a Action
 

What Bonehead said...

- Peter.

As do I,my family history is quite diverse and multinational crossing many ethnic and social lines.

Well, my maternal Grandmother was 1/2 Blackfoot indian,surely that entitles me,as 1/8th to at least partake of the no interest loans, social service handouts,scholarships etc,that the Govt reserves for those of native american blood?

Perchance my daughter can get a college scholarship?

Being in the tech field, I mostly deal with competetive private companies who can't afford to hire anyone but the best qualified. While the majority of these folks are white or asian males, I do meet the occasional woman or black. When this happens, I find it curious since it's not very common, but I've not seen any real difference in skill levels that I can attribute to race or gender.

Now...compare this with my public agency employer of almost 20 years, who during this time has advocated and forced AA down our throats.

I've seen managers told, prior to interviewing, that they are "under represented" in certain race or gender categories. Worse, I've even seen managers forced to change their hiring decisions, when they submitted paperwork for for an applicant who was not in the "under-represented" category. The reason given: there were women and/or minorities that met the "minimum qualifications", even though they weren't ranked anywhere near the top.

I've seen jobs announced ONLY in locations where high concentrations of minorities live or go to school. I've seen intern programs that REQUIRED the applicant be female and/or of a particular race to be accepted, and interns have a very high chance of gaining full time employment after they finish school.

What we've ended up with - a very diverse workforce, with an incredibly high percentage of unqualified women and minorities. And herein lies the most insidious aspect of AA...folks who would normally pay little attention to race or gender, have a negative predisposition to the minorities and women they work with due to the skewed hiring practices of their employer.

Let's face it:

None of us white boys are going to be supportive of Affirmative Action. That's a given. Arguing forcefully about it just consumes bandwidth for no gain.

For a proper discussion, a person who has benefitted from Affirmative Action needs to post and comment.

Okay, I'll take the challenge. I'm white and I have benefited from AA. (Notthe 12 Step thing, the helping hand thing).

When I was a kid black people stepped off the sidewalk so white people could walk by. There were whites only bathrooms and water fountains and public swimming pools. Black people were not allowed in most public restaurants and they had separate waiting rooms in hospitals. Black women were domestic servants and black men were manual laborers. Black people were thought to be dumb, unable to do much more than read or write so it was the white folks' good will that kept them from sinking into a depraved, animal state.

This was a great way to live if you were white. You got lots of cheap labor by a dependent class and you got to feel good about it because you were 'helping' them whenever you did anything remotely charitable.

So how could I, a white person, benefit from helping lift the barriers? Any lifting would probably result in lowering of my own standard of living (I have no servants in my home, for example).

I benefit because a culture that depends on suppressing a class of people to teh benefit of another is a culture that is on a trajectory to the depravity of slavery or violent revolution by the underclass. In the case of the USA, we nearly had the second part. What stopped it from happening? It sure as heck wasn't the sudden change of heart by the overclass.

It changed by ramming laws through and strictly enforcing them that guaranteed equal treatment. At bayonet point in many instances. So black people benefited from some strongly uneven-handed federal military intervention into state politics--a violation (I believe) of state sovereignty. Was it worth it, sacrificing constitutional balance for the benefit of a certain class of people? I believe so.

That is one aspect of AA.

The other is to give preferential treatment to a certain class for certain types of issues of education, job placement, and contracting.

In 1865, the Confederacy disappeared and "Reconstruction" began. Reconstruction was supposed to provide former slaves with the tools and facilities to provide for themselves. It was supposed to provide education, land, and farming equipment to people who had NOTHING, not even a cultural infrastructure upon which they could depend to to whom they could turn for help. Reconstruction was run by the victors of the War Between the States. Instead of actually doing anything helpful for the former slaves, the people in charge robbed the white southern overclass, embezzled from the federal funds for reconstruction to personal benefit, and corrupted the legal system through appointment of gangs to gov jobs, and corruption of the politcal process through vote buying and intimidation. Very little money was actually disbursed to the former slaves or to efforts for their education and provision for helping them make their way in free society.

When federal 'Reconstruction' finally ended, the whites kicked teh corruption out of office and began efforts, at first uncoordinated and tentative, to force the black population into a permanent underclass by fact and by law. It worked for nearly 100 years. Blacks stayed an underclass and stayed ignorant and were revield for the state that tehy did not create and did not want.

So how do you lift people from that situation? You break the unwritten and written social contracts that the overclass has among themselves, but often do not recognize. That is affirmative action.

Yes, it needs to begin a slow, lingering death. It's purpose is largely done. It was an intentional and IMO unconstitutional infringement on the liberty of one class to the benefit of another. I hope it gets declared unconstitutional. But I do not regret its effect at all.

Bot

I believe its days are numbered from what I have read on google.

No matter what, keep you eye on the goal, work hard, dont give up and you will achieve it. AA is not the first, nor last time you will run into unfair obstacles. Fight such injustices, but dont allow them to consume you, or you have lost.

The first part of your descriptor changed radically without AA. Things were evolving in the right direction. It would have taken longer, but it was headed that way, media is a big reason.

AA now only creates resentment and allows many who shouldnt be attending to attend.

I think the most important move the govt ever made was opening up home ownership to minorities.

Of course much of this is speculation and can never be proven.

I forgot to mention that I attend the MOST DIVERSE SCHOOL in the country. White is only about 40%.... Rutgers Newark Campus

Well written, and right on the mark.

Your example is perfect!

The former slaves did NOT have what you had: Cultural norms that supported the concepts and ideas that you think are reasonable. It seems perfectly rational to live a life of hard work and sacrifice to better yourself and your children. Why is that normal?

There was a cultural-less people who had no norms within which they could seek and receive guidance for how life should be lived. They are genetically endowed with teh same essential powers as anybody else, but they totally lacked a culture. The dominant culture rejected them, offered no help, and actively worked for their suppression in a dependency state.

The goal of AA was to break that cycle. To bring them into the dominant culture by short-circuiting the assimilation process that had actively rejected them for a couple of hundred years.

AA was and is an imperect solution to a terrible dilemma. It's time to seek its retirement, but don't be hasty. It is still offering a path to people who need hand. I think it will (and should) die with my generation. Not a quick death, but a slow, and painful one. We're just watching its early stages of dying.

If you kept it clean, and not specific to one particular race, I say speak up man, speak up.

.........yeah, it be nice to see Bonehead excited about something othe than Clinton.

Here's my thoughts on the subject (if the censors / filters let it through)....

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:pukeface:

..............."shotgun house."............. :confused: