Browncoats-I NEED YOUR HELP! (school polling project!)
POSTED BY: RiverGoddess
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 21:45
VIEWED: 8981
PAGE 2 of 5
Quote:
Originally posted by RiverGoddess:
"Do you generally favor or oppose affirmative action programs for women and minorities?"
1)Favor
2)Oppose
3)Unsure
Unsure.
That's just because I don't really have enough information. But generally, from what I do know, I would be apposed to the idea.
Edit: It does seem to fit in with the racial fanaticism of our day and age; everyone must pay the consequences of an inadequate employee, because I don't want to get sued for being racist!
Then again sometimes there is an unfair situation.
«°-:-°»
Also... I can kill you with my brain.
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Oppose.
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Oppose.
I think that if there is unequal representation is most likely shows unequal qualification, and affirmative action becomes the patch which creates a good appearance but doesn't actually solve the problem. Such efforts should be directed towards producing qualified applicants instead.
African Americans make up a small % of scientists in this country, but also a small % of science degrees. Compared to what has been expended to implement affirmative action, very little has been expended to do things such as equalize education funding, scholarships and grants in order to produce an adequate number of African Americans with science degrees.
Ultimately, society has to be one of free choice, in which the best choice is ultimately to hire the most qualitfied applicant for the job, and anything that forces a hire of a less qualified applicant will foster resentment, and ultimately could be an instigator of an increase in racial bias.
I know all my posts are too long, but here's an anecdote. We had a quota instigated at my college while I was there, and went from about 1% black to 5% black. The 1% were people who tested the same as the while and asian students, the 5% were oppertunity program students, some of whom had tested drastically lower, and were not at all able to benefit from college classes, lacking basic underlying skills. This created an attitude which I noticed start to spead which went 'black students are dumb' which hadn't existed before. I can see this is a dangerous added caveat to any such program in a work environment. If you have 5 qualified engineers, but force or encourage the hire of 25, then you might end up creating the unfair and inaccurate attitude in the private sector of 'black engineers don't know their job.' This energy really needs to be applied at the other end, helping to create more qualified black engineers or whatever the inequality is.
For years, the democrats in NY pushed this idea, but never attempted to rectify the fact that black kids got only 58% the funding per child that white kids got. Now a republican mayor of NY has fixed that in the city, but our republican governor has failed to do that in the rest of the state.
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You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
- Abraham Lincoln
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oppose
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Do you generally favor or oppose affirmative action programs for women and minorities?"
1)Favor
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I think your study question is missing a couple of pieces of information, namely the sex and ethnicity of the responder.
As an outsider and on the few times this question has come up I've found the following to be true at least here in Texas.
White males seem to generally oppose it, either on basic principle or from the belief that any injustices Affirmative Action was designed to combat have been overcome.
White females seem to go either way, though I suspect it would split onlong socio/economic lines.
Black males seem for it, irrespective of social/economic status, even if they themselves became successfull without it. Didn't Colin Powell even say he was for it?
Like I said, personal experience from canteen/bar talk here in Texas.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
I think your study question is missing a couple of pieces of information, namely the sex and ethnicity of the responder.
As an outsider and on the few times this question has come up I've found the following to be true at least here in Texas.
White males seem to generally oppose it, either on basic principle or from the belief that any injustices Affirmative Action was designed to combat have been overcome.
White females seem to go either way, though I suspect it would split onlong socio/economic lines.
Black males seem for it, irrespective of social/economic status, even if they themselves became successfull without it. Didn't Colin Powell even say he was for it?
Like I said, personal experience from canteen/bar talk here in Texas.
I think that would make a far more interesting study. "How does socio-economic background, gender and ethnicity determine one's inclination towards affirmative action?".
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Indeed, that would make a fascinating study. Unfortunately my school project is very broad, but hey, it's just a small project, and I turn it in today. I REALLY REALLY appreciate the help and input from everyone. I love this community!
I'd really like to talk about this issue more with others and my classmates. My parents, when I polled them separately, said the opposite. My mom opposes it (she's white), but my dad favors it (mexican and native american). My mom, like Fletch2 posted about white females, wasn't leaning to any particular side. She knows that technically, I'm classified as a minority with my hispanic heritage, so I have some of the affirmative action opportunities. I asked her "Yes, but *in general*, assuming you don't know me, what do you think?" and she said that one should get in to places, like college, soley on merit.
I believe this too, but again, I'm torn, because I could benefit from these opportunities, but I might feel insulted simply if I was accepted somewhere only because of my background. I didn't work my tail off just to be accepted somewhere because I'm a hispanic female.
Interesting, interesting stuff. It's nice to hear input from others from either side.
Thanks again, fellow Browncoats! It's nice to have a good group of people to bounce ideas off of on both real issues and Firefly-related stuff!
*~*~
Summer's response to Nathan getting his very own action figure:
"I tried to pull his head off."
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