Browncoats-I NEED YOUR HELP! (school polling project!)
POSTED BY: RiverGoddess
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 21:45
VIEWED: 8981
PAGE 4 of 5
Quote:
Originally posted by RiverGoddess:
"Do you generally favor or oppose affirmative action programs for women and minorities?"
Favor
And that answer won't change until the day when the probability of an American baby's success in life doesn't change depending on ethnicity or gender. I don't expect to see that day in my lifetime. White male privilege is pervasive in our society. And, as in the case of most types of privilege, those who benefit the most from the unfair advantages a) don't see it, b) don't want to see it c) don't want to lose any of those privileges and d) will fight like hell to protect their advantage.
Try this little experiment. Ask people if they think their life would have been less hard if they had been born a different ethnicity or gender(or if they wish they had been born a different ethnicity or gender). And I'm talking about an honest thought-out response. None of those, "Hell yeah I wish I was born a woman! I'd never leave my bedroom," type of responses. I have yet to find a white male who wishes they were born black or who think their life would have been easier in that instance (and similiarly with respect to gender). When I ask other minorities the response I get is more in line with my own thinking, "Duh." It's self-evident that the cards are stacked a certain way. So, in my mind, any attempt to reshuffle the deck is a worthy endeavor. To borrow a worn phrase, "It's not about leveling the playing field, it's about making sure the players are on the same field and playing with the same equipment."
Let me try playing around with a simile (or analogy, or metaphor, whatever). You have two groups of people shooting at targets. One is shooting from 20 yards, the other from 500 yards. For the most part, the group shooting from 20 yards is going to have better results. Every so often you'll get someone hitting the bullseye from 500 yards. Those are the superstars who are going to succeed no matter what the odds. Now you introduce some affirmative action. Move one group up to 470 yards and the other group back to 50 yards. The closer group is going to complain like hell because things just got a lot harder for them, "It's unfair." Well yeah, it is, but not the way they think. It just got a little bit less unfair.
When all the breaks are going your way, of course you're going to fight like crazy to keep things the way they are.
* Since you don't mention economic factors I'll limit my remarks to ethnicity and gender. Just factor in that it's better to be born rich than poor in our society and you'll get a feel for my comments on that aspect. eta: To stretch the example... If you're born rich you get to shoot with a cannon instead of a rifle.
* edited to fix my spelling of privilege. And also to add a link for those who are interested. A good entry level article on the topic of white privilege is by Peggy McIntosh. You can find it all over the internet so I'll just pull a link out at random: http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html
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1.) Favor
why??... because of white male privilage, which is the biggest affirmative action program around.
I Think Peggy Mcintosh does and excellent job of explaining Cultrated white and male privilage.Affirmitive action is like an oxymoron to begin with;if the system wasn't already unfair there wouldn't be a need for such programs.
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Oppose
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Generally Favor.
Sometimes the pendulum needs a push.
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I just tallied them up. Here's where it stands:
16 Opposed.
5 In Favor.
7 Unsure.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I just tallied them up. Here's where it stands:
16 Opposed.
5 In Favor.
7 Unsure.
1 more in favor
David
"A lot of people are asking me, you know, what exactly is Firefly? It's a tv show you morons!" - Joss Whedon
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Favor.
Somehow, nobody seems to mind that the wealthy get in easier than everybody else, even if they are grossly unqualified for the slot. What is that except affirmative action for the rich?
Unless or until we have a truly money/ sex/ color-blind educational and opportunity system, I'm in favor of what might loosely be called "affirmative action". But that ALSO depends on how you implement affirmative action, since I'm definitely not in favor of hiring or admitting unqualified people.
Since we get hundreds of applicants and winnow them down with written tests and personal interviews, it makes no difference whether they score 83 or 79 at the end of the process. At that level we are really looking at qualitative differences: this one has marginally stronger technical bakcground, that one has better organization skills, and the third one has somewhat better interpersonal skills. In my experience, when I'm looking at the top five people, they ALL can do the job very well. The nice thing is, I can throw a dart and pick a winner.
Given that the top condidates are equally qualified, I would give preference to under-represented categories. That, BTW, is not how our organization hires people.
---------------------------------
Free as in freedom, not beer.
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Unsure.
I am against affirmative action in principle, however, it has been very beneficial to me in the past (woman in a field of study strongly dominated by men).
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oppose - the best qualified should get the job regardless of race, gender etc.
I'll be in Jaynes bunk
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