16a/n: I've been thinking about doing this for a while. So finally I stopped procrastinating. And now, even though I really shouldn't be starting another project now, I'm gonna do it. Also, it should ward off writers block. Total nonsense can be tough sometimes, you know! So here goes. Chapter 1.
Affirmative Action: Bad Idea, Strange Name
What does affirmative action literally mean? Well, affirmative, according to the handy thesaurus, means "assenting," "positive," or "confirmatory." And action means "act," "deed," "accomplishment," and a host of other nonspecific words. So where did the term 'affirmative action' come from? I'd love to tell you, but that would mean doing research. Okay, I'll do research. According to Encarta 2001 Encyclopedia's article, "Affirmative Action," the term 'affirmative action' came from a 1961 executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy. The first affirmative action law was the Philadelphia Plan, which was created by the Nixon administration in 1969.
Okay. Cool. But I still don't understand just how we end racial discrimination by discriminating racially. So I read a Teen Voices article (Volume 12, Issue 3, pp 20-24) titled "Affirmative Action: From the Streets to the Supreme Court." They interviewed attorney Miranda Massie, who was involved in the affirmative action case Grutter v. Bollinger. According to Massie, "Without affirmative action [there] would be completely unconstrained white privilege and discrimination against black, Latino, and Native American applicants… [Affirmative action] is a partial solution for the amount of discrimination that would otherwise utterly and absolutely saturate higher education."
And now I ask you, if it wasn't for those optional "Race/Ethnicity: Please check all that apply" boxes on applications, how would anyone know what race an applicant is? Last name? Okay, take the names off, assign each potential applicant a number, and give the application essays to someone who doesn't know the history. Problem solved. Similar policies could be applied to hiring practices. Just don't consider race on job applications.
But maybe more black kids are poor. I'm not debating that; it's true and it's sad. So instead of race, how about indicating yearly household income? Because not all poor kids are black, and not all rich kids are white.
Affirmative action is racist and will only further hate between the races. It causes non-minority citizens to resent minority citizens who they feel may only have succeeded because of their race. Similarly, it cheapens the accomplishments of minority citizens who could be affected by affirmative action; it causes some people to write off these accomplishments as "They just gave it to him/her because s/he's black."
We are a racist society and this is a problem we need to address. But purposefully creating racial entitlements won't solve this problem! We need to prevent all discrimination in hiring people for jobs and admitting people to higher educational institutions in order to combat the inherent white privilege in our society. Once all laws give equal privileges to all people, regardless of race, sex, creed, religion, national origin, sexual preference, marital status, or disability, then and only then will we be a truly integrated and prejudice-free society.