[Glice]

Originally Posted by val-holla-ing

affirmative action sure does sound outdated....but so does institutionalized racism, which is never going out of style...anywhere as long as that's the case, something's needed to balance it all out.

i hate the thought of possibly getting a job over a white guy of equal credibility simply because i'm black. i think the situation rises where a decision must be made, put it to a dance contest, that way i wouldn't feel as bad about getting the job.

Yeah, homie. Can we be buddies? I need some street kudos from my friends in the Conservative club.

I agree with the bit where Clone pointed out that all ethnicities other than white, northern-European are a homogenous mass with the same intentions and characteristics. I also agree with !@#$% and val-holla-ing and sillylongnamerhetoricnonsensechap because, by proxy, as a white person I am not allowed to disagree with ethnics. Should any other ethnicities care to pipe up - I don't mind if you want make one up: Irish, Welsh, Belgian, whatever - I shall agree with them too.

I wrote a very long and vitriolic response to this last night that I deleted; suffice it so say Mr 'White-supremacist' Clone represented my position far better.

[ThePits]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

of course i am going to be patronizing when you refuse to acknowledge the existence of my rebuttal to your ideal "if" scenario. disagree all you want, but acknowledge the answer.

if you didn't understand it the first time, i'll spell it out clearly: your ideal scenario is a load of crap, it doen't exist, people are not treated equally, and therefore countermeasures are required. of course val-holla-ing said that better, with more humor and without being patronizing, but he's a lot nicer than i am. i'm just an equal-opportunity asshole.

Firstly there was no "if" in what I said

I actually said "it works here" and it does

What you fail to understand is that every race, creed and colour has its own extremists who advocate discrimination

There is no group or society that I can think of that doesnt have its own brand of bigotry

Therefore no society is every going to eradicate discrimination totally

Its how we deal with it that counts

The UK has some of the best anti discrimination laws in the world, some of the best safeguards too

The overwhelming majority of people can apply for jobs and not have to worry about there origins or beliefs

The system isnt perfect, but it works

And this is in a country where a couple of our major cities now have over 50% of their population from ethnic minorities

So much for my "crap" actuality and than your "imaginary" scenario

Next time try actually reading what I type

The majority of it is in words of one syllable, primarily for your benefit

Oh, and try taking that bag of King Edwards off your shoulder sometime

People might actually give a shit what you think then

[ThePits]

Originally Posted by Tokolosh

Most of you guys who have posted in this thread are either European or American and look at it from a western point of view where the majority are white.

I agree with what you say up to a certain degree, but what's the solution for a country like say, South Africa? The black majority were suppressed during the years of apartheid. They were deliberately kept uneducated, and whites got all the jobs.

The abolishment of apartheid in the early 90's brought hope and new opportunities for the black majority. Affirmative action was implemented to make things fair for them in an all white business environment.

They are now almost 20 years down the line and affirmative action is still going strong. The problem that arises is that it's almost impossible to find a job if you're white these days. Especially white men. The quality of work has deteriorated substantially, and the South Africa's economy isn't getting any better from it.

What's your answer to that? Would it be fair to abolish it in favour of well educated whites who don't stand a chance, or keep applying it for the benefit of unschooled blacks?

I wouldn't know how to correctly answer the poll.

Do away with it, employ people on merit rather than quotas and get rid of the idiot in power who spouts off that there is no link between HIV and AIDS

If there is still "affirmative action" in place to put blacks in jobs over another ethnic group, as the blacks are in the majority, thats nothing more than good old fashioned racism

Its the same crap the whites pulled under apartheid and equally as loathsome

South Africa and Zimbabwe ar both shining examples of how to fuck up a decent economy when you employ people on the basis of race, or being a relative, over people who can actually do the damned job

*cough* Winnie Mandela *cough*

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by ThePits

Firstly there was no "if" in what I said

I actually said "it works here" and it does

What you fail to understand is that every race, creed and colour has its own extremists who advocate discrimination

There is no group or society that I can think of that doesnt have its own brand of bigotry

Therefore no society is every going to eradicate discrimination totally

Its how we deal with it that counts

The UK has some of the best anti discrimination laws in the world, some of the best safeguards too

The overwhelming majority of people can apply for jobs and not have to worry about there origins or beliefs

The system isnt perfect, but it works

And this is in a country where a couple of our major cities now have over 50% of their population from ethnic minorities.

So much for my "crap" actuality and than your "imaginary" scenario

Next time try actually reading what I type

The majority of it is in words of one syllable, primarily for your benefit

Oh, and try taking that bag of King Edwards off your shoulder sometime

People might actually give a shit what you think then

first of all, you said "if":

Originally Posted by ThePits

If you treat everyone equally and give everyone the same education and opportunities why is "positive discrimination" necessary?

now, i know little of english politics-- part because i just don't give a shit, part because even if i did it doesn't affect me. as little as i know, however, i dont think england has a history of slavery and genocide within its own borders-- except for ireland, but most of the irish gained their independence some time ago.

i dont know if a city that has "over 50% of their population from ethnic minorities" is a sign of racial justice. i don't know what access they have to power and money and education, and how they are treated by the other 49% (or whatever the actual figure is.)

if what you're trying to say in your own obscure way is that good antidiscrimination laws work better than compensating one discrimination with another, that's an interesting idea and you may have a point-- but you've offered no proof that it actually works. and since i know little of english politics, why should i believe you. i do a google "racism in england" and opposite points of view pop up. im not saying they are true either, but it looks like a lot of people disagree with your assessment. my point here is not to discuss their arguments, just to say that "if you treat everyone equally" sounds like an ideal on this sound of the atlantic, and as an unproven notion from where you're speaking.

additionally-- i dont fail to understand such a basic notion a each group having their own extremists advocating discrimination. i don't put the emphasize however in extremists, however-- i put the emphasis on regular citizens with the power to perpetuate racist crap without their knowledge.

what you are failing to understand is that institutionalized and highly ingrained racism don't require extremists. it's very easy to say "oh, the extremists" and deny any personal responsibility in the clusterfuck. it's always "someone else", some fringe creature who does it.

sure, it was just "the extremists" in nazi germany, right? everyone else was "just following orders"? what percentage of people do you require to go from fringe to mainstream? how much do mainstream people actually believe in part or whole, in the privacy of their thoughts, that which extremists espouse in public?

the myth of the extremist is a huge fallacy that people conveniently believe to exempt themselves of any guilt, but in doing so they also wash their hand of any responsibility. there is an important psychological distinction. white guilt is a stupid as any other guilt. but everyone is responsible for their own racism. nobody want to be though, because most people confuse responsibility with guilt, and with guilt comes denial, and with denial we just sweep the crap under the carpet and look the other way.

and the fact is that EVERYBODY is a bit of a racist, and this in part because everybody is taught to think in terms of "race", which is a fiction with no basis on biology. everybody thinks they know what race, and what "races" are, and spew about it with great authority, perpetuating the biggest hoax in history-- well above the 4-year liberal studies degree that clone mentions.

for example, there is more genetic diversity among africans than between all the other "races" put together. did you know that?

and yet, all africans are "blacks".

funny.

sure, maybe there is some circuit in the brain that tend to make quick judgments and generalizations in order to survive, and we can't help that. but what's funny is that it's such advance reasoning that governs our social interactions even to this day.

the fact is that societies have conveniently invented the notion of "race" in order to fuck over people who are "different". it's societies that decide "you're black, therefore we're going to chain you, sell you, give you lashes, make you work for nothing, rape your women, deny you basic human rights, and if you ever become free we're going to segregate you, deny you an education and economic opportunities and we're going to lynch you at every opportunity we got, and our cops are going to shoot you when they feel like it, and if they call for the police we're not going to respond, and and we're going to treat you like the piece of shit you think you are, to keep you in your place, which should have been confined to the slave quarters".

and they did that to all kinds of african people, and in spite of the fact that they were genetically more different from each other than, say, the queen of england and the emperor of china, they were all branded together as "the black race".

of course, people knew nothing of genetics until 50 years ago. some people know nothing about it even today. and even until not so long ago, people like the jews, italians, irish and other groups were considered "races".

when i came to the u.s. from latin america, for example, i discovered that i was "hispanic". 300,000,000 people and their federal government said so. i asked-- what the fuck is "hispanic race"? i mean, i have indian ancestors, and some north african jews, and black africans from who knows where, and italians, and basques, as far as i can trace back my genealogical tree-- i never thought of myself as a "race" in these rigid terms. even in racist latin america my "race" had alway been in question (more about that later), but now i had been assigned a solid label. i am "hispanic". whatever the fuck that means. i have refused the label, and when i put "human" as my race, the fuckers started issuing my paychecks addressed to "mr. human". no fucking joke. i am now the member of a racial fiction. thanks, fuckers!

anyway, it's time for breakfast, it's way past noon here, just wanted to show a bit of the depth of the rabbit hole and how much bulshit there is in these notions of "race" in the first place.

i know i haven't really expanded much about the useful scapegoat of the "extremist", and how racism is actually perpetuated by well-meaning mainstream people like those who post in this board, but i'll return to that later.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by ThePits

If there is still "affirmative action" in place to put blacks in jobs over another ethnic group, as the blacks are in the majority, thats nothing more than good old fashioned racism

i think that everyone is forgetting what affirmative action is, it is not to just go out and pick some dude off the street to be the president of a university, simply because they needed a black president vs a white one, its more like, they will hire a slightly less qualified (on paper, through say education or experience) black person over a supposedly more qualified (on paper, through say education or experience) white person to give the black person the chance to prove himself fair, and to compensate for the previous discrimination in education and the workplace which would have possibly explained his having less education and experience to begin with. At the end of the day, nobody ever hires the BEST qualified person for a job, they hire the best qualified of the people they LIKE for the job, and that is a big difference. After all, were you the best person for the job you have right now at the time? Wouldn't there ALWAYS be somebody better then you, unless somebody simply gives you the chance to prove that you can do the task just as well?

I think the people who so fiercely challenge affirmative action fail to understand that fairness is an ideal to begin with, and that it has never existed and will never exist, so to arrogantly believe that affirmative action challenges a fair world that does not exist is just plain silly, and it is a cop out to the real issues. Isn't better to look at the real world rather then ideals that we believe in? and wont we find solutions for these problems in the real world, and not in our intellectual imaginations?

[ThePits]

If race, as you state, is a hoax, therefore so is racism

Race being the prerequisite for racism

Therefore, logically, "affirmitive action" or whatever you want to dress it up as is unnecessary

And as you mentioned slavery, hmm, for some strange reason you dont see the English asking the Italian government for a public apology for the Romans invading and enslaving the British Isles, nor do you see the French asking the same of the German government for the enslavement of their people by the Teutonic tribes

Every nation on this earth has had some of its people enslaved, exploited, raped and murdered

Most just dont bang on about it

The problem with this whole subject is that common sense has gone out of the window

Treat everyone the same and give people jobs on the basis of merit

What could be simpler?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by ThePits

If race, as you state, is a hoax, therefore so is racism

Race being the prerequisite for racism

Therefore, logically, "affirmitive action" or whatever you want to dress it up as is unnecessary

And as you mentioned slavery, hmm, for some strange reason you dont see the English asking the Italian government for a public apology for the Romans invading and enslaving the British Isles, nor do you see the French asking the same of the German government for the enslavement of their people by the Teutonic tribes

Every nation on this earth has had some of its people enslaved, exploited, raped and murdered

Most just dont bang on about it

The problem with this whole subject is that common sense has gone out of the window

Treat everyone the same and give people jobs on the basis of merit

What could be simpler?

tits, i never said that. i said that there is no biological basis for categorizing people in "races", but i didn't say exactly that race doesn't exist at all. a hoax is a hoax, but it's still something, and people can fall for it in troves.

the fact that there is no real basis for racism doesn't mean that peope cannot fall for such a fiction. there was no real reason for invading iraq either, and what happened?

the second part of my argument therefore (interrupted by a weekend of the board going to avalon) was going to be about the social construction of race. obviously, "race" is something that exists, we have a word for it, and think in those terms, and there is such a thing as racial discrimination. it's based on a fiction but it has real consequences-- like witch hunting, or the idea that AIDS was a "gay cancer".

you say:

" Every nation on this earth has had some of its people enslaved, exploited, raped and murdered

Most just dont bang on about it"

so, it's just "the darkies" that bang about it? is that what you mean? i wonder what you 're implying... please, clarify.

there is a big difference between your historical examples and affirmative action in the usa--or in brazil for that matter.

first of all, the teutonic tribes are not modern germany, nor is italy the equivalent of the roman empire. that was almost 2000 years ago and your analogy is completely cracked.

there is a historical continuity in the united states between today and the origins of the republic. while slavery started under the english, it was carried on by a number of states. those states still exist as legal entities, they have a constitution and a territory and borders.

not only that. while slavery in the u.s. "ended" over 100 years ago with the civil war, the pre-war social order returned soon after reconstruction, with full support by the state. anti-discriminatory laws were not instituted until the late 1960s, and in many cases they haven't been properly enacted.

a better comparison than your historically myopic analogies would be cases like:
-germany paying reparations to holocaust victims and to israel
-the u.s. paying reparations to the japanese-american prisoners of concentration camp
-germany paying reparations after both world wars

it's been done, governments have apologized and forked out the money. the teutonic tribes unfortunately are not answering the phone calls.

the case for paying reparations to descendents of slaves is not a moot one, but it's controversial enough that it hasn't moved forward at this point except against certain corporations who indeed scammed people.

however, in a society that strives for democracy and equality, trying to compensate somehow for racial discrimination is a good thing. the fact is that there are still a lot of ignorant racists out there who continue trying to segregate and discriminate on the basis of skin color, and while affirmative action is not the best possible solution, because it works statistically rather than individually (and that's gotta be imperfect by definition), it's good enough that it deserves support.

Originally Posted by Diesel

amen. if you're dumb you're dumb. if you want to clean my shit up, you're an immigrant.

ha ha. prick.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by ThePits

The problem with this whole subject is that common sense has gone out of the window

Treat everyone the same and give people jobs on the basis of merit

What could be simpler?

that is the truth, but unfortunately as I posted above, people just simply dont give out jobs entirely based upon merit, and merit itself has debatable definitions.

[ThePits]

!@#$%! You have a remarkable knack for avoiding the question and fudging the issue with red herrings

The points you raise on reparations by the german government were for genocide not slavery

The payments by the US government over japanese-american prisoners of war was over unlawful imprisonment, not slavery

My examples were slavery, yours werent even even in the same ballpark

Judging by your logic I will assume you have no clue as to the difference between genocide and slavery, as you appear to think they are the same

You fail to answer the point about treating everyone the equally and employing on merit

Instead you attempt to dress up the same old tired political rhetoric that there is some merit in putting someone as dumb as a rock in a job over someone who can actually do it quite effectively in order to fill a quota

What an efficient way to run a company/country

Positive discrimination also basically tells people that their ethnicity is a handicap

"You are black/brown/yellow/pink/blue/purple and are therefore handicapped and the only way you will get a job is if we tell people to employ you on the basis of the colour of your skin"

And that isnt racist as well as demeaning?

You stated "the fact is that there are still a lot of ignorant racists out there who continue trying to segregate and discriminate on the basis of skin color,", thats exactly what affirmative action is, discrimination on the basis of skin colour

So the people who implement affirmative action are also ignorant racists by your definition

As for people banging on about reparations, the only people I see carping on are a small number of political extremists in the UK and the odd Chinese politician trying to make political capital out of the sino-japan war

We abolished slavery here way before the US, in the early part of the 19th century, that isnt exactly recent times either

How far back do we go before we start and/or stop paying reparations?

Do we exclude women from paying reparations to the "families" of former slaves as they didnt have the vote and therefore had no say as to whether slavery was legal or illegal?

More to the point, why arent the people bleating about reparations for themselves not shouting from the rooftops about the slavery in africa that is going on as you are reading this?

Why is noone seeking reparations from the tribes in africa who still exist today who captured, emslaved and sold their fellow africans to white europeans?

Slavery, bigotry, discrimination whether against or in favour of ethnic groups have no place in society

Treat everyone equally, employ on the basis of merit, and keep your red herrings to yourself

They just make your postings smell fishy

[pbradley]

A debate over affirmative action on a message board...

*avoids with all caution*