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From: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: Discrimination and Affirmative Action
Message-ID: <730@burl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Jun-85 16:27:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.730
Posted: Thu Jun  6 16:27:22 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Jun-85 02:27:03 EDT
References: <476@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 63
Xref: watmath net.women:5559 net.politics:9285
Summary: 

In article <476@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:

>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.

And AA promotes it.

	(yeah, cheap shot, but I couldn't resist)
	I don't see a 'caste-like division of our society in which some groups
	are perceived as innately inferior'.  There are prejudiced people,
	true.  And no amount of ANYTHING (short of brainwashing -- a cure
	worse than the disease) will change their minds.  Face it, it ain't
	gonna happen, no matter how many laws get passed.  Equally true, there
	is no 'caste' system because people can (somewhat) freely move between
	the levels -- indeed, there are no sharp boundaries which the 'caste'
	analogy implies.  Obviously it takes money to move up, and that is
	hard for anyone (who doesn't have a lot of it) to get.  Minorities
	and women ARE moving up (it seems to me that few people who read
	this are poverty stricken (except graduate students!)).

>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.

	Again, the 'well-off white males' make up a *very* small part
of the population (well, it depends how you define 'well-off';  I assume
you mean wealthy).
	
>
>> 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

	I disagree strongly with your last point.  If you kill murderers,
it is still murder.  If you rape rapists, it is still rape.  If you pursue
racist policies against racists, it is still racism.  'The ends justifies
the means' is the argument that such things are justified, and has justified
some of the most atrocious things.  What state of mind could 'generate that
kind of rhetoric'?  A contemplative state of mind that examines what is
being said.
	geoff sherwood