 Re: Affirmative Action -- vs Racial Preferences Quote: |
Originally Posted by Doug I am a conservative, and I am firmly in favor of Affirmative Action. By Affirmative Action I mean
[1] Going after racial oppression -- illegal discrimination -- where ever it exists, using all the weapons at our disposal: legal and extra-legal, the same way we did in the 1960s. [I am a veteran of the Civil Rights movement in the South at that time.]
[2] Developing policies which will help disadvantaged people, of whatever color, to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities available for personal advancement in America today. Although these policies should be color blind, they will obviously disproportionately benefit Black people.
This should include scholarships to universities, programs to supplement poor schools, programs to replace poor schools with good ones -- vouchers are the obvious answer but we can still fight for other programs where we are not yet able to get vouchers -- strong but fair policing, programs that will do away with demoralizing public housing projects and instead encourage home ownership, and so on.
This is what Affirmative Action should mean.
It should not mean racial quotas and racial preferences, which devalue the achievements of Black people.
We should not let the liberals and the Left capture the phrase "Affirmative Action", which in the eye of the public, now means "active measures against racial oppression".
Rather, we should give the phrase "Affirmative Action" its proper content -- action to break down the barriers to entry into society, which can and should be done on a color-blind basis.
Doug | Is this not what the Equal Opportunity currently does?? If so, then Affirmative Action is no longer needed. AA was devised to make up for the sins of the past (Slavery, Seperate but Equal, and Jim Crow laws). At what point are those sins absolved??? Or shall they remain a stain upon our country's conscience forever. If so, why is there no blame placed upon the African tribes who actually captured and sold other tribes into slavery, or upon the Middle East, who maintained slavery long after the western world began abolishing it.
We like to blame our country for the evils of the world, and for some things we are at fault. But slavery was an institution that existed before this nation, and continued to exist after the fall of the institution of this country. For all the blame the western world takes for the institution of slavery, little recognition is giving for its fight to abolish it. Britain at a cost to its own citizens actively patrolled the world's water, challenging slave traders, capturing their ships and releasing the slaves. Where is the demand for the reparations to the British government and people for their sacrifices. Or where is the cry for reparations for the Union soldiers who died during the civil war, and after the civil war under President Grant in taking on the KKK.
Affirmative action had its time and place, however, today, we seriously need to consider if we wish to continue judging people by the color of their skin, or should we finally embrace the dream of Martlin Luther King Jr, and judge people by the content of their character???
dmk Conservatism, I repeat is not an ideology. It does not breed fanatics....But if you want men who seek, reasonably and prudently, to reconcile the best in wisdom of our ancestors with the change which is essential to a vigorous civil social existence, then you will do well to turn to conservative principles
-Russell Kirk- |