Race is an issue that Americans will always be forced to address. Race encountered everyday at any given moment. To some, it is only a matter of time before they are discriminated against, yet to others, their only fear is acting in a prejudice manner around someone of another race and offending that person. In today?s society, one can not do anything without stepping on someone?s toes.
Social classes in America are based largely on money. Whether it is one?s parent?s money, relative?s money, or their own personal financial standings, class is still based on money. There are many more contributing factors to class also. Race itself can sometimes force itself into class. Whether it blatant or not, race and class tend to have a lot of common characteristics.
Affirmative action the United States is used to help minorities and all sexes be accepted into Universities and get good jobs.
Lord Dahrendorf Deutsch: Ralf Dahrendorf 2003 Sven...
Members of the University of Michigan YAF Chapter ...
Under the Malaysian New Economic Policy, Bumiputra...These two things help minorities move up in the social classes. First they can get into better schools without discrimination and in turn get hired for better jobs without being discriminated against. This might be one of the best systems to date for reaching these goals.
As Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post stated, ?There is also a large percent of white males who feel that they are being robbed of their jobs and promotions by women and minorities because of this ?affirmative action.?? Employers might be overlooking them, but minorities and women have been overlooked for years and years. Maybe it is only fair to give these people a fighting chance.
With any new idea though, there is always another way to look at it. Some minorities feel like by being given an advantage they are being discriminated against. As if they are not smart enough, or well enough educated to accomplish on there own. It is not that they are not smart enough, but more that our society is extremely prejudiced towards people of other races. This type of action can be called reverse discrimination. Different perceptions of reverse discrimination can vary greatly.
One way to look at reverse discrimination is when minorities are prejudiced towards the majority race. This is quite common in our society, even though it is not as noticeable. The concept of reverse discrimination as in affirmative action is more wide spread though. By giving more opportunities to minorities and females, white males are being discriminated against. Either way some is being treated unfair. Americans, even though a stereotype, love to complain. It is all right to complain if one takes steps of action to solve these problems.
Affirmative action is a discriminating way to solve the discrimination problem. By giving more consideration to any one person based on their income or ethnicity for an opportunity is judging that person based on the way they were raised or judging them by their parents. If a person is African-American and is raised in near poverty, does this mean that that person should be given a better chance to succeed than a white male raised by wealthy parents? No. In this case, the person?s parents might as well be questioned on the school or job application. A person new to the United States should be given an equal opportunity to succeed, just as someone with little money, and just as someone born and raised in the United States with average wealth. These characteristics are no way to judge someone?s character or potential, yet proponents of affirmative action are asking employers to do exactly that.
Affirmative action is not supposed to use quotas, but it does. A corporation can say they hire equally, based on qualifications and potential, but if they only employ middle age white men, they are probably already involved in a law suit by a minority, female, or even a homosexual. It is a lie to say that some day everyone can be treated equally. It will never happen. Even though affirmative action is on the right track towards giving equal chances to everyone, it is being too fair to those it helps.
Universities and employers could be challenged, even threatened by the government, without being forced to accept, and hire, all races and classes of people. Forcing them to do this is doing more harm than good. Sometimes a white male might be better equipped for a job that an African-American woman. This is not always the case, but nor is it never the case. By using affirmative action it forcing the employers and schools to give that woman more consideration than the man.
Using class, as a way to single those out for financial aid and scholarships, is another way reverse discrimination is used. If a young person is planning on attending a university and his or her family is in the lower class of the financial scale, they will be given a better opportunity for financial aid and scholarships than a person raised by an extremely wealthy family that forces their children to pay for college on their own. Does the person raised by wealthy parents not deserve financial help just as much as the person raised near poverty? This happens more often than one might think; it is just not as publicized.
Everyday we are forced to deal with discrimination at sometime. The outcome depends on how we want to handle it. There is no reason to act any differently or treat anyone differently based on their race, class, or even sex. Some people do agree with affirmative action and its qualities. Others do not. This will always stay the same. The people that agree with it have had a personal situation when it called for something of the sort, while the one?s against affirmative action, have had the same. Opinions differ from person to person because their lives differ and the way they are treated by others is different.
WORKS CITED Froomkin, Dan. ?Affirmative Action.? October, 1998. Washington.com Staff.
Hammond, Linda Darling. ?Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education.? The Aims of Argument: A Rhetoric and Reader. Ed. Timothy W. Crusius, and Carolyn E. Channell. Mountain View: Mayfield, 2000. 655-61 Kapuscinski, Ryszard. ?Second Thoughts about America?s Racial Paradise.? The Aims of Argument: A Rhetoric and Reader. Ed. Timothy W. Crusius, and Carolyn E. Channell. Mountain View: Mayfield, 2000. 637-40.
Lind, Michael. ?The Beige and the Black.? The Aims of Argument: A Rhetoric and Reader. Ed. Timothy W. Crusius, and Carolyn E. Channell. Mountain View: Mayfield, 2000. 642-45.
Steele, Shelby. ?The Recoloring of Campus Life.? The Aims of Argument: A Rhetoric and Reader. Ed. Timothy W. Crusius, and Carolyn E. Channell. Mountain View: Mayfield, 2000. 662-73.
Thernstom, Abigail and Stephan. ?Black Progress: How Far We?ve Come-And How Far We Have to Go.? The Aims of Argument: A Rhetoric and Reader. Ed. Timothy W. Crusius, and Carolyn E. Channell. Mountain View: Mayfield, 2000. 647-53.
English: Lists of students admitted to Linxia High...
English: Lists of students admitted to Linxia High...
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