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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Affirmative action
Message-ID: <259@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 11:20:20 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.259
Posted: Mon Feb 25 11:20:20 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 07:13:12 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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> :==> <1013@watdcsu.UUCP> David Canzi
>> : Me (Marcel Simon
> 
> >But if we do nothing else it will take an approximately equal number
> >of centuries to undo that discrimination. I argue that the pump MUST
> >be primed. Affirmative action is an attempt to prime that pump.
> 
> The centuries of discrimination *do* *not* accumulate.  The people who
> were wronged long ago, and those who wronged them, are dead.  The length
> of time it would take today's disadvantaged groups to "catch up", given
> equal treatment, is much shorter than that.  Equal treatment would take
> the form of equally good education, and equal job opportunities for those
> with equal qualifications.  Equal treatment beginning now would allow the
> young members of disadvantaged groups to catch up within a year or two of
> graduating from school.  Older people would have a harder time; it may
> make sense to provide them with opportunities for remedial education.
> 
As you notice, it takes a certain amount of education to attain certain
levels of employment. Since discrimination *also* very much extended to
education, a non-discrimination law does not in and of itself provide equal o
employment opportunity. Since education *also* takes significant amounts
of $$, the young children of discrimated against poor cannot
just pick up an education to reach equal employment qualifications. In the
absence of other measures, the process must then be incremental, hence my
conclusion about the the time it takes to undo the effects of discrimination.
Your counter-argument is invalid.

Is it a good idea to take affirmative action to speed the removal of the
*effects* of discrimination? Yes, because otherwise a significant
portion of the population (a majority in the case of women) is not
producing to capacity, which makes for an inefficient economy.

> On the other hand, reverse discrimination would provide members of
> disadvantaged groups with secure jobs that they need do nothing to keep.
> Under such conditions, reality would end up justifying the "lazy nigger"
> stereotype.

Once again, affirmative action DOES NOT imply that disadvantaged are not
expected to be up to the standards of the job. It implies that IF all
else is equal, THEN the disadvantaged group will receive preferential
treatment. To avoid losing out to a minority, be BETTER than that minority!!!

> 
> >                                                           ANd if
> >you don't think these people are the result of affirmative action,
> >ask yourself: would these people have been where they are 20-30
> >years ago?
> 
> Affirmative action is not the only thing that has happened in the last
> 20-30 years.  Women's attitudes toward themselves have changed, and that
> probably has more to do with the productive women you see on the job
> than affirmative action does.

But if that pent-up demand created by changes in women's atttudes toward
themselves had not been countered by a supply of employment created
mainly by an expanding economy, but also by employers actively looking for them
under affirmative action, would they be there at all?

Marcel Simon