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The problem is that minorities have a continuous statistical disadvantage.
Minorities statistically receive fewer promotions than white males.
Minorities statistically receive lower salaries than white males.
A few conclusions could be drawn from this:
1. Minorities statistically don't work harder.
"Black people are lazy."
See what I mean?
Besides, we all know that "hard work" does not guarantee a promotion, a job, or acceptance to college. If you really think we live in a meritocracy, you're delusional.
2. Majorities have a much larger work force.
I'm talking about percentages that don't match up to the racial distribution of the actual population. As I said, if 30% of a company's employees are minorities, and only 5% of management is composed of minorities, there's something wrong.
3. Racism prevents minorities from getting promotions.
When you see a steady statistical trend to prefer white males over everyone else regardless of actual qualifications, what other conclusion is valid?
Any of them could be factors. In my mind it doesn't really matter if the premise doesn't follow. If combating racism is done with racism, doesn't that invalidate the premise entirely?
It's a correction for a statistical disadvantage. I already said its not a desirable solution - the ideal is that people would simply not be racist, and that opportunities would truly be equal for everyone. But the alternative so far is to simply allow the statistical trend to continue and do nothing. That's not acceptable.
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For example, roughly half of the population is male, and half is female. We should therefore expect to see that roughly half of all employees across all levels of a given company to be male, and roughly half to be female. That's not even close to the distribution we see.
That would be true assuming that more women choose to enter the workforce versus those who choose a more traditional role. I don't know how many women are in the workforce compared to women who choose traditional roles. I don't know if any study has been conducted to determine that. It could also be that more men are in the workforce because more men enter the workforce and not necessarily because everywhere wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant. My sister chooses not to enter the workforce so she can better raise her children. It's not that she can't get a job or that she's never worked. It is just something that her and her husband decided.
And what about the proven statistical trend that women make less money than men and earn fewer promotions despite equivalent education and experience?
You're assuming that there is no actual disparity between the treatment of white males and minorities in the workplace, and that any statistical trends observed are the result of white males being more "deserving" because they "try harder" or are somehow better qualified. But that's not true. We know that, given equal qualifications, statistically the white male is preferred at a rate vastly disproportionate to the actual population distribution. The same is true of promotions and salaries.
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Affirmative Action is an artificial counter to this effect, basically giving employers additional incentive to hire/promote/etc minorities to balance the inherent bias towards white males.
If you got a job solely because you are a black woman and not because you happen to be the most qualified candidate for the job, regardless of your race or gender, how does that help the situation? Does that rid racism or does it further perpetuate it?
That's an interesting strawman.
Your position is only true if you assume that a person got a job
exclusively because of race, with no thought to qualifications.
That's not true. Unqualified applicants are eliminated almost immediately. We aren't talking about a case of massive disparity in qualifications. You're assuming that, without AA, employment would be solely related to qualifications and achievements. That's not the way the real world works. Discrimination against minorities (perceptions that "minority x is lazy" or "women will just get pregnant and cost the company money" or "minority y won't do as good a job" or "I just don't like z people")
exists. It results in unfair discrimination against minorities. That is indisputable
fact. AA is an
imperfect method of corecting for that bias. Again, if you have a
better solution, by all means present it.
With or without Affirmative Action, discrimiantion exists in the workplace. Affirmative Action is an attempt to
compensate for the discrimination. What system would you propose to compensate for sometimes-involuntary (meaning subconscious preference - not all discrimination involves conscious choice) discrimination that does
not take into account race and gender? How else are we to correct for the massive disparity?
And if you
really feel that white males are beign discriminated against, guess again. AA doesn't mandate that only minorities be hired, and neither does it requrie that unqualified employees be hired due to race. White males
still have an easier time getting a job, an easier time getting a promotion, and still make more money statistically than women or racial minorities. This isn't a case of the "poor, downtrodden white man." It doesn't exactly suck to be a white male in America. Recognizing that racism exists and attempting to correct for its effects is not, in itself, racist.
Let's use another example. Back in the 50s, we used to segregate schools. In 1954, the case of
Brown v. Board of Education resulted int eh ruling that segregated schools inherently provided unequal levels of opportunity.
The judgment required that the schools integrate. This meant taking black kids and moving them into white schools. The only reason black kid
a was moved to school
b was because of his race.
That was "discrimination based on race" by the definition you're using...but it was a corrective action against a pre-existing discriminatory policy.
AA is the same. There is
currently a trend to discriminate against minorities in the workplace. AA is the corrective action against that bias. It needs to take race and gender into consideration to correct for discrimination based on race and gender.
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