside the fact that Trent Lott and George Allen's public use of racial epithets presents a challenge to the idea that conservatives are color-blind (also, the fact that conservatives favor different sentencing for white drug users and black drug users), you cannot combat racism and all its exponents (crumbling education system, economic inequality, crime, etc.) with race neutrality.

Affirmative action is broader than just racism. Affirmative action (especially in school admissions where it is most commonly practiced) is based on the premise that there are ways of analyzing, creating, and thinking about the world that can be found in experiences that are far removed from my own (i'm a white, christian male).

To use color-blindness as a reason to stunt diversity and integration is a way of ensuring that society will never be color-blind.

Answer 4

I've heard this all before. I heard it again last week when a Chief Justice I had previously supported decided to use Brown v. Board as toilet paper, while claiming to defend it.

Your argument about being color blind assumes, or at least PRETENDS to assume, that 400 years of tremendously damaging slavery, persecution, discrimination and segregation never had a lasting impact. It assumes that we all are starting out on equal footing, with no inherent advantages stemming from this racially divisive history. It at least assumes that any residual damage has been corrected already, and that any social and economic disparities still existing are the black community's "fault". This is wildly inaccurate, and I have a problem believing that thinking people even honestly buy into that premise.

I've been the victim of physical and verbal abuse from white Christians in the past. Don't you dare compare my views with those of the Klan.

Answer 5

Affirmative action was a necessary evil when it was made, but it should be phased out as it is no longer needed. Even the liberals are trying to tone it down--because they know that equal opportunity was the goal they were looking for. Affirmative action came about because black people were never given a chance, so there would always be a more experienced white applicant for the job. Now that black people and other minorities hold a variety of jobs and face discrimination only in a few situations rather than as a policy or daily fact of life, it isn't needed anymore. It was away to get around long-standing historical barriers to racial equality.

Answer 6

Affirmative action isnt just race its gender too. So you should be grateful as well. If you have a job, then you likely, may have gotten it just because your a woman or ur gender factored in somewhere so before you spit out racial comments you might want to actually know about the topic your are attempting to discuss.

Answer 7

Penny, you are sooo full of it. The Klan used color to terrorize and lynch. Affirmative action was designed to make up for all of those years that minorities were denied opportunities. The denial was in most part done by rich white people who played the poor minorities against the poor whites to see who would work for the least amount of money. If the conservatives had ran this country since it's founding. Your cute blond butt would be working 18 hour days 6 days a week for minimum wage. Unless you are one of those that were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

Answer 8

So you are saying that no body in this country is racist except the Klan and liberals? What drugs and kool-aid are they giving you in the GOP these days? Conservatives champion a color blind society? Is that why Bush has neglected the victims of Katrina in N.O and why he has given so much to the rich southern whites in the same areas? WOW, I would love to live in the same bubble as you do. Things just be so rosey, easy and simple in that bubble.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177900,00.html

Answer 9

I think you should go back and read a little history. African Americans in this country where handed one hell of a raw deal. Being a African American in this country in the early to
mid 1900's must have been hell on earth. They couldn't buy a job unless they wanted to be a porter or some other complete crap job that payed nothing. They weren't allowed to attend white schools.

I can't even imagine going to the park and seeing two different drinking fountains one for colored and one for whites.

This was not about race it was about helping a group of people who had be shat on since they came to this country.

I sincerely doubt that you persoanlly would have had what it took to be black in our society before the equal rights movement.

So I guess the conservatives point of view from your standpoint is Darwinism dog eat dog. I have to think that the human race is a little above the animal kingdom.

Answer 10

Let's put it this way:

What's your cure-all to institutionalized racism, genius?

You say that "liberals" or the left "see the world in terms of race and ethnicity." No, this is said in your perspective, that of someone who prefers to ignore race issues that are still on FIRE in today's society.

The left knows that racism is still a problem. The left is working toward a solution. If you don't like how we think about affirmative action, suggest a better solution to institutionalized racism.

Again, the emphasis is on the word instutitionalized. We already know how you saintly right-wingers are so "color blind."

Answer 11

What's great about affirmative action is that it's increasingly a failure and increasingly useless. Misplaced effort.
It's an oportunity to admit that we see something we've been in support of really isn't doing what we would like to see it do very well.

Affirmative action? Yeah many of us are feeling more and more like WE'RE WRONG about this one.
ADMITTing that is what's great about it now.

"We tried. It's not perfect."
Cool. Isn't it?