Q&A: I have a question for anti-Affirmative Action advocates?
Question by Ramón DEUCE: I have a question for anti-Affirmative Action advocates?
Very first of all, let me just state that I failed to require Affirmative Action to get into college. I’m Hispanic. I was born in the USA. My grandparents arrived to this country and pulled themselves up from practically nothing to give my siblings and I a possibility. I graduated in the top 5% of my large college class, took AP/IB courses, received into an ivy league school, and I will graduate in May possibly of this 12 months. My complete scholarship stems from the reality that I labored my butt off. Nothing was “handed to me.”
Also, my fiancee is biracial-black/native american. Lifted in Arizona. Graduated just 1 spot beneath me in high college. No-she failed to get A single scholarship from the NAACP or the United Negro University Fund. That’s a MYTH. No-she isn’t going to get a no cost journey in higher education simply because she’s Native American. Another MYTH. She took difficult courses just like me, also attends the identical college that I do, speaks her native american language, is learning yet another, and is going to med school upon graduation. In the prior, I’ve seen her fall asleep in classes here at higher education simply because she’s so busy with her work-study work, all of the college student organizations she’s in, homework, and filling out a lot more scholarship programs. Nothing at all was “spoon-fed” to her.
I’m not even likely to speak about my very own men and women, simply because I don’t want to be biased. And for those of you who want to be unpleasant and use racial slurs, spare me. I am not Mexican or Puerto Rican.
So, with all that staying explained, why are you opposed to affirmative action? Please keep in brain that the ancestors of contemporary day black Us citizens were involuntarily stripped from their homelands. And when they acquired about here…pressured to operate like animals, told they have been inferior, converted to Christianity from traditional African religions, stripped of their languages, etc. And for American Indians, they had been minding their business as well. When Europeans arrived in the New World, they pillaged, raped, murdered. Pressured folks to settle on reservations, sent them off to boarding educational institutions to remove language, tradition, and many others. In the subsequent decades…properly, we all know about the Civil Rights Motion and the American Indian Motion.
And sure….I know the agenda of black and the native american have been diverse–but a single issue was specific: Equally groups were denied/stripped of equivalent possibility to prosper and uplift their personal communities.
So can any of you individuals type a respectable coherent argument with out using racial epithets as to why you are from affirmative action?
You do recognize that if colleges will not meet their numerous quotas they will eliminate their funding, appropriate?
Oh, and for the file…I have witnessed tremendous intelligent minority students get denied to colleges because the college wished this basketball player or this abundant child whose mother and father would make fantastic contributions to school.
So…are you just upset simply because the tables are turning? You say “it should not be about skin coloration,” but did you ever before cease to take into account that minority pupils have been denied privileges exclusively on the basis of their skin shade? How would you experience if your race was just fairly not too long ago permitted to prosper?
Finest reply:
Response by King O
What is this, some kind of anti-White rant?
You’re the exception, not the rule. Get over it.
Know better? Depart your personal response in the comments!
August 29th, 2011 at 5:04 am
So you are saying that discrimination based on skin color is okay ? Racist !
August 29th, 2011 at 5:17 am
Minorities are inferior!! Don’t you know that? That’s why we need affirmative action?
(Get the sarcasm?)
If you agree that minorities are inderior you would support affirmative action.
August 29th, 2011 at 5:18 am
You make excellent points. Typically, those who are anti-affirmative action have never experienced racism nor do they have the knowledge of how our society continues to discriminate.
August 29th, 2011 at 5:41 am
I applaud you and your efforts
you have done well and deserve credit for your hard work
you really answered your own question
i am against anything that allows special treatment to people based on the color of their skin
this is racism in reverse
August 29th, 2011 at 6:29 am
So, with all that being said, why are you opposed to affirmative action?
Racism is either wrong or it’s right. There is no middle ground. If it is wrong to discriminate against blacks because of their skin color, then it is wrong to discriminate against whites because of theirs, end of story. All the other stuff you mentioned is irrelevant.
August 29th, 2011 at 7:24 am
I am against it, because of the reasons you stated above. Your people have to work hard like you and I did to succeed. After all, I am white, but my ancestors were not rich enough to enslave anyone, so why would you get an advantage over me? You succeeded with hard work? Why don’t you realize that many people are just using their skin color as an excuse that is exhausting to listen to? They can do it too with hard work. Do you think a rich white guy really says “no, hire the lazy white guy instead of the black guy that is going to work hard and help us make money.” You need to get over the race thing and realize you are smart and hard work will take you anywhere you want to go.
August 29th, 2011 at 8:10 am
I think people opposed to affirmative action are more upset about the underachievers. I am sure that the same people opposed to affirmative action are also opposed to that same basketball player getting into school over his super smart minority counterparts.
I think you are incorrect in saying that the tables are turning. Actually, I don’t know what you mean. Aren’t we suppose to strive for equality? Granted land was taken from Native Americans but did that drastically effect their education? It goes for the same rights for African Americans. Women had their rights taken away from them too.
Millions of jews were killed during the holocaust. Shouldn’t they be able to receive the benefits of affirmative action?
I think this is just a rant?
IMO affirmative action should be more about location than skin color.
August 29th, 2011 at 8:34 am
Here’s the law:
“No state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
That’s in the 14th Amendment. And “equal” means “equal.” That means that no one gets preferential treatment because of their race. No one.
You ask:
“Did you ever stop to consider that minority students have been denied privileges solely on the basis of their skin color?”
Yes, we know that that has happened. And the US Supreme Court put a stop to segregation of public schools with its ruling 55 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, the most famous and highly celebrated Supreme Court decision in its history. And for decades following that decision, the Court has even forced many major metropolitan areas to “bus” students in order to achieve “desgregation.” We know that there has been unequal educational systems that have existed before, but we also know that the legal system has done much to end those problems. No one should be so “pie-in-the-sky” cheery as to pretend that the law had always been obeyed before, but neither should anybody be so dreary as to talk as if the law has never been obeyed, either. Both kinds of observations are extreme ways of looking at how society has functioned.
The solution to violations of the law — violations of the “equal protection clause” — is not to continue engaging in discrimination but do so in the opposite direction. The solution is to follow and obey the law.
“Ideals are like the stars. We can never touch them with our hands, but like mariners on the sea, we are guided by them and, following them, fulfill our destiny.” — Carl Schurz.
August 29th, 2011 at 8:34 am
Because Affirmative Action makes it seem like one (the minority) needs help in order to catch up (to the majority).
August 29th, 2011 at 8:48 am
How about we set the Way Back Machine to when you were entering college and have you denied a place in college because your place was taken by a black high school senior with lower grades than yours? How about you get a scholarship to the college of your choice, this is your dream, but when you apply they tell you there is no room because they are practicing “diversity” and you’re not the right color. Or how about if you have worked for ten years in a job, you are due for a promotion you have more than earned, but the boss tells you he has to promote the “minority” who just came in the door about six months ago, has almost no training and nothing approaching your qualifications. Or – as happened to the father of a friend of mine – you own your own business, it’s a good one, same location many years, and you need a loan to help you out. The loan officer says you can have the loan as long as you put a minority on the deed, because they have to give first consideration to minorities. How about this one? A minority is promoted in the Navy into a position he or she is not qualified for, on the basis of his or her skin color, and gets people killed. These are all real examples from real life. This is the reality of Affirmative Action.
In your way of thinking, all women should be given preferential treatment over all men in every situation, because of the treatment we have received throughout history. Or how about we make a rule that anyone of Jewish ancestry goes to the head of the line because of the holocaust? Protestants over Catholics because of the Spanish Inquisition. Equality is not about revenge. It’s about giving everyone the opportunity to succeed, then rewarding those who take advantage of that opportunity regardless of what their ancestors endured. Affirmative Action says that black children are not as smart as white children, and therefore they need white beaurocrats to “take care” of them. This is the worst kind of , and I think it’s about time it was stopped.
August 29th, 2011 at 9:33 am
Many middle-class white people, especially those of us who grew up in the suburbs, like to think that we got to where we are today by virtue of our merit – hard work, intelligence, pluck, and maybe a little luck. And while we may be sympathetic to the plight of others, we close down when we hear the words “affirmative action” or “racial preferences.” We worked hard, we made it on our own, the thinking goes, why don’t ‘they’? After all, it’s been almost 40 years now since the Civil Rights Act was passed.
What we don’t readily acknowledge is that racial preferences have a long, institutional history in this country – a white history.
“Colorblind” policies that treat everyone the same, no exceptions for minorities, are often counter-posed against affirmative action. But colorblindness today merely bolsters the unfair advantages that color-coded practices have enabled white Americans to long accumulate.
Isn’t it a little late in the game to suddenly decide that race shouldn’t matter?
August 29th, 2011 at 10:12 am
You are quite right. These people who come on Yahoo Answers and protest about “underachievers” who get in before them and “women and Jews” who don’t get affirmative action…obviously didn’t do their research.
Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell both got affirmative action. Were these two underachievers? No. White women, black women / men, Spanish men / women, Native Americans, Indians and others all get affirmative action. Jews might not get it because the holocaust in Europe is not a reason for them to get affirmative action over here. People hate them, but roadblocks aren’t put in their way to prevent them from getting ahead.
Blacks faced racism, discrimination, oppression and murder in America…even recently. Women face sexism and exclusion in America…even recently. Hispanics face racism, discrimination, oppression and murder in America…even recently. Jews are the head media corporations, CEOs, mayors, lawyers, etc. I mean the top in their fields. They DO NOT need affirmative action. That’s the difference between a minority that needs help and one that doesn’t. Schools of most black / Hispanic / Indian and other minorities receive unequal funding, their neighborhoods have less police presence until the gangs begin fighting to name the street then the cops come in with riot gear. The same thing with the poor areas.
We know all this. We see it in the movies and on TV. That’s why the show “Everyone Hates Chris” is so popular, because everyone knows the blantant / hidden racism it shows is true…even in today’s world. Stop lying to yourselves and claiming racism is over. Obama is the first minority president out of FORTY-FOUR. Even Greece (a white nation) had a black woman leader before us…a nation that claimed that every race had equal chances of achieving their dreams.
Also, tell these people to name one underachiever that they know of who got into a top school ahead of a straight A student. I can name one rich underachieving white kid who attended a top school in place of a good student based on money and what the school could get from his father. His name is George W. Bush and he was in Yale with a
“C-” average. Can they justify how he remained there when other people with higher grades than him couldn’t even enter?