Racism+-+'Don't+Call+it+Affirmative+Action'

Racism: "Don't Call It Affirmative Action" Personally, when it comes to talk about Affirmative action, I can see both sides of the coin: one the one hand the policy does, at first glance, "fly in the face of American precepts of equality" (1); I know when it comes to academics, I would be pretty enraged if I were snubbed simply because I wans't part of a minority. At the same time, minorites, specifically racial minorities, are already in a bad position to begin with and need an extra boost to get to the same level as whites. That in mind, affirmative action does become "a system designed to make sure that everybody is getting into college ... whether [they] are a poor kid from East L.A. or a fourth-generation legacy" (1). The problem is that the public's perception of affirmative action has caused the program to lose its original intention and become something that it's not. As far as the public is concerned, affirmative action is simply a way undeserving minorites can essentially cheat their into success. Unfortunately, the main reason that these minorities are considered "undeserving" is because they didn't have proper resources to become "deserving" because those resources weren't available to them in the first place; as Lyndon Johnson put it, "you do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, 'you are now free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you have been completely fair" (2). Raina Kelley, the author of this article, points that affirmative action is more than just privileges, it promotes diversity. Kelley sees that if you can bring everyone to the forefront, it makes hating people harder, "it's hard to think black people are inferior if they're sitting next to you in freshmen English or in a conference room" (3). I had never thought about affirmative action like that before, let's be honest, I haven't really given tons of thought on the subject before either, and it helps to explain why sexual-orientation and religious minorites are included as part of affirmative action: it's exposure; the longer you're around something, the more numb you become to it. Now we usually stay clear of the idea of "numb is good" because we've heard and read about what numbness can lead to; dictators, conformity, and general blandness. In the case of affirmative action, however, numb is good; we take so much care in upholding the idea that what makes a person is their thoughts, feelings, and personality that we do need to become numb to the outside trivialities that inhibit the ability to see a person for what we claim them to be.

I think Kelley made a reasonable solution to fixing affirmative action's reputation: change the name to "epmloyment equity" and educating people about what the purpose of affirmative action. Still, the program has an inate problem: time. When affirmative action first went into effect, it was a solution to a then important and extremely current subject, whereas today, that same topic is "a high-school history lesson now" (2). Time has brought the importance of affirmative action to something that is seen almost as a nuance, being pushed down on the list in favor of economy, marriage, terrorism, and healthcare. Even though the race issue has become less of a mjor issue, it still is a problem because there isn't complete equality in American business or education between white majority and all minorities. The problem comes in with current racial trends: whites are becoming a minority. If affirmative action is about creating equal standing within the business and academic worlds, and Kelley gives a fair enough argument of that being the case; what happens when the most advantaged groups becomes a minority, seen as lesser advantaged? According to Kelley, affirmative action is about "creating opportunities for the minority that the majority might be tempted to keep for itself" (2). At the same time, however, "our problems surrounding discrimination and bias have [not] been solved" (2). When whites become the minority, will affirmative action give them a boost or will it continue to help the then-majority-now-minority? Should the program extend its hand to whites, as much as it does for most minorities now, the program loses its purpose of bringing non-white minorities to the same level as the white majority; should the program continue to help the then-majority, it becomes a truly unfair program that would inevitably leave whited in the dust. Take away affirmative action, and we could see a variety of things: business practices continuing as they are, reverting to old white-bias employment, or completely turning the table on the white-black racial relations, all while stille leaving the lesser-known minorities in the dust. Affirmative action, as Sandra Day O'Connor saw it, was not a permenant solution and would eventually render itself useless. Perhaps that's true, but it's been one of the few steps taken to get to complete equality, and it's one that's going to hit problems in the oncoming future.

I think the most important part of the article was on the second page where Kelley suggests changing affirmative action to "employement equity", saying "this isn't about demonizing white men, stealing their jobs, and giving them to knuckleheads. This is about fairness" (2). This seems to be her argument in a nutshell, and after thinking it over, the name change and her idea do seem to make the program less evil as it were than how it's viewed today. The rest of the article does cater to this particular idea, since much of the article deals with the motives behind affirmative action and what it does, or is suppose to do. Kelley clearly and concisely sums up all her points in a single phrase of word: it addresses the seen demonization of white men the current view of affirmative action has, it conceeds that there are people out there who don't deserve the job opportunities, even if on equal footing, and expresses the belief that affirmative action does stand behind American equality. "Employment equity" makes far more sense, the purpose is in the name, keeping fair employment opportunities for everyone. With the name "affirmative action", no one's really sure what it's supposed to do and within what restrictions, so it feels as though the program could feasibly allow for anti-white racism. A name change would also give it a new feel, like when a company changes its logo or product, the program itself may not change, but the feeling and atmosphere surrounding the company, and in this case, program, do change.