General Social Survey (GSS) respondents were asked: "Some people say that because of past discrimination, blacks should be given preference in hiring and promotion. Others say that such preference in hiring and promotion of blacks is wrong because it discriminates against whites. What about your opinion?"
The yellow and green sections of the bars are those who oppose preferences, and you can see that by the late 1990s, a majority felt that way.
Now, here's a question for you: what is the race of the people represented in the bar graph? They're black!
I'm sure you know that the vast majority of whites are against preferences, so that leads me to one final question: Why in the hell are we still doing it?
Affirmative action might have been started out by elite whites who wanted to speed up the progress of angry, impatient blacks, but it quickly became a way for important white people to show how non-racist they are. Any white guy who criticizes it or works to dismantle it will be seen as one of "those" kinds of people. You have to be a black guy--Ward Connerly--to feel like you can take on the issue. American leadership is not only stupid; it's gutless.
You're obviously one of those who has to work for a living unlike those of us who have shown, via the meritocracy, that we can rip off guys like you without any moral or ethical qualms whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteNow, you might as, why is it that someone who is so meritorious would have no moral or ethical qualms whatsover about riping off working stiffs like you?
Simple.
You're all a bunch of racists.
Affirmative action isn't about uplift:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/affirmative-action-wasnt-about-uplift.html
Giving the graduate school perspective:
ReplyDeleteI think many places use affirmative action because if they didn't they would be overrun with Asians. There is simply no way African American, Hispanic, or even most white applicants can compete with the typical Chinese/Korean/etc GRE scores (650+ verbal, 780+quant).
There is also some merit to the diversity argument (the argument that you get better products from more diverse teams), both in intellectual-creative fields and in public service fields. Just imagine trying to run an evaluation center with all Chinese students.
Of course this is assuming you can actually find someone from the ethnic group who can contribute. The diversity argument often falls apart in practice because people CAN'T find a single qualified application from X group, so they hire/admit someone very disruptive.
This inspired me to look at some of the research on the topic, and it seems that there is generally more public support for affirmative action in education/training than affirmative action in hiring/promotion.
ReplyDeleteMost of the affirmative action programs that I hear about are in education.