Affirmative Action

Discuss. Is it right or wrong? Should it be in schools and businesses? Is there a better way of accomplishing the same goals with different methods?

I am personally against Affirmative Action. I see it as nothing more than thinly veiled reverse discrimination. An individual's chance at education should have nothing to do with their skin color. AA is not about equal chances, it's about picking one person over another simply because of the fact that they are a minority, instead of their actual credentials.

There was a time when it served a purpose, I believe, but now that time has passed.

Partial agreement. While in principle I disagree with it, it cannot be denied that prejudice is alive and well. The idea is sound but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

AA was well-meaning, but the unfortunate fact is you cannot legislate prejudice out of existence. Now, it actually reinforces what it was supposed to prevent; I've heard a lot of grumbling about how "so-and-so only got the job because they're black/female/asian"...which leads to more racism, unfortunately.

I'm not certain what the solution is, but AA isn't it.

While it's harder for me to speak to racial discrimination specifically, I know that there's still plenty of gender discrimination in hiring and similar situations, even if the employer is trying to be fair. The example I always think of is a test hiring brass players in an orchestra. The conductors interviewed said that they didn't discriminate on gender when hiring brass players, they just felt like the better players they could get tended to be men for whatever reason.

When the potential players auditioned for their roles, they were put behind a screen that allowed them to see the conductor while not being seen themselves. The conductor led, without any prior knowledge of the auditioner's sex, and made their decisions on who the best players were. They found that the best brass players were almost evenly split between men and women. While the conductors hadn't tried to be discriminatory, sexist thought still affected them.

I'm trying to find a citation for this, but Google is failing me at the moment. If I find one, I'll let you know, but I do have similar anecdotes.

Affirmative action is meant to help prevent this kind of accidental discrimination, among other things.

I'm a little confused why they don't have orchestra auditions done behind a curtain anyway — not only for gender/race reasons but because of any number of biases the conductor might have. The interview should be afterward just to make sure they aren't complete misanthropic nutcases.

edited 7th Jan '11 12:07:53 AM by Pykrete

I've heard that sort of thing before. "Just hiring who has the best credentials" is fair enough, but social pressure seems to end up that when credentials for two people are equal, people will subconsciously decide people who fit the majority/norm for the career are somehow "better" despite having no evidence.

The role of affirmative action is to essentially normalized the idea that both genders/multiple races/whatever other social norms can be expected to do well at a job, and so decrease the subconscious bias. It also helps society as whole see that all genders/races can do these jobs, and so in future generations the people who try and go into these careers are more equalized: less young girls giving up on going into politics because that's a boys job, and that sort of thing.

Of course, fighting unconscious discrimination is harder than finding the conscious kind, especially when people don't realise they are being biased.

edited 7th Jan '11 12:12:44 AM by Drakyndra

It seems unreasonable that an upper-middle class black man from Maryland be given affirmative action preferences over a working-class white man from West Virginia. At the very least, as racial barriers have weakened and class barriers prolonged, affirmative action should start moving away from purely racial classifications to other more pertinent indicators.

You do not fight past discrimination with reverse discrimination. (Which is what affirmative action undeniably is.) Affirmative action was the wrong answer from the start.

And what was the right answer?

I detest affirmative action for plenty of reasons.

But I can't deny that it's still a necessity in the modern world.

Affirmative Action is a horrible, outdated thing. Maybe it was needed to help force integration a few decades ago, but I'd like to hope that the majority of our society doesn't need it anymore. There are a few jackholes left out there, sure, but they'll die off.

It seems unreasonable that an upper-middle class black man from Maryland be given affirmative action preferences over a working-class white man from West Virginia. At the very least, as racial barriers have weakened and class barriers prolonged, affirmative action should start moving away from purely racial classifications to other more pertinent indicators.

This, pretty much. In theory, affirmative action isn't about righting past wrongs, but present ones, namely that many minorities are caught in a vicious cycle where most members have low educational attainment, which leads to low paying jobs, which leads to their kids being raised without good educational access or values, repeat from 1. Even extremely intelligent and gifted individuals in this situation would not be able to compete with people in more advantageous situations if you compare their performances directly, but if you give them access to the opportunities that more privileged individuals have, their natural abilities allow them to quickly rise to meet the challenges. You can read A Hope in the Unseen for a good example of this in action.

In practice, affirmative action relies too much on co-variables of the actual disadvantages it's supposed to address.

Ultimately, I support affirmative action being conducted, if it's carried out in a sensible manner. But implementing it strictly according to race or gender rather than social or economic background is not an appropriate way to preserve the purpose.

"when credentials for two people are equal"

This hardly ever the case, if two people can ever be at all considered 'equally qualified'

I agree with Major Tom.

Government backed discrimination is still discrimination.

A better way would be to target the causes of discrimination in society, mainly through better education.

Education of the discriminators or education of the discriminatees (that is so not a word)?

(People being discriminated against right?) Education for all!

General social equality education in something akin to a general studies class (or a better equivalent for your school system), coupled with better educational programmes in more deprived areas to ensure that those without the benefit of a high level of income are not discriminated against.

How does affirmative action actually help competent people get into the workforce? It seems to give a free pass to people who really shouldn't be in that position.

That's the usual boogeyman bandied about by opponents of AA programs, but it doesn't actually happen. No "unqualified" people are getting jobs just on the basis of being black or female or Hispanic.

I'd just like to point out that as far as hiring practices go, employers do promote people based on race. They promote whites over blacks and latinos, unless there's a policy in place that demands they do otherwise.

Though that may partially be due to the fact that more educational opportunities are avaliable to white people.

And I have to admit, AA doesn't seem like a good idea, because it will probably bread resentment amongst people who don't fully understand it and mean that people who get hired because of it may (legitimately) suck at their assigned tasks.

Personally? I wouldn't have quota's for it, just a seperate tribunal avaliable to look into situation where you were not given the job because of race.

That's the usual boogeyman bandied about by opponents of AA programs, but it doesn't actually happen. No "unqualified" people are getting jobs just on the basis of being black or female or Hispanic.

When my dad was in the army, he got yelled at for discharging a black guy who was being overly antagonistic. It does happen.

edited 7th Jan '11 11:45:40 AM by Pykrete

>> There are a few jackholes left out there, sure, but they'll die off.

My time spent on the shitty parts of the internet makes me doubt that....

The ones in positions of power probably will.

isn't the white nationalist movement going to re-grow from people taking power, esp in majority white US states who talk about victimhood? I'd expect they'd get into high ranking places. Of course, other nationalist movements would grow and grow and unless people deal with that frankly it'd turn into Yugoslavia

edited 7th Jan '11 12:36:15 PM by BalloonFleet

Except Yugoslavia was made up of existing countries who had no desire to be united. Its a poor example in nationalism and there are plenty of black nationalist movements that are more overt than the white equivalents.

The KKK isn't even trying to be supreme anymore.

As for promoting based on being white, I've never seen that put into practice and it certainly isn't the standard practice of course the way you worded your statement it might as well be "They promote whites unless they promote non-whites"

edited 7th Jan '11 1:18:17 PM by saladofstones3