And here you have walked straight into the trap. If you are an uneducated white male who has been unemployed since the steel factory went under, the economic ascendancy of women and minorities is not a measure of the country's greatness, it is a symptom of its moral decay. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our military is impotent. Our factories are shuttered. Why? Because of affirmative action, which propels people into positions they are not competent to hold simply because they lack a Y chromosome or have dark skin. It's such an obviously stupid policy. It amplifies incompetence, and today we are paying the price.
(Please note: this is not my point of view. I'm channeling the Right simply to demonstrate how their rhetorical techniques work.)
Pro: I understand the reasoning behind affirmative action better after reading this quote:
"People mistakenly assume that affirmative action is about granting minorities undeserved privileges. In it’s purist form, affirmative action is about allowing minorities natural talents to flourish by removing artificial, unfair barriers and decoupling the true skills required to succeed in a profession from the cultural baggage that builds naturally within an insular community."
Con: The author seems to try to be fair, but quickly falls into the trap of characterizing men in the field as "socially-challenged-uber-nerd[s]". She says that "a lot of men would rather not live like code-cowboys", but goes on to recite a litany of bad traits that are "masculine qualities" and contrasts them with the traits of a "good developer". That's a good way to alienate male readers who would otherwise be sympathetic. Perhaps men do advocate for themselves more actively in the workplace, and that should be corrected for by affirmative action; saying that men "pester the boss until she finally relents to send them to a conference" doesn't accomplish anything.
We've gotten to the point in US culture where many view it as sexist or racist to rally against affirmative action policies that are blatantly sexist and racist.
This kind of idealism is nice, but the truth is that the American government isn’t a computer we can program with just and elegant code. It’s a vending machine we have to pound on and shake until it dispenses not the just outcome we asked for, but whatever imperfect scraps it will give us.
Affirmative action may not have been an elegant way to counterbalance legacy admissions or compensate people who had been wronged, but it was the only thing that came out when we shook the vending machine, and now people have thrown it in the trash and are acting like something better is going to happen.
Ironically, most of American industry has long been an affirmative action program for white males - in education, hiring, promotion, etc., they have been given preference to others. That affirmative action program is far larger and has done far more damage than any other; that is the problem.
Affirmative action has always been a racist hypocrisy. The fact that there have always been leftists campaigning for it is irrelevant, as it's by far more common. America is indeed structurally racist: against whites and (sometimes) Asians. The fact that this has a long history doesn't make recent trends any more acceptable.
We need to stop introducing artificial racist/sexist affirmative action policies and instead stick to including people based on merit. The injection of this ideology everywhere is pernicious, unnecessary, and discriminatory.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, affirmative action was a red herring meant to distract from the real barrier to multigenerational economic-growth. It’s always been about money/class. Diversity matters, but would politicians have voted against the interests of their own progeny? I think not.
FWIW, I'm a white person who used to think of affirmative action as unfair discrimination. That was true until I spent time volunteering teaching technical skills to kids in poor immigrant neighborhoods. Now that I have had an up close experience with these communities, I'm here to tell you institutional racism is real and we're far from it making sense to end these programs.
There simply is not a quick easy solution and those who are not oppressed simply have no real frame of reference to understand the problem. I encourage every person who feels these programs are unfair to spend time volunteering in poor minority communities.
Affirmative action as currently implemented based primarily on race is just as bad, shifting the inequality of opportunity at best. White people of low socioeconomic status are disadvantaged while people of color with high socioeconomic status unfairly benefit. The idea of affirmative action and “anti-racist” policies are fundamentally fine, but it’s almost completely socially unacceptable to disagree with the popular strategies.
It's not offensive per ae but it is a worn-out canard that has been plied by the likes of Richard Rodriguez and apologists for segregated systems for decades. "I'm all in favor for equality but you're too late when it comes to [job applications, college admissions etc] because the damage is already done."
Truly qualified people on the margins are still getting shut out at every level, every age and stage. Mediocrity is still pushing the center ahead of everyone else. The fact that wsj/economist/HN has turned anti-woke doesn't change the facts.
The entire doctrine of Disparate Impact, and Affirmative Action which is borne from it, is one of the most illiberal policies in America. I really hope a constitutionalist Supreme Court can reverse this madness.
On Affirmative Action in specific, here's a great interview from Sowell about the unintended consequences that arise from the awful policy:
The problem with affirmative action is that it is based on race. It is racist. In fact it isn't just based on race, it is based on skin colour - since some mixed black-white people with white skin can be discriminated against.
America needs to put race on the sidelines and start thinking in terms of class. You should help the disadvantaged or poor regardless of their great great grandparent's struggles.
Affirmative action should exist; but it should be entirely based on parental income, growing up in a poor area, or other disadvantaged indicators. Not race, not ethnicity, and not gender. These things don't prove you're poor or disadvantaged.
And now we can add yet another mechanism that destroys meritocracy by being openly prejudiced against people based on their skin color and gender. Only the old forms of advantage still exist. The rich white men are still getting jobs based on their networks, but now poor and middle class white men are rejected purely based on who they are, not what they've done.
(Please note: this is not my point of view. I'm channeling the Right simply to demonstrate how their rhetorical techniques work.)
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