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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.women
Subject: Re: Discrimination and affirmative action
Message-ID: <318@spar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Jun-85 15:49:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.318
Posted: Tue Jun 11 15:49:08 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Jun-85 03:21:19 EDT
References: <468@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <196@kontron.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 47
Xref: watmath net.politics:9382 net.women:5763

>Comparing equally weighted samples of whites and blacks in this 
>country, you find the differences in income (which are almost certainly
>the result of racism) are quite small --- a few percent at most.

    What do you consider a `few percent' to be?

    Twenty percent maybe?
    Perhaps thirty percent?

    Last time I checked, the (probably unweighted) difference was a whopping
    fourty five percent.

    And that was DOWN ten percent from the days of Johnson's `Great Society'..

>Affirmative action promotes racist attitudes

    This limp-wristed argument is just what the NeoNazis want us to say.

    So let's give in to the NeoNazis by doing nothing, right?

>I suggest that you read the ongoing debate in net.women, before you
>claim that AA "...does not attempt to assign guilt or merit based on
>membership in a group..." --- a great many of the people over there
>have done *exactly* that, saying that all white males should have
>less because of what white males have done in the past.

    But who has been dumping that `guilt' crap in net.women?

    The opponents of Affirmative Action!

>Mr. Carnes: do you know how to tell that someone has lost an argument?

    Keep saying that to yourself. Maybe you'll believe it..

    You speak of AA as discrimination. So is ANY program aimed at
    helping the disadvantaged minorities in this country. I assume
    you are against all such programs, yes?
  
    Furthermore, without government coercion, the most qualified person to
    work in an organization consisting of racist male pigs is yet another
    racist male pig. As a matter of pure economics, selecting people
    who conform to the existing stereotype makes good business sense.

    The status quo is also discrimination, too. And it favors those
    who are OVERPRIVILEGED.

-michael