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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: Discrimination and Affirmative Action
Message-ID: <476@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Jun-85 18:21:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.476
Posted: Tue Jun  4 18:21:52 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Jun-85 02:50:35 EDT
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
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Xref: watmath net.women:5517 net.politics:9257

Clayton Cramer writes:

> To claim that affirmative action "does not require an employer to
> hire anyone who is not among the best qualified candidates for a
> position..." is utterly false. 

Does anyone have statistics to show that AA results in a significant
number of less qualified or unqualified persons being hired?  So far
all I have heard is anecdotal evidence, but storytelling is suspect
when the issue is ideologically charged, as with AA.  Also, it's
often possible to bring a less well qualified person up to standard
by training.  

> But knowing that the
> government *does* promote racism and sexism through affirmative action
> generates resentment that doesn't need to be there --- if the government
> would just obey the 14th Amendment.

Again, I'd like to see some hard evidence that AA fosters racist
attitudes among the white working class, many of whom are already
sufficiently racist.  Even assuming it does, is that a good reason to
oppose it?  Desegregation and the civil rights activism of the 60's
generated a white backlash that aided George Wallace.  I'm not sure
that this means that the sit-ins and marches were a bad idea.  

I'd also like to hear some constructive suggestions from the
opponents of AA as to how to end the caste-like division of our
society in which some groups are perceived as innately inferior, a
division which perpetuates itself over the generations.  Racial and
sexual prejudice and discrimination are alive and well in 1985.
Saying that economic rationality will solve the problem doesn't cut
it:  it just assumes away the problem.  Prejudice and the resulting
discrimination are by definition irrational; the fact that economic
rationality often conflicts with this irrationality isn't sufficient
to show that rationality will win out.  I've seen lots of crocodile
tears (especially from the Reagan Admin.) about discrimination and
not much in the way of workable suggestions for ending it.  Nothing
is more powerful than an idea whose time has come because it serves
the self-interest of powerful people; and nothing mobilizes stronger
ideological opposition than an idea that threatens the privileged
position of the powerful, such as the well-off white males whose
interests the Reagan Administration looks after.

> Mr. Carnes: do you know how to tell that someone has lost an argument?
> They resort to ad hominem arguments, as you did in that last paragraph.

You're right that my rhetoric was getting out of hand in that
article; but let me point out that you and others have referred to
affirmative action as "government-promoted racism."  It's both absurd
and insulting to its supporters to call a program "racist" whose
whole purpose is to attack racial, ethnic, and sexual prejudice and
their effects.  It's mere name-calling as a substitute for rational
arguments that AA is unjust, and it led me to wonder what state of
mind could generate that kind of rhetoric.

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes