“Minorities worry that if affirmative action disappeared, the same old discrimination would bar their entrance into good universities. One way to fix this concern is to drop racial categories on the applications. Who cares about our race? We are people.” (Gould 1) These are the words of a student named Anna Gould writing for a website called the Badger Herald. I could quickly answer her question about who cares about race, and the short answer is everyone cares. Do the minorities not care about race when they are discriminated against or their neighbors move out once they move into a white neighborhood, or do the white neighbors care? Would a person of color care that throughout high school they had to work harder for an A because their white teacher held them to a higher standard because the stereotype against their race is that they are smarter than whites? So then the clear answer here is yes. It is also the obvious answer. Institutional racism occurs everyday, and there are hardly any ways that the institution has tried to stop that, Affirmative Action is one of them and it should not be repealed.
This Anna Gould has the same thought process as many Americans today that are not people of color. They realize that there was racism, but they decided it would be best for everyone if they never talked about race and pretended like it did not make a difference in any decision making process. Such as an employer interviewing people for a job or colleges looking through applicants for enrollment. Colorblind people assume that we are already at complete racial equality, and if they talked about race, they themselves would be racist. “Not talking about race may avoid short term conflict, but in the midst of a society that is racially structured, to say talk creates the problem will keep people from discussing what is needed for solutions.” (Hitchcock 63) How can we solve a problem without talking about it? Not talking about the problem assumes that it does not exist, which is the worst way to solve something that does exist. They also assume that a person of color, if they worked hard enough have the same opportunities as a person who is white. In a stat given in lecture by Professor Roth-Gordon she claimed that 70% of whites believe African Americans “have the same opportunities as whites to live in Middle Class America.” (Roth Gordon) What people who cling to this colorblind thought process do not realize is that ignoring it only perpetuates racism.
In 1996, when California banned Affirmative Action the number of students that were people of color accepted by the public California schools fell off a cliff. The immediate answer to this by colorblindness would be, “They were basing their admissions off of accomplishments and GPA rather than just accepting certain races because of a quota.” When in reality they are accepting the students who went to they best high schools, had relatives who went to that school, or knew someone who had some kind of pull at that college to get them accepted. Who do you think lives in the neighborhoods with the best high schools, or has the money to send their kids to private schools? White people. What race is most highly represented by public colleges in CA, therefore their kids have a better chance to get accepted? White. Lastly, what race do you think is most connected with the type of people that could get their child into a $50,000 a year school? Yet again, White. Do you see the reoccurring trend? “Exceptionally high admittance rates, lowered academic standards, preferential treatment… These sound like cries heard in the growing fury over Affirmative Action… yet no one is outraged by legacies…” (Larew 419) It would be very hard for a legacy to be made if their parent wasn’t admitted in the first place due to their race.
These are some of the biggest factors that determine what school a child get accepted into, so I could make a pretty strong argument that institutional racism is being perpetuated from generation to generation.
Another argument that could be made to counter affirmative action is that the disparities that occur are because of class, not race. The most obvious rebuttal to this statement is look at the lower class citizens. Do you see the same percentage of African Americans in the lower class as in the higher class? After finding the obvious answer to the first question, then look if you see the same percentage of whites in the lower class as in the higher class? Shouldn’t that alone tell you that there is a problem with the current way we are living? “It starts during the infant and toddler years, when hundreds of thousands of children of the very poor in much of the United States are locked out of the opportunity for preschool education for no reason but the accident of birth and the budgetary choices of the government, while the children of the privileged are often given veritable feasts of rich developmental early education.” (Kozol 45-46) Money leads to education, education leads to employment and employment leads to money. It is a cycle that many people of color are left out of because they lack the ability to acquire education, employment, and money. This is due to no fault of their own, but it is due to a lack of opportunity because of institutional racism.
“Minority students who are qualified have to endure and fight the second-guessing and white patronization that come along with preferential policies. The real shame, though, is in allowing unqualified people to take places for which they are not ready.” (Gould 1) This statement along with others made throughout Anna Gould’s paper lead me to believe that she is calling Affirmative Action reverse discriminatory. In other words, she thinks that Affirmative Action helps the minorities but make everything harder for the majority. Specifically she states, “allowing unqualified people to take places where they are not ready.” This assumes that the unqualified people are the people of color. It also assumes that they are not good enough and they should just leave those hard jobs for the white people to do because after years of inequality and benefitting from being white, they most definitely are ready.
What Anna Gould is missing and anyone holding on to their colorblind beliefs is, Affirmative Action is institutionally the only thing that has been created by the institution to stop institutionally racism. Basically, it’s the only thing made to help out racially discriminated groups and white people want to put an end to it. Because if it is helping people of color, it is hurting white privilege, and whites will go through any means necessary to save that. Sadly, whites already have, with Affirmative action being banned in five states since 1996, including Arizona in 2010, it is starting to look like white privilege will win yet another battle.
it is good
ReplyDelete