Affirmative Action Still Appropriate
More than enough times I have heard my uncle complain about having to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. And even though it directly affects how he does business, I am often surprised by his lack of knowledge on the subject.
Affirmative Action (the bill that makes a company an Equal Opportunity Employer) was implemented by President Lyndon Johnson more than 30 years ago. The debate today is whether or not it has outstayed its welcome. To decide this, we must understand what it is and who it affects.
Affirmative action encourages federally funded businesses to hire people in a way that represents the community in percentages of race and gender. This means if you have two equally qualified individuals, minority status should be taken into consideration.
After learning a bit about affirmative action, you may still feel it has no place in American society. You may feel it is nothing more than “reverse discrimination.”
True, it isn’t a perfect law, and though it seems to have turned the tables on white males, in reality it has taken nothing away from them that they have earned or are entitled to keep.
All this bill does is make more opportunities available to minorities and women (in fact, white females have benefited most from affirmative action). Retention and promotion are up to the ability of the individual.
Affirmative action is not much different from many other bills that have been passed. The New Deal programs of the ‘30s, the Marshal Bill and the GI Bill along with water giveaways and million-dollar supports to farmers - were all implemented by the government in an attempt to make right a situation that had gone wrong.
In many cases, the bills were used to ease a transition. The New Deal programs offered jobs and money as America began to recover from the stock market crash. The GI Bill eases a transition from war time to peace time by offering soldiers free medical care and/or access to higher education. These bills have been deemed entitlements, whereas affirmative action is referred to as “reverse discrimination.”
Affirmative action eases a transition from inferior treatment to equality for people who have been discriminated against.
It’s sad this bill even needs to exist. We should have enough sense to judge someone based on their abilities, not their race or gender. But because of a sickening trend of racial and sexual discrimination, the government has to hold our hand through something as simple as job distribution.
Though this bill should be unnecessary, it happens to play a very large part in today’s society where jobs or admissions to colleges are concerned. To stop this kind of insanity, we need to get educated. Educate yourself on the effects of racism and sexism. Even things that seem insignificant, such as racist or sexist jokes, can be damaging when trying to fix our social problems.
No, we are not responsible for what our predecessors did decades ago, but there’s nothing wrong with lending a helping hand to someone who needs it. We are all human beings and should learn to live together as a whole, not broken apart into percentages.
So next time you call affirmative action “reverse discrimination,” remember there were good reasons why it was implemented in the first place, and it would have been removed long ago if we had overcome our racial biases.
Editor’s note: Got something to say? Speak for Yourself is the place to do it. If you are a teen with an opinion on any topic, send your column to Our Generation, Speak for Yourself, 999 W. Riverside, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Kimberly Murphy Mead and Spokane Falls