Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!usc!ucla-cs!uci-ics!djo@PacBell.COM From: djo@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: More on AA Message-ID: <18425@paris.ics.uci.edu> Date: 21 Jun 89 18:55:48 GMT Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Lines: 188 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu In article <17833@paris.ics.uci.edu> Hillel Gazit writes: >Quoting moi: >*If* [balancing for unequal opportunity] was the AA target then the >decisions should be based on income levels, education opportunities, >living condition etc . You (feminists) prefer to base them on >gender. Gender? Yes. Also age, ethnic background, etc. AA is unfortunate in that it constitutes a quota system. But if you think that it is only based on gender, you haven't bothered with much research. The most famous anti-AA lawsuit in history was filed on the basis of a racial AA program, not a gender-oriented one: I am, of course, referring to the 1970's Alan Bakke decision in which it was determined that a white man should be given a spot in a medical school because he was more qualified than a black candidate who'd made it in on an AA quota. Incidentally, I support the judge's decision in this case, and would have done so if it had been a gender-oriented program; there are certain cases where AA is *not* appropriate. Jobs where human lives are at stake, such as medicine, should be given to the best qualified candidate regardless of race, ethnic background, or AA status. (See, Hillel, I'm not a knee-jerking simpleton.) >Are you afraid that if you will base your decisions on the above >criteria, you will get a bunch Vietnamese refugee's kids instead of >nice middle class white women? Well, no. I might take umbrage at the implications of that statement, but Cindy T. tells me this is not an appropriate forum for umbrage. So I'll simply point out that you have no basis for making it, that it is somewhat insulting, and ask, very gently, that it be retracted. >>Believe me, this was a difficult pill for me to swallow; I'm a >>middle-class white male. >Why is it so difficult for you? Are you afraid that the >Old-Boy-Network will not help you? No. It was difficult because, raised a middle-class white male, I was raised with a number of "expectations," which were no doing of my own, in terms of what sort of job I would get, what sort of income I could expect for that job, how I would live, etc.; and it was very clear to me and the rest of my mcwm friends that if we worked reasonably hard -- not insanely hard -- we'd have it pretty much made. We were *not* told that this was because we were mcwms. We were led to believe that this was America, the Land of Opportunity, and anyone could "make it" with hard work and honesty. [mcwms = middle-class white males --Cindy] We'd had something all our lives, and believed we had it because we deserved it . Then came along the various civil rights movements (ethnic, gender, gay, etc.) and pulled that rug out from under us. We were so comfortable in large part due to the exploitation of others. Would you find that an enjoyable thing to learn? Would you like to believe that you were the beneficiary of others' misery? I certainly did not. I don't think most people would. >1) The force is not opposite (men who had not good education opportunities > are the losers of AA, not the upper middle class WASPs). Feh. Even in a situation where gender *was* the only factor considered, men with no good educational opportunities would *still* be losers; the ones who had those opportunities -- i.e., mcwms -- would get the good jobs and the lower-class and/or non-white males would be S.O.L. Given that it's damn near impossible to verify the educational "opportunities" of an individual, AA is the next best thing: it takes identifiable groups with identifiably lower opportunities and compensates by giving them additional opportunity, thus giving them the ability to live in better areas and pass on their opportunities to their kids through education rather than AA. This is the clue to "how long will AA go on," by the way: when a given group is raising its children with educational opportunities equivalent to those of white middle-class males, then that group should be eliminated from AA lists. An alternative to AA would be to provide good education to every child. In fact, this would be the preferred alternative. Care to suggest an implementation plan for *that* that would cost less than AA? Or even within an order of magnitude? >2) The forces are expensive to the society at large. There are useless > workers who float around in a company just to be in the AA quota. Though I say nothing about you personally, this *statement* is bigoted. It makes the unwarranted assumption that persons hired "to fill an AA quota" are statistically more lazy than others. Let's say there's an AA quota on Kryptonians -- any newspaper that employs 5000 or more persons must employ at least 1% Kryptonians. Now, your statement about "useless workers" is valid only if these AA workers "float around" more than the company's other employees. That is, only if Kryptonians are more lazy and/or less productive than other employees. Since you insist on limiting AA to gender, your statement boils down to this: "Women are more lazy and/or less productive than men." Are you sure you want to be saying that...? >So you think that the question "how long AA will last" is as hard as >"for how long will the universe last?" You (feminists) have recommend an >action which is unfair to people who had less opportunities, but >are not belong to your group. Huh? I have real trouble parsing that last -- but I *think* you're saying that AA is unfair to (say) lower-class white males. It may be. Society is certainly unfair to a lot of different groups, including the lower class white male. AA is intended to correct *some* of the injustices. Do you have a suggestion that will do a better job? I might add that I do not belong to the female group. I'm not getting anything out of feminism. Despite your quote from Cheryl Stewart, I'm not even getting laid for my "lip service;" I've been married and extremely monogamous for over eleven years. >You prefer not to answer >questions like "how long will AA last?" and it seems suspicious. Only to people who think every question that does not have a simple and immediate answer is de facto cause for suspicion. >I understand why you try to sell us AA, I hope that you >understand why I'm not going to buy it... Okay, why am *I* trying to sell it? What do you think I get out of it? You've claimed to understand. Put up or shut up. >>You are guilty of your own accusation, treating "feminists" as a >>group rather than as individuals. Indeed, not only as a group (which >>would more properly be referred to as "they") but as a homogeneous >>mass ("it"). > >OK, I don't have any idea about what you (feminists) talk when I'm not >around, but I know for which actions you press. Maybe judging a man >(or a movement) by his/its action is unfair, but that's the best >measurement I know. I'm not saying you shouldn't judge by actions. It's the best measurement I know, too. What I *am* saying is that making sweeping statements about members of a group is dangerous and should be done only with the greatest caution and forethought. Saying "Feminism says," is painting a widely varied group of people with a single brush. It's as if you were to say "Catholics are all liars," or "Gays make great hair dressers," or "Jews are all greedy rich bastards." Some Catholics lie, and some gays are great hair dressers, and I've met at least one Jew in my life who was a greedy rich bastard, but -- like feminists -- they come in all sorts. And many of the statements you make about "feminists" are simply *not*true* about all or even a majority of feminists. I'm not a feminist, by the way; I'm a peopleist. As a result, I happen to agree with a lot of feminists. But I don't focus solely on "women's issues," because I don't believe that anything of real social importance should be limited to any subgroup of society -- and I don't believe it is, or can be, limited to any such subgroup. >[Dan'l] >>Gaaaaaaah. Now you're making equally sweeping statements about "men" >>-- just as you accused "feminism" of making. Speak fer yerself, >>boyo. Me, I find I'm >perfectly happy partnered with feminists; I >>find that I trust women at least as much as I do men; I spent a >>summer in high school stumping for the ERA. And I don't have guilt >>feelings. > >Do you claim that ERA was an big issue between men? >So tell me who were the men leaders of the movement for ERA... I could name some names but I suspect that you've never heard of them. One of the more flamboyant was Harlan Ellison, who (among other things) found he'd accidentally committed himself to spending several days in Arizona, a state that hadn't ratified the ERA -- and managed to work out ways to spend a week there without spending one cent in the state. (He also volunteered literally hundreds of hours speaking for the ERA on campuses and other places that would have him.) The Partially Political Pundit-Roach