Is Reverse Discrimination Justified in Today's Society?

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In summary, racism still exists in America and there is still reverse discrimination going on. Society needs to change and affirmative action is not the answer.
  • #1
JohnB
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Racism...

I grow up around a lot of white kids, so most of my friends are white, anyway...

around where i live, whites hang out with whites (usually), asians with asians (i hang out with them too), hispanics with hispanics, etc. and one thing is really screwed up. we were at school, and there were these black kids that called me a cool person, and called my friends stupid crackers and honkies, (i don't know why, guess they just don't like us or something) but then, after a while, we called them black ass holes, because its only fair (lol). then we all get into a huge fight, and then these teachers come and break it up. the other kids are saying that we called them "racial terms" and we said that they did too, but then, the teachers we're blaming us for calling them names back! and later on, we get in trouble, and they just get a warning... i know we shouldve kept our mouths shut, but then they called us things that are tons more worse!

society is screwed up, and there is way too much reverse discrimination everywhere.

and for the people who are going to say, "oh, black people deserve more rights, because they were enslaved by the white man many years ago"

but remember this, that was like 150 years ago, and my friends are german... germans came in like the 1900's, so my friend's ancestors didnt do anything...
 
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  • #2
Damn that, and affermitive action, for far too logn have peopel been afriad of beign raciest in simple actions
 
  • #3
ur right, affirmative action is also wrong.. just because ur black or hispanic, u should get to get a better chance of getting into college? no u shouldnt
 
  • #4
Did you physically fight, or verbally?

No you shouldn't have kept your mouth shut, someone insults you, insult them back, assuming you know they won't knife/shoot you for it or something.
 
  • #5
oh, verbally... fighting would then let them have a reason to sue, so i didnt attack.
 
  • #6


Originally posted by JohnB

...society is screwed up, and there is way too much reverse discrimination everywhere.

and for the people who are going to say, "oh, black people deserve more rights, because they were enslaved by the white man many years ago"

...but remember this, that was like 150 years ago,..


Considering equality of racial rights has only been legally gauranteed for a little over 30 out of the 208 years of constitutionally ratified legal slavery, it wasn't that long ago.
 
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  • #7
interesting comment from a guy with a signature that says

"Official race member of the Crank Crushing Rednecks 24 hours of Adrenaline."
 
  • #8
Originally posted by JohnB
interesting comment from a guy with a signature that says

"Official race member of the Crank Crushing Rednecks 24 hours of Adrenaline."

Yes, thankyou, Our team came in third. It was tongue in cheek, such is the culture of mountain bike racing. Some other team names...Five Dicks and a Chick, Four Straight Guys and Steve, The Inadvertant Tree Huggers. We were the only team on the podium with a woman (moi), black, hispanic, two asians etc. etc. It is a joke. It was such a nice play on a name with such a motley crew, besides, I didn't pick out the name.
 
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  • #9
hmm, jews were slaves for like thousands of years, does that mean that they should get more rights too?
 
  • #10
Originally posted by JohnB
hmm, jews were slaves for like thousands of years, does that mean that they should get more rights too?

Don't know how you presume I am completely pro- affirmative action since I am not.

But since you bought that up. Some misconceptions need to be cleared up about it. The idea is basically that if a business is hiring fairly, the employee base should roughly look like that of the community. If a business is all white in a community that is 25% black, then there are probably grounds for at least looking into things. Now, people who don't have the brightest minds may have misread this basic idea as being "You must have X percentage of minority employees!" but anyone on any side of this issue who makes such a proclamation is simply not understanding the principle as it is intended.

Affirmative Action is not, as it is often described, intended as "punishment" for white people. Rather, it's a way to use hiring and admissions procuedres to correct the lack of opportunities to a select group of people created by two centuries of hiring and admission procedures specifically designed to deny these people opportunities.

Affirmative Action programs are not supposed to be permanent. Again, the idea is to take a group of people who have been denied opportunities that allow them to have the same success and give them those opportunities. It was a tool to accelerate desegregation. Jews were not denied entrance into schools or employment in our country that in any way approached the degree to which the blacks were exposed to. It was designed to redress one country's particular policies towards its minorities. Once this goal is completed, the programs are supposed to go away. It is good to see that the Supreme Court, although, not completely eliminating affirmative action, has begun to stress these limits on its use. I also think people forget that asians, women, and hispanics have inadvertantly fallen under the umbrella of "affirmative action" if one looks at an institution's desire for diversity. However, the Blacks have received all the negative connotations associated with it ie: Black man at Harvard is seen as posessing inferior qualifications compared to a Hispanic woman at Harvard.
 
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  • #11
A company hiring fairly shouldn't nessicarily have an employee base representitive of their community, they should hire the people who are best for the job. If the black people in community x waste their high school career by drinking, smoking pot, skipping class and doing poorly in general, don't go to college or go to a poor college and don't do well, and the asians all join extra cirricular activities, study hard and do well in school in general, go on to reputable colleges and get good grades, why should anyone hire black people over asians, when the asians are clearly better educated and qualified for job x?
 
  • #12
Ok first of all i am not rasict one bit, i have asian, black, indian friends. My girlfriend is chinese and I am white. Race doesn't mean much to me. But from my experience black people are the most racist people. (At least around where i live). If a black guy calls me a cracker or something, i don't give a damn, i will call him the N word. I don't see how the N word is any worse that cracker. That happened to me and my friends and all these black guys couldn't believe that we called them that after they called us "Stupid White Crackers". Lots of black people still complain that their people where slaves, blah, blah, blah. It wasn't us who made them slaves, it was people that lived along time ago. The world has changed and everybody have the same rights as everybody else now. So get over it already! All the world problems these days are because of racism. Palestinians and Isralies, Almost every third world culture and americans. I just don't see the big deal. Why can't people just realize that we are all the same underneath our skin and religion. It's all bull**** to me. Argh, now I am all pissed off...
 
  • #13
what people often forget is that no only blacks were slaves indians jews mexicans not just mexicans most enthinc groups are often inslaved in sweat shops slavery goes on in the world all the time i could think hundreds of names for every enthnic group not just including skin color people with different sexual prefrences are also commented on also i wanted to bring up the question (do u consider black history month to be racist)
 
  • #14
Ok first of all i am not rasict one bit, i have asian, black, indian friends. My girlfriend is chinese and I am white. Race doesn't mean much to me. But from my experience black people are the most racist people. (At least around where i live). If a black guy calls me a cracker or something, i don't give a damn, i will call him the N word. I don't see how the N word is any worse that cracker. That happened to me and my friends and all these black guys couldn't believe that we called them that after they called us "Stupid White Crackers". Lots of black people still complain that their people where slaves, blah, blah, blah. It wasn't us who made them slaves, it was people that lived along time ago. The world has changed and everybody have the same rights as everybody else now. So get over it already! All the world problems these days are because of racism. Palestinians and Isralies, Almost every third world culture and americans. I just don't see the big deal. Why can't people just realize that we are all the same underneath our skin and religion. It's all bull**** to me. Argh, now I am all pissed off...
I find myself agreeing with you well on this one. It wasn't them that were made slaves, it was their ancestors. It wasn't us that made their ancestors slaves, it was our ancestors. So what's all the fuss about? Can't everyone just forgive each other of the mistakes of their fathers? It seems minority groups are jumping whenever insulted, then run off accusing someone of racism.
Something wrong with this picture?

Though we should treat all ethnic groups as equals, that doesn't mean we should treat people that grew up in different cultures the same way. One of my more opened minded teachers went on about how people used to say they had to be "color blind." But that is just silly because you don't shake hands with someone that lives in a place where handshaking is an insult. See my point? Anyone can out loud point out someones hair color without trouble, yet pointing out skin color is unacceptable?
 
  • #15
Originally posted by gimpy
All the world problems these days are because of racism. Palestinians and Isralies, Almost every third world culture and americans. I just don't see the big deal. Why can't people just realize that we are all the same underneath our skin and religion.

The economy in america was failing until fall and the unemployment rate is still around 6% in america, was/is that due to racism?

Muslims and jews never really liked each other, but the big cause for the palestine/isreal thing is due to the fact that isreal came in and took ****loads of palestine's land. Anyone who's had large chunks of their land taken over by someone else, no less highly important to the religion of the people who owned it before it was taken over, would be pissed off about it.

You said you thought black people were the most racist and expect to be treated specially, yet you're saying they're the same as everyone else as well?
 
  • #16
I think the system should be entirely meritocratic. How far you go and what you succeed in should be determined only by your relevant qualities/traits/skills. If there are 100 positions and it so turns out (unlikely) that only 1% of whites in a 99% black community are suitable for the job for whatever reason, then those whites should get the job.

Suppose, hypothetically, a domestic intelligence agency needs to infiltrate a white supremacist group which plans to use terrorism to achieve their goals. Affirmative action says they should hire a black agent for the job because they are short on the black:white agent ration at the moment. A meritocratic system says a white agent will have a better chance of success (duh?!). Can you see the absurdity here?

As for the occasional reports you see floating around saying that the racial IQs are, in decreasing order: White, Hispanic then Black...hence the need for affirmative action...let me point out that affirmative action is really just inverse racism. "Lets fix racism by being racist." Duh...again. If you can't make the grades then tough luck...its nothing personal about your race. All affirmative action really says at a fundamental level is "Race counts". The message we are trying to get across with anti-racism laws is that "Race does NOT count".
 
  • #17
Originally posted by wasteofo2

Muslims and jews never really liked each other, but the big cause for the palestine/isreal thing is due to the fact that isreal came in and took ****loads of palestine's land. Anyone who's had large chunks of their land taken over by someone else, no less highly important to the religion of the people who owned it before it was taken over, would be pissed off about it.

You said you thought black people were the most racist and expect to be treated specially, yet you're saying they're the same as everyone else as well?

Being an atheist, I am in a comfortable position to see either side of the Israeli/Palestine issue. As for your point about the Israelis taking Palestinian land, go back a few centuries more and it was actually the Arabs taking Israeli land. The Israelis are just...returning home.

I think it is unfortunately true that many Black people have a chip on their shoulder because of the unjust treatment they had in the past. Whether or not they could forget it is not the point - they aren't. Just the other day, a close friend of mine was accused by a black driver of racism just because she was reserving a parking space for a friend. I mean, WTH?! Can we even park a car without being accused of being racist?

Then there's the issue that police officers in the UK don't want to do as many stop & searches on black people because of being accused of racism. The result: the proportion of white/blacks in the population and stop & searches to that ratio is skewed in favour of blacks. More inverse racism.
 
  • #18
well put, tyro.
I was reserving that post space for my friend though.
Hah! I see now. You took the space because I'm American!
Oh ya? Well I'm not to fond of people with the letter, "T" in their username either.
 
  • #19
Affirmative action will be necessary until we start making opportunities equal...which is more of a class issue, but due to centuries of slavery and institutional racism minorities generally start life far behind white people.
 
  • #20
Its' simple really. Any group that gets time in front of the television cameras will influence politicians, and they will influence school policy. So if you want relatively equal treatment, first you need to complain about everything in front of the TV cameras.

Regarding the African slave trade (from a documentary I have on video and from my sociology notes):
NOTES ON THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE

According to the Goray (I think they said Goray) Island (one of the major slaving centres in Africa) Bureau of Tourism, it was African tribes warring on each other, selling each other to the African slave traders on the coast, who sold them to European ships. The island slave trade was run mostly by black women in the eighteenth century.

All along the Slave Coast, as it was called bak then, you can see the European coastal settlements. These towns are fortified. And you may notice that their gun emplacements are ALL pointed out to sea. All the forts were designed to protect against the sea. They were not fighting any locals for slaves. They needed arms only to fight rival European factions. Almost without exception, these fortified towns were set up with the permission of the local African rulers. The Europeans were there on the sufference of the local African rulers. Documents granting trading rights to specific European nations were signed by the local African rulers; and no, they weren't forced into it; the locals had entire nations, while the Europeans had only a few people, and the local rulers were paid very well for the rights (Yes, just like everyone else, they wanted wealth, nice things, power, et cetera).

Most European traders were too damn scared to go inland. They often took enough water and food to make the whole round trip, because they were too scared to make forays into the forest to find stuff while in Africa.

From Professor Elisee Soumonni, Universite Nationale du Benin: "People often don't realize that Africans themselves took part in the trade. That's why, when looking at the question of responsibility, one must admit that there is a responsibility or a complicity within Africa. Because it would have been impossible for Europeans to ship out so many people without the benefit of some internal collaboration at one level or another. There was a deep involvement of Africans in the trade."

When Europeans were actually buying slaves, there was a network of trade trails throughout the area which carried slaves, all tied in lines in ropes, bought and sold from one African trader to the next until some eventually reached the coast. Such convoys could take as long as a year to reach the coast.

From Professor John Fynn, University of Ghana: "People were coming down, as it were, in relays. It was simply trade. Trading with people who wanted our gold, or our slaves. And we want their guns, their gin, their rum, their crops, and so on. So Africans were bringing down the trade, and the Europeans were receiving them. And this was what they called the Castle Trade. Castle Trade - Europeans don't have to venture inland. Trade was brought to them, by the Africans themselves. Whether it is gold, or slaves, it was an African affair."

Slaves had been part of many African cultures long before Europeans arrived. They fought in armies, served in homes, worked as farmers and labourers and such.

One African king executed two of his slaves every single morning in gratitude for a good night's sleep. Another king decorated his palace walls with the heads of his slaves; at one time he had 127 of them executed to complete the line, fill a gap. Some slaves were executed to stop or start rain, bring better crops, et cetera.

Slaves have been exported from Africa, by Africans, for thousands of years, to Cairo, Constantinople, Baghdad, and so on. The trans-Saharan slave trade alone over the few centuries prior to Europeans joining in swallowed over three million slaves, according to estimates based on surving contracts and skeletal remains.

From Akosua Perbi, University of Ghana: "There were other slave markets in Ghana. In the northern part of Ghana where we are right now, there were about four markets, including Salaka. And yet Salaka became the most famous, because of its position. So Salaka was blessed, if you like, geographically, strategically. There were professional merchants who traded all over West Africa, across the trans-Saharan trade. And we find them in Salaka market. Then there were the individual merchants, somebody wanting a wife, or perhaps the wife is barren. The person would come as an individual, and come and purchase one female slave to marry, to bear him children. So it was predominantly an African market, predominantly an African enterprise, predominantly an African setting... So far as they were concerned, it was profitable business, and that was all that mattered, at that time of the trade."

The trans-Atlantic trade was only possible at all because the slave trade was already an ingrained part of Africa. Making war, and selling the losers into slavery was a very common part of life in Africa.

From Venture Smith (the name was obviously given by his eventual owners, his adventures written down by them too), an African slave, who was forced to march four hundred miles to the coast by African slavera after they tortured his father to death in front of him: "I was obliged to carry on my head a large flat stone, weighing twenty-five pounds. These burdens were very grievous to me, being only about six and a half years old."

From another slave taken as a child: "There came a merchant who told me that if I would go with him I should see houses with wings walk upon the water, and should also see the white folks. And should bring me back again soon."

Kwane Nyki the 12th, Paramount Chief of the Assins. His ancestors wiped out heaps of other tribes in their area, selling many into slavery. He said: "What I learned from my ancestors, or my predecessors, was that this place was that this place was a slave market. Here became the centre, or the last stop, where they had plenty of water, plenty of land to bury their dead. And they fattened them here, and sell them. For us, a day's walk to Cape (couldn't understand his next word, the name of the place)."

Once a year the Assins have a ceremony to remember the slaves they caught themselves or passed on through their lands. They pray for the slaves' souls to be at rest and such. The Assin traded slaves for guns, gunpowder, Jamaican rum, sugar, bananas, et cetera.

Europeans shipped twenty million guns into Africa as payment for slaves. These guns went to the African nations who supplied the slaves.

In the Homi nation, the King saw the European merchants as subordinates under his own rule, a part of his own slave expoeting business. You could not trade in these places without the permission of the local African authorities. The African who acted as the go-between in the Homi land would not allow a European to trade until every person even slightly related to the business to come had been thoroughly bribed.

From Martine De Souza (she works now as a tour guide), a black woman who is a descendent of Fransisco De Souza, a rather bad European man who had more than 40 black wives and fathered more than ninety sons there: "With the African-Americans whose ancestors suffered and who still live with discrimination today, the reaction is completely different. They become furious. They weep and wail. They even thump the walls. And they say 'I didn't know Blacks contributed so much to the slave trade.' And I tell them 'You shouldn't always blame the Whites, because Blacks also took part in it. Without them, the trade wouldn't have been so easy.'"

Many of the African suppliers of slaves went to North America to live for short periods with their European business-associates. They went to school there, lived the good life, then went home and improved their own slave business.

Letter from a Nigerian (in Calabar) slave-trader to his associates in England: "Dear Gentlemen. Captain John Burrow arrived at this river on the fourth day of May with a very fine cargo. I hope his ships carry four hundred and sixty slaves. I don't keep him long, and I think he'll get to Liverpool fifteen or twenty day March. I am your dear Eyboyoung Effyoung."

Another letter from an African slave trader in Calabar: "I want two gun for every slave I send. Send me some writing paper, and two sheep. PS: remember me to your wife."

Another letter from an African slave trader in Calabar: "Send plenty of ship's guns. Send me one looking glass six feet long and six feet wide. And send two pewter pistols."

In 1807, Britain abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade; several other European nations followed suit. Many African rulers lodged official protests. In 1820, a white delegation reached the Ashanti king, who told them: "The white men do not understand my country, or they would not say the slave trade was bad. But if they think it bad now, why did they think it good before?"

After that decision by Britain and others, the internal and trans-Saharan African slave markets continued. They died out only at the start of the twentieth century.

-------------------------------------------

Well, there's some notes on slavery in and from Africa. That's called research (books and documentaries). To blame it solely on Europeans is plain old racism. The Europeans buyers were slaving scum, true, but so were the African suppliers of slaves. These are some of the facts of the issue.
 
  • #21
Originally posted by Zero
Affirmative action will be necessary until we start making opportunities equal...which is more of a class issue, but due to centuries of slavery and institutional racism minorities generally start life far behind white people.

Asian minorities don't seem to have that problem. They get ahead even without affirmative action. Even with all the immigrant stigma, financing and visa issues they are burdened with. The opportunities can be equal, and even more than equal...but to speak metaphorically, some fish simply won't bite, and you can't force them to do it. It is not up to us to roll out the red carpet and to be the ones that do the hard work to make their lives better.

Take Malaya, for example. I swotted up on the country's politics and history when I went there for a holiday a few years back. The Bumiputeras (translated to mean, quite egotistically, Earth Princes, IIRC) or Malays get affirmative action laws such as reduced loan interest rates, reduced car and housing prices, employment quotas, student proportion quotas and the unspoken law that upper echelon managers must be both Malay and Muslim. Some of my parents friends who tried to venture into that country complained about these unspoken racist rules. If you want to do business in that country, and want to do it with other companies, you must have a Malay + Muslim manager. Or else no deals. These laws (constitutional or unspoken) were implemented as part of a scheme by the government after British independence to 'correct' the economic imbalance of the Malay race due to our British divide & conquer strategy.

The end result was that Malays became lazy and expected everything to be handed to them on a silver platter, simply because of their heritage as a Malay Muslim. I didn't say this. Their ex-PM, Mahatir said that. Malayan universities turn away minority Chinese and Indian applicants with superior grades, and take underperforming Malays because of affirmative action. I'm not saying Malays are stupid (actually, the ex-PM also said that, in his book, "The Malay Dilemma"), just that they became the victim of (originally) well-meaning affirmative action.

If the system is entirely meritocratic, everyone will be judged on aspects on the scorecard which are much more impartial and objective. Like IQ, test scores, project marks, employment history, etc. Everyone will strive to accomplish in these respects.
 
  • #22
Opponents of affirmative action need to recognize that "equality of opportunity" is not nearly as simple as it sounds. But supporters of "affirmative action" have to understand its limits.
This limit has to be clearly limited, otherwise, it too can easily end up as precisely the kind of routine labeling and treatment according to race, ethnicity etc. that it was meant to expunge as people have pointed out on this thread.

Who doesn't want to live in a color blind society or sex blind society and to base everything on merit? But we don't.

Prestigious school admissions still look at alumni standing and donations of the parents, so unless this is eliminated, a more inferior caucasion will be equally admitted under the umbrella of their parents donations and alumni status just as the minority admitted under the umbrella of affirmative action. Fortunately for the caucasian, society does not hold it against him or her. ( In fact, you can become President of the United States!) I realize this is a small example and using academia once again, but you get the gist.

Affirmative action is an imperfect solution for an imperfect world.

Personally, I think that it is not necessary in the Northeast, Midwest,or west coast. However, as one who lives in the South, I still see blatant racism. I have been part of the admission committee on and off for our medical school and seen a Black Westing House Science Award winner, varsity swimmer and state champion with 3.89 averages as a physics major from Cornell university passed over for a white football player from University of Georgia with 3.5 average as a economics major! Racism still exists, even in the Ivory halls of acadamia. You bet your ass it exists on the coorporate level. In this case, something must be in place that will allow an equally or superiorly qualified black applicant the opportunity to reach his or her goal! And that's the point, most ant-affirmative action people are equally prejudicial in assuming it only protects inferior candidates ...it is about giving the chance for the equally qualified or superior minority to gain access to the system. (Unfortunately our school had "met its minimum" quota") and one thing led to another... but won't go into that.


Of all the problems with Affirmative Action, the biggest one is ignorance. People (on both sides) make knee-jerk reactions out of laziness or motives that overgeneralize the main purpose of affirmative action, and that was... an temporary and imperfect solution, to redress and correct our country's backward policies towards our minorities. We have made great strides and as stated before, the Supreme Court realizes this and has already put a tether on Affirmative Action in its latest ruling regarding the UNiversity of Michigan case.

Malaysia is my home country so I will comment on that. These elitist practices are just that, to entrench and empower the ruling ethnic and religious party. Not an effort to redress and correct past wrongs. Their policies are not affirmative action in the sense that I have described above.
 
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  • #23
I'm not in the least racist...but I have to put in my $.02 on affirmitave action.

From what I've seen of affirmitive action at my college here in Tennessee is that under performing black students will get picked over higher performing students of ANY other race. Their scholarship money is also VERY skewed. A minority student with the same gpa and similar act/sat scores will get roughly 2-2.5 times the scholarship money for a semester than a white student with the same scores. My scholarship pays my tuition and $100 for books each semester(roughly $1400), where as the minority scholarship for the same scores pays tuition, and about $1200 for expenses (roughly $2500).

Also, in the small town i live in, (predominately white ~3-4000 ppl 70%white or so), there are the few rednecks who are racist, but generally everyone gets along unless something is "started" between them. One of the cops up here was accused of racism for pulling over hispanic drivers, and waiting outside of a bar to see if anyone appeared to be driving under the influence. The basis of the accusation was that he pulled over an unusually high number of hispanics, but he pulled over everyone he thought to be guilty of dui, they were just doing the majority of the drinking and driving.

Just my $.02 for what its worth...

-Ty
 
  • #24
Who doesn't want to live in a color blind society or sex blind society and to base everything on merit?
I'd hate to live in a colour-blind and sex-blind society. I think those who want that have not thought it through properly. I quite like having people all different. I like girls. I like that girls are shaped different, and I like looking at them. What a boring world it would be if we didn't notice the groovy differences.

Prestigious school admissions still look at alumni standing and donations of the parents, so unless this is eliminated, a more inferior caucasion will be equally admitted under the umbrella of their parents donations and alumni status just as the minority admitted under the umbrella of affirmative action.
Piffle. In the USA, minority students get bonus points on their SAT scores just for being in minorities.

Of all the problems with Affirmative Action, the biggest one is ignorance.
The biggest problem is that AA is a truly ridiculous system. It is geared toward granting special rights to a minority, not toward enforcing equality. Any time a government has ANY system which focuses on serving one small segment of the community based on their race, gender, religio, et cetera, it is discrimination, and serves to alienate them from the rest of society.
 
  • #25
Originally posted by adrenaline
Malaysia is my home country so I will comment on that. These elitist practices are just that, to entrench and empower the ruling ethnic and religious party. Not an effort to redress and correct past wrongs. Their policies are not affirmative action in the sense that I have described above.

As I understand it, these racially biased laws were implemented under the guise/logic of affirmative action; i.e. "The Malays are worse off so let's give them some economic and educational assistance." This happened after Independence when the various political parties were still trying to hold their fragile coalition together and the government conveniently forgot to repeal those laws.

Of course, if you're a Malaysian in Malaysia and you talk about this, you will be jailed without trial and without charge, indefinitely, under the Internal Security Act. Which empowers the government to do just that.


Affirmative action will not be necessary if the government legislates law which makes selection for academia, business positions, etc. entirely dependent on industry-agreed, objective tests. Commercial/business aptitude tests for business positions, IQ/A-Level/etc. tests for academia etc. Interviews are nice, but they are, unfortunately, subjective. Sports accomplishments are also nice, but how do you compare a silver triathelete with a bronze heptathelete? So that goes out too.

For example, if the test results of all the applicants for a university intake were published (names witheld and replaced with applicant numbers), it will be easy to spot any discrepancies. "Why was applicant #4715 admitted when they had a total average score of 8.9 and I had a total average score of 9.1?" Questions like these are a better force for racial equality than arbitrary and inverse-racist affirmative action laws.

A meritocratic system is ideal but just because it seems remote to achieve, does not mean we should settle for second-rate solutions like AA. We should try to achieve it anyway; if we fall short at least we are still closer than we were before.

Bottom line: If the glove fits, wear it.
 
  • #26
Originally posted by wasteofo2
You said you thought black people were the most racist and expect to be treated specially, yet you're saying they're the same as everyone else as well?

They are the same to me, i have many black friends that i hang out with, but i have also seen so many acts of rasicm from black guys, saying stuff or beating up white, asian, indian people. I never see white gangs of people going and picking on like one black guy just because of the color of his skin. Its really stupid and pointless to me.
 
  • #27
Originally posted by Tyro
As I understand it, these racially biased laws were implemented under the guise/logic of affirmative action; i.e. "The Malays are worse off so let's give them some economic and educational assistance." This happened after Independence when the various political parties were still trying to hold their fragile coalition together and the government conveniently forgot to repeal those laws.

Of course, if you're a Malaysian in Malaysia and you talk about this, you will be jailed without trial and without charge, indefinitely, under the Internal Security Act. Which empowers the government to do just that.


Affirmative action will not be necessary if the government legislates law which makes selection for academia, business positions, etc. entirely dependent on industry-agreed, objective tests. Commercial/business aptitude tests for business positions, IQ/A-Level/etc. tests for academia etc. Interviews are nice, but they are, unfortunately, subjective. Sports accomplishments are also nice, but how do you compare a silver triathelete with a bronze heptathelete? So that goes out too.

For example, if the test results of all the applicants for a university intake were published (names witheld and replaced with applicant numbers), it will be easy to spot any discrepancies. "Why was applicant #4715 admitted when they had a total average score of 8.9 and I had a total average score of 9.1?" Questions like these are a better force for racial equality than arbitrary and inverse-racist affirmative action laws.

A meritocratic system is ideal but just because it seems remote to achieve, does not mean we should settle for second-rate solutions like AA. We should try to achieve it anyway; if we fall short at least we are still closer than we were before.

Bottom line: If the glove fits, wear it.

Once again, it is hard to feel pity and call it affirmative action when the laws benefit the majority of the population. The chinese who comprise about 30% of the country's population and own 70% of the businesses was a big thorn in their side. This was an ingenious manuver under the label of "affirmative action" to wrest the economic power away from the minority holding the vast majority of economic power. The chinese never "enslaved" the malays in any extent that we enslaved the blacks nor did the chinese enforce segregation laws that placed a physical barrier of access to social programs and education.

Why the conservative media uses Malaysia as a model of "affirmative action" is a joke.

As I stated before, I hate affirmative action, but considering that legalized equality is less than a generation old, it may not be time to end it. To assume that racism is a thing of the past is naive and that we can get back to the business of a pure merit based system is not feasible right now...later yes, but not now. Considering some studies that show how resumes of equal qualifications are rejected for interviews if a person has a black sounding name vs. a white sounding name, a qualified black person still is very handicapped in this society! I don't have that particular study but here is a link to one that cites a similar one. http://academic.udayton.edu/race/04needs/s98wood.htm#Impact
 
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  • #28
Originally posted by gimpy
They are the same to me, i have many black friends that i hang out with, but i have also seen so many acts of rasicm from black guys, saying stuff or beating up white, asian, indian people. I never see white gangs of people going and picking on like one black guy just because of the color of his skin. Its really stupid and pointless to me.
Well...it depends on where you live. Where I live, people will throw beer bottles at black and Mexican people walking down the road, or beat up someone if they walk into the wrong bar at the wrong time.
 
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  • #29
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prestigious school admissions still look at alumni standing and donations of the parents, so unless this is eliminated, a more inferior caucasion will be equally admitted under the umbrella of their parents donations and alumni status just as the minority admitted under the umbrella of affirmative action.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[q]
Piffle. In the USA, minority students get bonus points on their SAT scores just for being in minorities.
[/q]

No, not piffle. Affirmative action accounts for less than 300 admissions per year to prestigious institutions. Legacies account for more than 5,000. That is about 4900 admissions reserved for white students only, because those institutions discriminated back when the applicants parents could have attended, precluding their abiity to become legacies. Considering legacies and AA together, prstigious institutions still have a net bias in favor of white students.

If you want to increase your chance to enter a prestigious university, work to eliminate legacy admission. Affirmative action is insignificant.

Njorl
 
  • #30
After reading the posts on this thread, I can’t help but notice the clear stigmas placed on the black race in general. If you read this thread you may notice that there is a greater stigma against blacks then most other races. One post even showed a hierarchy of intelligence that placed blacks at the bottom of the list (note: the existence of the idea is quite telling of societies’ beliefs).

And then there are a few quotes from the thread that seem subtle and non-harmful yet very revealing in my mind. You only need to read between the lines. To be honest I am disgusted at the subtle negativities placed against blacks. I’m sure some of these words are often unnoticed in everyday life but it really isn’t difficult to spot. Although many of us claim not to be racist, some, if not all of us (white, asian or black and myself included) still attaches a greater stigma against blacks than any other race in the world.

In my opinion this stigma has been with us since birth. It doesn’t matter whether you are raised in a white home, asian home or black home; the stigma has been planted and it grows. Society in general nurtures it and the media that surrounds us reinforces its existence. It’s hard to see sometimes but it is there and sometimes it will surprise when we least expect it.

Here are some questions to ask oneself:

How do you feel when you walk down a barren street at night and see a black man walking towards you? How about a Hispanic or Chinese or Caucasian? What goes through your mind?

Why do you think a large proportion of poverty exists among the black community?

If you are white or asian, how will your parents react if you chose a person of the black race as your mate or spouse? How will your parents feel about a white/ asian combination?

Some of you may answer “no big deal” to the questions above, but for the majority of us something negative will come to mind.

The stigmas that exist are the reasons I believe affirmative action is necessary. I do not believe it is perfect nor do I believe it should stay in existence forever. But while there are STRONG forms of stigmas against minorities a governmental intervention must be set in place to create equality.

I do believe that individual achievements are the best forms of measurement for hiring, but when stigmas exists that labels a group of minorities as less intelligent, less trustworthy, less hardworking, etc. then some leveling of the field is necessary, for overcoming the handicaps attributed to us by others is nearly impossible to achieve.
 
  • #31
Originally posted by Raven
One post even showed a hierarchy of intelligence that placed blacks at the bottom of the list (note: the existence of the idea is quite telling of societies’ beliefs).

I am only relaying what I read online a while ago. Please do not shoot the messenger. I note that you did not mention me explicitly, and thank you for that. However, I am just pointing that out before someone accuses me of something unpleasant.

From my prose, you can quite clearly see I do not see eye to eye with the connotations of those reports. The reason for that is because I feel that IQ is the complex product of many factors, social background included. The reports may state the facts, and possibly even truthfully, from unbiased authors, but they fail to take into account why the racial disparity exists. Until this is acknowledged, it is as pointless as saying a BMW Z3 outspeeds a SUV...Of course it does, the disparity runs deeper than the speed results alone.

Originally posted by Tyro:
As for the occasional reports you see floating around saying that the racial IQs are, in decreasing order: White, Hispanic then Black...hence the need for affirmative action...let me point out that affirmative action is really just inverse racism. "Lets fix racism by being racist." Duh...again. If you can't make the grades then tough luck...its nothing personal about your race. All affirmative action really says at a fundamental level is "Race counts". The message we are trying to get across with anti-racism laws is that "Race does NOT count".
 
  • #32
Raven is spot on. It is this unconscious racism that is still so much of an impediment for the minorities, much more so for the black male than any other minority group. It is much easier to rally against the obvious Jim Crow laws and lynchings but when the black male rallys against this undercurrent of subliminal racism, he is seen as an angry young man full of angst and reverse racism when we really have no idea the full extent of what he faces on a daily basis.
 
  • #33
Originally posted by Zero
Well...it depends on where you live. Where I live, people will throw beer bottles at black and Mexican people walking down the road, or beat up someone if they walk into the wrong bar at the wrong time.

I guess your right. It depends on where you live.
 
  • #34
Originally posted by Tyro
I am only relaying what I read online a while ago. Please do not shoot the messenger. I note that you did not mention me explicitly, and thank you for that. However, I am just pointing that out before someone accuses me of something unpleasant.

Tyro I could tell from the context of your entry that it was a quote and not your words or your point of view. I certainly did not mean to implicate anything against you. I just felt that the idea that such a thought existed found anywhere in society was quite scary and it needed to be reiterated.

Thank you for bringing that example to this thread.
 
  • #35
Over here in England it is pretty bad. Take this example from a few days ago.

Basically, a white prison officer was fired from his job because he made a joke about Osama bin Laden and there were Asians in the room next door who could have heard.

To make it worse, a columnist in a newspaper defended the prison officer because he wasnt offending the Muslim race but a serial killer terrorist. Subsequently he got a lot of hatemail calling him a rascist, a BNP (British National Party...extreme right wing political group) member and some other insults. However none of the hate mail came from people called Ali of Shah, they were from people called Smith or Davis. Weirdo no?

Also all these foreign religions are allowed to build mosques and sinagogues or whatever they want around our country but any church built in their country would be destroyed within a week or so.

ALSO in england, we have Radio Asia and all these things like that (there used to be a TV programme called Black Britain) but if we were to have i dunno, Radio White Person, it would be called rascist and prosecuted. I have a lot of issues about racism. Especially the fact that especially where i live, the white population is becoming a minority because of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.

Also...with equal rights in the workplace, when they employ people, there should be no 'equal rights' section asking their race or sex or whatever, that way it IS equal instead of choosing a coloured person because they need to fill the quota.
 
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