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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Affirmative action
Message-ID: <343@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Feb-85 21:14:52 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.343
Posted: Wed Feb 20 21:14:52 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Feb-85 09:30:21 EST
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 36

Scott Renner writes:
> You haven't yet shown any problems with Gordon's definition of racism; you
> have only proposed your own.  And yours conveniently excludes affirmative
> action.  After all, racism is bad, and you approve of the stated goals of
> AA -- therefore, AA can't be racism.  Sounds like the "taxation is not
> theft" argument all over again.

Yes, it *is* the taxation/theft dispute all over again -- that's why
I'm drawing attention to it.  Here's how the game is played:  Adopt a
tendentious definition of something generally considered to be bad,
such as "theft" or "racism."  Then demonstrate that efforts to
establish a more egalitarian and just society, say through tax
policies or AA, fulfill these definitions.  Consequently these
efforts are wrong because they are examples of theft or racism.  Now
congratulate yourself on having constructed an argument against
changing an unjust status quo.

Gordon Banks argues that AA is unjust because it mandates
differential treatment of people on the basis of their race or sex.
To this I make essentially the same response as I did to the
"taxation is theft" argument:  Why is it necessarily unjust to
discriminate in order to reverse past injustices?  Is it not a valid
goal to try to find ways to better the lot of previously excluded,
oppressed or enslaved groups?  

Affirmative action was designed to oppose and alleviate the effects
of centuries of racism and sexism.  The claim that AA is racist or
sexist is either merely inflammatory or merely lunatic.  If you are
calling AA racist simply in order to tar it with the brush of racism
and arouse an unthinking emotional response against it, then you're
being inflammatory.  If you are calling it racist because you think
AA is an attempt to keep blacks in a subordinate place in society
(the usual meaning of "racism"), then you're just a lunatic.  So
what's the point of saying that "affirmative action is racist"? 

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes