No More Affirmative Action!

[Essyne]

Wrote this a while ago, but thought I'd post it on here - brings up good points of discussion. . . .

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About 3 weeks ago, my school had a mild "shooting scare." It turned out that it was a gang fight that quickly escalated - what else is new? - but what bothered me about it was how quickly race was entered into the mix. It seems like caucasians are now the scapegoats for the African-American community. I do not understand why people who couldn't even begin to COMPREHEND slavery are still crying "affirmative action" in the streets (or halls, in this case  ). "Reverse racism" is a HUGE thing in America today, and frankly, I think it violates my personal freedoms as a caucasian. "MY PEOPLE" never enslaved "YOUR PEOPLE"; trust me, the Italians/Irish had problems of their own! Newsflash here, the Africans sold Africans!

Why should I not be able to get a scholarship, simply because of my race? Why is it that a black woman can enter the Miss America Pageant, but a white woman can't enter the "BLACK" Miss America Pageant (yeah yeah... I know, but you get my drift)? If you are against the segregation of society then you are AGAINST the segregation of society.

Someone once told me that “whites are still in power in the U.S. because the last 43 presidents have been white males.” Blacks have been voting for YEARS now; President Bush is not in the White House because he's WHITE, he's there because he took the initiative to get there. The race card is EVERYWHERE, and it's NOT the whites throwing it around. (Obama, anyone?) Get over the past. Live in the future. I think it's wrong to endorse the thought that I owe someone something because of the color of their skin.

People further argue that you have to “have money to make money” in America. It's not a question of how rich or how poor you are when you arrive on American shores. It's not that hard to get off your butt and get a job, even if it is minimum wage. Such is not as "rare" a case as many would like to believe.

 America is not as "discriminating" against minorities as most have been led to believe. In fact, America CATERS to these minorities. It's disgusting. As for it "stemming from slavery," my ancestors DIED to free the slaves, so by the affirmative action standards shouldn't I be given special benefits?! Obviously, my answer is still a resounding "NO." Meritocracies work, and I wish that America would soon become a true meritocracy.

 The reason that I started this thread is because I don't live in a "racism-free environment". The only difference here is that the roles are reversed. Call it "whites getting what they deserve,” w/e, but here's my argument: I have to live through all of this crap, so why don't I get benefits?! See the issue?? Just because you're black doesn't mean you've encountered racism. Just because you're white doesn't mean you have NOT encountered racism. Past problems don't matter. It's the PRESENT that is important. Eliminate affirmative action and let's have the same rules for everyone. IF problems arise, then we'll deal with them later, but blanket laws, like blanket statements and generalizations (hmmm . . .. sound like racism, anyone?!), are not the way to go.

I think that the government should end all affirmative action to combat this growing trend of "reverse racism." No "black" this and "black" that. Just "America".

[Bob]

I don't quite understand it exactly myself.  If you fill up your workstaff based on color, than you're recognizing and using someone's ethnicity while saying your blind to it.  And if you're selecting on background like that, I imagine at some point "the best" person isn't getting selected since it's not really based on who's the best, just who fits the profile best so the workplace is a little bit of everyone.

It comes up too when you're selecting music for concerts.  You can base music selection on the pieces, maybe their importance too, but things like melody, harmonies, form, etc.  And then also on who wrote the piece.  Is your piece list balanced in terms of composers?  Should it be?  If it is, is that a good thing?


Back to the racism thing though.  It's not all black and white.  There are other ethnicities out there. 

Oh yes, that's what I thought of before.  Say you have two group, majority and minority.  And you select based on background.  And say each group is equal in terms of ability, etc., there are just more of the majority.  And I suppose jobs would have to be plentiful enough.  The cream of the crop from each group is taken.  But there are still more jobs to fill.  Since the majority simply has more people, they might have people left who are still at a, say, 95% level for quality.  The minority has less people and might be at a 90% quality level of the people left.  So then you end up in a situation where a less qualified person would be hired, based on their background.  People would see that and start thinking that the minority is actually less qualified or less capable.  After all, they have an example right there.  And then for the majority -- The number of open slots has decreased.  Compeititon increases.  The majority will go to even further extremes to improve in that area, so the majority gets better.  It can put people in a position where they become a bad example for their background, and can increase the quality level in the majority due to the competition.  That's one things I remember thinking from my past.

On the positive side for selecting people based on their background, I can understand putting a little of everyone up on display so others aren't affected by the appearance of the people who are in those positions.  For example (see, this fleshes it out more), if all what people see for composers are male composers, then the next generation of people may grow up thinking that.  If you very frequently see male and female composers equally, then maybe that will become the balance later on since people won't assume who should be a composer.  I'm thining of a young female would-be composer in this case.  If all she sees are males, then she might not go into it.  Although, I suppose even for myself -- a lot of the good composers are dead, so... Why bother even attempting to write anything?  Actually, that has crossed my mind when selecting music -- Maybe I should include some living composers in this list?



You're going to get a lot of argument with this thread.  This is one of those things that people will feel strongly about that probably doesn't really have a solution.

[Essyne]

Let the bloodbath begin. 

[Bob]

Oh yes.  I'm sure people will chime in. 

And you know no business would dare say they weren't affirmative action or equal opportunity.  I've gotten the impression they try to fill up their staff with a ltitle of everyone.  I recently ran across a hiring situation involving someone who was disable.  They could do most, but not all, of the job.  It was also a public service position (and apparently people aren't going to ask a person with a disability to wait on them. Not surprising.)  But I started thinking, "This person's disability might actually be an advantage in hiring.  Because if they do get hired, no one can say a word about that organization discriminating against people with disabilities."  Which doesn't seem right either.  What happened?  The person wasn't hired because the hiring person thought people, customers, wouldn't approach this person with disabilities.  I suppose having a speech impediment didn't really help either -- Something that took the usual person a second would take this person a minute.  Just not efficient.  Sad, but true.  I heard about this second hand.  And the person with disabilities went through four or five job interviews like that.  I don't know what they ended doing after that.  


Can you imagine someone naming their organization "white" something.  That's the domain of the neo-Nazi's, etc.  There was a group in the news a few years ago, "the fighting whities," or something.  People thought it was amusing and took it as more of a compliment from what I remember.  

Fortunately, in the piano world, we don't see black and white... Or everything is black and white.  There's no color.  Just black and white.  Black keys and white keys.  Working together in harmony.  Literally.  And gold pedals, but I don't know what those represent.

[thalbergmad]

Reverse racism is a growing problem in the UK. It is OK for a council to advertise a job vacancy for "ethnic minorities" only, but it would never be permitted in reverse. In some London Boroughs, white people are an ethnic minority, so I wonder what would happen if one should decide to apply?

That piss brained twat (Blair) that used to be Prime Minister, actually once apologised for The UK's involvement in the slave trade, but would never apologise for something he had done.

Thal