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From: shor@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Melinda Shore)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Discrimination
Message-ID: <493@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 12:57:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.493
Posted: Tue May 14 12:57:44 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 15-May-85 01:20:06 EDT
References: <354@iham1.UUCP>
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 27

[]
> From: cbd@iham1.UUCP (deitrick)
> Why do *I*, as a white adult male of Northern European descent, have to pay
> for what *someone else* did more than 200 years ago?  

I don't think anyone's asking you to make retribution for something in which
you weren't directly involved.  What's being asked is that you, as a white,
educated, middle-class male, have a few privileges and advantages that a lot
of other people don't have.  You're more likely to be hired for a job, and
likely to be paid more than a woman or black doing the same work.  You'll be
treated more fairly by the legal system, and so on and so forth.  So, things
like EEO are not intended to penalize you in particular, they're intended to
ensure that other groups get a fair crack at the things that have come so
easily to white males for the last n (n being large) years.  Yes, it might
seem like white males will be getting a smaller piece of the pie.  Just
remember that this is only relative to what you've had in the past.

[Note:  no defense of EEO intended here -- I think it's a pretty abysmal
    implementation, too ... ]
-- 
Melinda Shore 
University of Chicago Computation Center

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