Affirmative Action Promotes Slavery of African-Americans

[JAR]

The very existence of Affirmative Action ideals in a society is an accusation that at least one group of people is racist. Affirmative Action is supposed to force racist white employers to hire black employees.

Do we really want black employees to be working for people who want to kill or enslave them? Won't these employers exploit their African-American workers?

A better solution for black people to end discrimination among white employers is to have black employers stop hiring white people. Once racist white people realize that persecution is a two-way street, they will stop persecuting.

[Supercharts]

Affirmative Action promotes the idea of a white-liberal plantation. It is distructive to free enterprise and the emancipation of African-Americans.
Denounce Jesse Jackson and every other rip-off artist [Al Sharpton comes to mind] and enter main-stream American economic society.
The liberal plantation is only there to benefit the few. Screw them.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Affirmative Action promotes the idea of a white-liberal plantation. It is distructive to free enterprise and the emancipation of African-Americans.
Denounce Jesse Jackson and every other rip-off artist [Al Sharpton comes to mind] and enter main-stream American economic society.
The liberal plantation is only there to benefit the few. Screw them.
Thank you.

[toddjh]

Originally posted by JAR
The very existence of Affirmative Action ideals in a society is an accusation that at least one group of people is racist. Affirmative Action is supposed to force racist white employers to hire black employees.

I believe that the problem with Affirmative Action is even more fundamental: it legitimizes the notion that skin color is, in some instances at least, a perfectly good thing to consider in matters of employment and economics. Isn't that mindset what we're trying to do away with??

Jeremy

[The Fool]

Originally posted by JAR
The very existence of Affirmative Action ideals in a society is an accusation that at least one group of people is racist.


Correct.


Affirmative Action is supposed to force racist white employers to hire black employees.


Correct again.

Do we really want black employees to be working for people who want to kill or enslave them?


yes, I want the colour of somebodys skin to be irrelevant to their employment. I want the Racism of some employers to not affect employment decisions.


Won't these employers exploit their African-American workers?

they may, they will then be subject to labor and/or criminal laws.

A better solution for black people to end discrimination among white employers is to have black employers stop hiring white people. Once racist white people realize that persecution is a two-way street, they will stop persecuting.

Your "solution" is introduction of a South african style apartheid system. Want to rethink that in the light of the history of Apartheid in SA?


Affirmative action has problems, not as many problems as placing racist employment practices in the too hard basket. What do you do about a company that has thousands of employees, all of one race, located in the middle of a multi racial population? The chances that this happens due to any other reason than racism is zero. You can just let it go on or say to them "No More, Change your ways".

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by JAR
The very existence of Affirmative Action ideals in a society is an accusation that at least one group of people is racist. Affirmative Action is supposed to force racist white employers to hire black employees.
No. Affirmative Action is not supposed to force anyone to do anything; that would be illegal (at least in respect of quotas). It certainly can't force racist employers to employ people from the groups they hate; the best it can do is address common racist attitudes (eg, "I've nothing against those people but i just don't want to work with them") by showing that colour has no impact on ability to do a specific job. It's not just the KKK card carriers who are racists; they're just the extreme end of the continuum.

All Affirmative Action asks is that employers attempt to reflect the distribution of a certain skill in the local workforce (cliff notes version: very simply, with all things being equal, if a company needs six accountants, and there's 20 black accountants and 40 white accountants attend for interview, then employers are recommended of select two black candidates and four white candidates. However, if none of the black applicants are as qualified for the post as the white applicants, or no blacks apply, then the employer is not "breaking" Affirmative Action guidelines by only employing white candidates.
Do we really want black employees to be working for people who want to kill or enslave them? Won't these employers exploit their African-American workers?
I should think that black people wouldn't want to work for such an openly racist individual anyway. I don't know the details of US employment law, but if it's anything like UK law then if employers try exploit employees on the basis of race, ehtnicity or whatever, they're in for a lot of trouble.
A better solution for black people to end discrimination among white employers is to have black employers stop hiring white people. Once racist white people realize that persecution is a two-way street, they will stop persecuting.
No, because Affirmative Action is not about forcing people to employ other people; it's about addressing the preferential treatment given to white people, and is concerned with inclusion, not exclusion. And what The Fool said!

Edited to fix tags

[Tmy]

AA is not just for blacks. The racism its meant to combat is not so obvious. Its not about "racists who wont hire blacks." Its about institutionalized racism.

And dont give me that "best applicant should get the job" mantra. In a perfect world that would be true but in the real world people are hired based on who they know, who they are related too, or other conections.




A lot of people like to complain about AA cause they are closet bigots and it gives them an opportunity to be openly racist.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by toddjh


I believe that the problem with Affirmative Action is even more fundamental: it legitimizes the notion that skin color is, in some instances at least, a perfectly good thing to consider in matters of employment and economics. Isn't that mindset what we're trying to do away with??

Jeremy

Interesting point which demonstrates perfectly the unintended consequences of big social projects. Skin colour (in terms of being "white", or more precisely, in terms of being "not white") was already an issue in employee selection The resulting controversy has been a polarisation of the issue AA was supposed to address, fuled in part by people who feel threatened by what AA seeks to achieve (although I'm sure there's people on all sides of the debate trying to manipulate the issues for their own benefit). But would the situation be any better if AA had never happened? I somehow doubt it.

Edited to delete misplaced words

[Skeptic]

Suppose I buy a new car and instantly sell it. I will have to take a loss of thousands of dollars. Why? I haven't even driven it yet!

The reason is that a certain percentage of new cars are "lemons", but you usually cannot tell which easily. While ALL new cars are for sale, lemons and non-lemons, this is not so for cars already owned by private individuals.

The buyer therefore is right to assume that the percentage of "lemons" in cars that are sold by previous owners (instead of the factory) is significantly higher than that of cars out of the factory. This risk results in a lower price for the seller.

Note that it doesn't have to be the case that all, or most, of the cars offered for sale by owners have to be "lemons" for the price to drop. The three critical points that lower the price are that:

a). The amount of "lemons" in the subpopulation (new cars sold by owners) is significantly higher than that of the general population (all new cars);

b). The subpopulation is easily identifiable;

and

c). The buyer cannot easily tell whether an object in the subpopulation is a "lemon" or not.

What does all this to do with affirmative action? A certain percentage of all employees are incompetent. But people suspect that affirmative action, which relaxed standards for blacks, results in significantly more incompetent black people being hired than in the general population. Also, blacks are easily identifiable, and it is hard to tell from the start whether a black worker (or any worker) is incompetent.

This results in affirmative actions causing people to avoid black workers and professionals, or to dismiss their credentials as worth less--just like people would pay significantly less for a car sold by the owner than by a factory.

Note that this result does not require a belief that most or many black workers, affirmative action or not, are incompetent; it is enough that there are (or believe to be) SIGNIFICANTLY MORE incompetent black workers than white ones, even if the absolute percentage is still small.

Who suffers from affirmative action the most? Not white workers; not incompetent black workers (who wouldn't have their position in the first place without affirmative action); but competent black workers, who are of course the majority of the workers.

Affirmative action, in one sentence, lets more blacks have jobs--at the price of making "black work" in general suspect. Not worth it, in my opinion.

[Victor Danilchenko]

toddjh

I believe that the problem with Affirmative Action is even more fundamental: it legitimizes the notion that skin color is, in some instances at least, a perfectly good thing to consider in matters of employment and economics. Isn't that mindset what we're trying to do away with??You got the issue backwards. AA recognizes that race is an issue for many people, and attempts to counter-balance that, the alternative being essentially ignoring institutionalized racism and hoping that it will go away on its own (the ostrich tactic). Now there are good and bad ways of doing it (hiring under-qualified minority applicants is a bad way), but the idea of AA itself is not problematic.

[toddjh]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
You got the issue backwards. AA recognizes that race is an issue for many people, and attempts to counter-balance that

That's only the first half. You're omitting the part where AA engages in the exact same type of thinking; i.e., that it's perfectly acceptable to use skin color as a basis for hiring somebody. It really is the exact same thinking, just in the opposite direction.

Now, you may be one of those who thinks that it's possible to "counter-balance" one social iniquity with another, and that's fine, but I can't subscribe to that logic.

the alternative being essentially ignoring institutionalized racism

I would argue that AA is institutionalized racism. It is mandated by the government, and it forces employers to consider skin color in a decision that should have nothing to do with race whatsoever. Seems to meet the definition to me.

I hear you saying that some employers were already considering skin color. I say that's no reason to place an undue (and counterproductive) burden on the ones that were always acting fairly. I have no problem with laws prohibiting employer discrimination based on race. If employers are doing that, they should be prosecuted and/or sued. That is the way the government should be handling this, and they are: it's called the EEOC.

Now there are good and bad ways of doing it (hiring under-qualified minority applicants is a bad way), but the idea of AA itself is not problematic.

I disagree completely. AA is pointless. It's just a government band-aid; the underlying social problem is what needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, social problems are notoriously unresponsive to government intervention -- as with most social problems, I believe that there is no short-term solution. Education is the answer. That's where our money should be going.

Jeremy

[Tmy]

So what should be done. Close our eyes, shut up, and hope racisim goes away? Thats like saying we shouldnt use violence to combat terrorism because terrorists use violence and we all agree thats wrong. So how do we get rid of terrorism???

AA was not invented ina vacume, it was created to combat the institutionalized racism that was rampant. You have to admit that since AA's inception things have improved.

[Victor Danilchenko]

toddjh

That's only the first half. You're omitting the part where AA engages in the exact same type of thinking; i.e., that it's perfectly acceptable to use skin color as a basis for hiring somebody. It really is the exact same thinking, just in the opposite direction.But the difference is that AA, by its very nature, can be terminated with a legislative act; and hidden racism cannot. This IMO is similar to immunization principle -- the weaker, controlled version of the bacterium is used to prevent the actual full-blown infection.

Now, you may be one of those who thinks that it's possible to "counter-balance" one social iniquity with another, and that's fine, but I can't subscribe to that logic.What else do you propose? Even if we eliminate all racist thinking now, what will stay is the economic and social stratification along racial lines; and that will propagate on its own, without racism's help. Were we trying to combat the current racist attitudes only, AA would be unnecessary -- but we are struggling with calcified legacy of centuries' worth of such attitudes.

I would argue that AA is institutionalized racism. It is mandated by the government, and it forces employers to consider skin color in a decision that should have nothing to do with race whatsoever. Seems to meet the definition to me.It's fighting a wildfire with a controlled, smaller fire. Yes, AA is unsavory in and of itself, but it's less unsavory than the alternatives (where basically ignoring the de-facto racism is one of the alternatives).

I have no problem with laws prohibiting employer discrimination based on race. If employers are doing that, they should be prosecuted and/or sued. That is the way the government should be handling thisThat would stop the further social stratification along race lines, but it would do nothing to address such extant stratification that resulted from racist practices of yesteryear.

I disagree completely. AA is pointless. It's just a government band-aid; the underlying social problem is what needs to be addressed.Yes, we need both. if you get a deep cut, we stich it and band-aid it. AA shouldn't be the sole tool for addressing racism, but it should be a tool; one of many, and by far not the most important one, but valuable nonetheless.

Unfortunately, social problems are notoriously unresponsive to government intervention -- as with most social problems, I believe that there is no short-term solution. Education is the answer. That's where our money should be going.I agree that education is critical. But, again, that will merely prevent further problems, it won't cure extant symptoms. You want to both cure the cause and the symptoms, and the former doesn't always automatically take care of the latter.

[BillyTK]

For general interest, whilst I was googling for evidence that Affirmative Action relaxes standards for black people, I found the following article: The Myth And Math of Affirmative Action (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A41620-2002Apr12&notFound=true), which looks at claims that university Affirmative Action programs prejudice against whites; however it shows that these programs only decrease white applicants' chances of getting a university place by a couple of percent, and in the two specific cases it looks at suggests that it's other factors which were prejudicial.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Tmy
So what should be done. Close our eyes, shut up, and hope racisim goes away?


Affirmative action is racism, by keep it you are just perpetuating the problem. Furthermore, why should we even care about making racism go away? People have the right to think how they want.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Affirmative Action promotes the idea of a white-liberal plantation. It is distructive to free enterprise and the emancipation of African-Americans.
Denounce Jesse Jackson and every other rip-off artist [Al Sharpton comes to mind] and enter main-stream American economic society.
The liberal plantation is only there to benefit the few. Screw them.

I got an idea, we should boycott affirmative action. Refuse to patronize a place that has black people in high positions, refuse to patronize black owned businesses, refuse to recognize the authority of black judges, cops and lawyers, consider the opinions of black teachers and professors to be illegitimate, and refuse to go to black doctors.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Tmy
So what should be done. Close our eyes, shut up, and hope racisim goes away?
That's exactly what we are supposed to do. Racist companies are less likely to survive in the free-market economy due to the fact that they hire people on racial basis rather than on what their talents are.

[Victor Danilchenko]

JAR

That's exactly what we are supposed to do. Racist companies are less likely to survive in the free-market economy due to the fact that they hire people on racial basis rather than on what their talents are.Wrong. Whites' qualifications tend to be better, because poverty is associated with less education opportunities and somesuch. Even if all racist attitudes vanish overnight, the stratification along race lines will remain -- simply because it has, though past racism, acquired a life of its own as a social phenomenon. Fewer blacks are qualified than whites, because they come from poorer, less educated background, and get less opportunities without AA; and in turn, by not being hired, they will remain poorer, and pass it on to their children. Without something like AA, we will simply leave the status quo intact.

[Genghis Pwn]

"Affirmative Action" descriminates against one group of people, and favors others. Period.

It's wrong. It needs to end.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
JAR

Wrong. Whites' qualifications tend to be better, because poverty is associated with less education opportunities and somesuch. Even if all racist attitudes vanish overnight, the stratification along race lines will remain -- simply because it has, though past racism, acquired a life of its own as a social phenomenon. Fewer blacks are qualified than whites, because they come from poorer, less educated background, and get less opportunities without AA; and in turn, by not being hired, they will remain poorer, and pass it on to their children. Without something like AA, we will simply leave the status quo intact.
If whites' qualifications tend to be better, then employers should hire them more often. I thought affirmative action supporters argued that blacks qualifications are just as good as whites, and that blacks don't get hired as often because white employers are racists.

Now you're arguing that blacks qualifications tend to be not as good as whites. That's what we anti-affirmative action people think. That's why we don't like it. We feel that it forces employers to hire workers who aren't good at getting the job done over workers who are better at getting the job done. We want talent and skill to be basis for why a person is hired.

[Victor Danilchenko]

JAR

If whites' qualifications tend to be better, then employers should hire them more often. I thought affirmative action supporters argued that blacks qualifications are just as good as whites, and that blacks don't get hired as often because white employers are racists.the AA argument is that blacks' abilities are as good as whites, but due to a combination of past and present racism, those abilities don't get actualized and transformed into concrete qualifications. However, employers don't hire based on raw abilities, and universities don't admit thusly neither; hence the AA which attempts to strike a balance -- to give a slight preferrential treatment to blacks applicants, with the expectation that given full opportunity, their qualifications will catch up with the raw abilities.

I don't think any AA supporter will claim that your average black college applicant is as qualified, scores-wise, as an average white applicant. the argument is that the discrepancy is due to racism rather than race per se, and that therefore giving extra opportunity to blacks will compensate for that.

[Skeptic]

I don't think any AA supporter will claim that your average black college applicant is as qualified, scores-wise, as an average white applicant. the argument is that the discrepancy is due to racism rather than race per se

That's funny--when jews or orientals are involved, the argument is, myteriously, supposed to work in reverse: facing constant discrimination, they EXCELLED in school. So how come "racism" mysteriously makes some groups do better in school and work and others do worse?

Obviously, the mantra "it's racism's fault" is like saying "God did it": however some group performes--whether better than average or worse than average--it is "because of racism".

The "it's racism" mantra is tautological, explains nothing, and is nothing more than a pseudo-scientific excuse for what Affirmative Action really is: discriminating against white people due to the feeling of guilt for having discriminated in the past against black people.

Not only is this unfair to white people (the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" comes to mind), but it is dangerous for black people. It gives an all-encompassing, convenient excuse ("racism! racism!") for everything that's wrong. Why bother, for example, to try and close the SAT and grade gap between black and white students by improving education for blacks? Just repeat the mantra that it's "due to racism", and demand blacks get an extra "bonus" in college admissions scores. Voila! Problem "solved"!

[Tmy]

Originally posted by Skeptic
I don't think any AA supporter will claim that your average black college applicant is as qualified, scores-wise, as an average white applicant. the argument is that the discrepancy is due to racism rather than race per se

That's funny--when jews or orientals are involved, the argument is, myteriously, supposed to work in reverse: facing constant discrimination, they EXCELLED in school. So how come "racism" mysteriously makes some groups do better in school and work and others do worse?



Lets look at classic example of AA in action: Police Departments. Until AA most of the police where all white males. No women, blacks, hispanics, jews, asians. Was that because all the cops hired were more qualified??? Even with AA the police hiring is so corrupt with family members and connected people being hired.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Tmy
Lets look at classic example of AA in action: Police Departments. Until AA most of the police where all white males. No women, blacks, hispanics, jews, asians. Was that because all the cops hired were more qualified??? Even with AA the police hiring is so corrupt with family members and connected people being hired.
Whites make up the majority in this country. One would expect to see police who are mainly white. Its also interesting to note that the Irish were once known for dominating the police force. It might still be that way. When I was in Elementary school, the sheriff department guy who came for the S.A.N.E. program(it's similar to D.A.R.E.) had the surname "Callihan" which is Irish.