Affirmative Action Unnecessary?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

If we wanted to help the minorities we would make it easier for them to get the qualifications most white people have but that is too much work and the racist agenda wouldn't approve of it.

Isn't that exactly what AA does...?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Isn't that exactly what AA does...?

It gives jobs to people without the qualifications. If we made it easier for minorities to gain qualifications then we wouldn't have to worry about AA.

We need to start paying more attention to the inner city and not just ignore it.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

It gives jobs to people without the qualifications.

I still don't see that. Please explain how AA accomplishes this.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

A racist white person can keep a minority out of a good job while a racist minority can't do much.

AA should only be a temporary solution to a bigger problem but all it is a cover up to make it seem that we care about minorities just like black hisotry month. If we wanted to help the minorities we would make it easier for them to get the qualifications most white people have but that is too much work and the racist agenda wouldn't approve of it.

Being against AA isn't racist but denying the fact that minorities are at a disavantage is.

Tough crap. I say pull your self up and stop looking for hand outs and entitlements to get ahead in life. We have created generations of scumbags getting ahead based on the color of their skin expecting that society owes them something because of it. When very smart people who are not black are denied advancement just to promote a person of color for that fact alone the system is broken and we have created a system of reverse discrimination. Minorities need to figure out how to get the qualifications by working harder to compete regardless of color. I will celebrate Black history month the day we have white history month. There are thousands of places in the US where white people are a minority. Do they get handouts and preferential treatment? No. Sorry folks, AA has seen its time come and gone, I have lived it, and it is time to bury it with the idea that every negro in the US is somehow entitled to compensation because they are black. Our society is so integrated that there is absolutely a tiny minority of people who can actually prove that they are related to someone who is a slave. I really think that Al Sharpton and Jessie "PUSH" Jackson do not need help to get ahead in life.

[bluecuracao]

You're not paying very much attention, are you, Mr. Mercenary? Ah well, too bad for you.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Tough crap. I say pull your self up and stop looking for hand outs and entitlements to get ahead in life. We have created generations of scumbags ...

Scumbag recipe:

Take two job candidates with equivalent qualifications.
One's name should sound "white", the other "black".
Call 50% more candidates with "white" sounding names for an interview than the ones with "black" sounding names.
Bang your head against the wall, if you're black.

To test whether employers discriminate against black job applicants, Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago and Sendhil Mullainathan of M.I.T. conducted an unusual experiment. They selected 1,300 help-wanted ads from newspapers in Boston and Chicago and submitted multiple resumes from� phantom job seekers. The researchers randomly assigned the first names on the resumes, choosing from one set that is particularly common among blacks and from another that is common among whites.

So Kristen and Tamika, and Brad and Tyrone, applied for jobs from the same pool of want ads and had� equivalent resumes. Nine names were selected to represent each category: black women, white women, black men and white men. Last names common to the racial group were also assigned. Four resumes were typically submitted for each job opening, drawn from a reservoir of 160. Nearly 5,000 applications were submitted from mid-2001 to mid-2002. Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan kept track of which candidates were invited for job interviews.

No single employer was sent two identical resumes, and the names on the resumes were randomly assigned, so applicants with black- and white-sounding names applied for the same set of jobs with the same set of resumes.

Apart from their names, applicants had the same experience, education and skills, so employers had no reason to distinguish among them.

The results are disturbing. Applicants with white-sounding names were 50 percent more likely to be called for interviews than were those with black-sounding names. Interviews were requested for 10.1 percent of applicants with white-sounding names and only 6.7 percent of those with black-sounding names.

from here.

[glatt]

"So Kristen and Tamika, and Brad and Tyrone, applied for jobs from the same pool of want ads and had equivalent resumes."

I smell something funny here. What is an "equivalent" resume? They obviously didn't use identical resumes, or the HR person screening them would see that they had two applicants from the same school with the same major and the same jobs in their past.

I'd like to see these "equivalent resumes."

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Scumbag recipe:

Take two job candidates with equivalent qualifications.
One's name should sound "white", the other "black".
Call 50% more candidates with "white" sounding names for an interview than the ones with "black" sounding names.
Bang your head against the wall, if you're black.

Imagine that.
Good reason to reconsider what you name your kids, don't you think? But for some reason the need or desire to name your newborn child an ethnic name which the average person cannot pronouce or spell.

[Aliantha]

In Australia we have programs which are kind of similar to affirmative action. Actually, they are very much based on the same principal, cept they're only for Aboriginal people. If you're an indigenous australian you get low rate loans, special education packages, and greater options for employment although not in the same way that AA is implimented in the US. Basically, if you hire an indigenous person, the government will subsidise their wages under some government training schemes.

I believe that in some ways these programs are great because many indigenous people are marginalized and therefor society is responsible for their poorer options however, I also recognise that there are a lot of people from other ethnic or caucasion backgrounds who are equally marginalized. It comes down to governments trying to make up for the sins of the past. You can see why it happens, and it's difficult to change things now they've been in place for so long, but the system can be better for everyone if everyone supports the system.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

If hiring practices were truly color blind, shouldn't this office have at least one minority working here?

No. Even if hiring practices were 100% color-blind it makes perfect sense mathematically speaking that there are no minorities working there.

In your unrestrained zeal to cite your place of employment for racial discrimination you have not only overlooked a few things but have made a few questionable assumptions.

I usually recommend starting with a hypothesis and an open mind as opposed to a conclusion in search of cherry-picked evidence.

[Griff]

AA could be replaced by a more fair system based on an economic formula. As it stands now, low income whites who go to awful high schools are being descriminated against. Admission doesn't equal graduation though. It might be better to go to a school that understands how to meet the needs of the poorly educated, than to wash out of Yale.

[elSicomoro]

I don't know if we can actually ever be on a level playing field, given our size and our individualism as a country. People can talk about level playing fields until Jesus comes back from the dead, but IMO, there will always be a sizable part of American society that looks at difference from the "norm" as bad. Those who don't fit the norm don't get the cool shit.

I'm not pessimistic...just pragmatic.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by sycamore

I don't know if we can actually ever be on a level playing field, given our size and our individualism as a country. People can talk about level playing fields until Jesus comes back from the dead, but IMO, there will always be a sizable part of American society that looks at difference from the "norm" as bad. Those who don't fit the norm don't get the cool shit.

You are probably right but we aren't doing anything to make it any better.

[DanaC]

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income of African Americans as a group is roughly 65 percent of that of "white" people,

That's from wikepedia. It suggests African Americans do not have equal access to the better paying jobs, or that they do not have equal access to the route into such jobs (e.g. educational opportunities). To suggest that in some way AA disadvantages white males in America, is to dismiss the actual advantage that comes from being white and male in America. Granted there are those for whom that innate advantage does not translate into a better job or lifestyle, and there are those for whom that innate disadvantage does not translate into a lesser job and lifestyle....but the reality is, that without some kind of enforced balance there would be little progress.

When an employer is recruiting for a high level post, they tend to take into account, amongst other factors, how like themselves the prospective employee is.....hence, since historically the people most likely to be employers have been both white and male, they have historically been more inclined to take on white male employees into the higher category posts within their companies. Though some progress has been made on that, females and non-whites are still under represented in the higher level roles in corporate life. As long as they are under represented they will be less likely tobe hired and will therefore stay under represented.

[lumberjim]

i work a few miles from spexvet. our employee base is loosely representative of the stats posted in his first post. as for the .3% native american....i have some small bit of Sioux in the soup that is me.....so....

i think 7 people is too small a sample. we have about 120 here, i think