Affirmative Action Relaxin'

Aaaahhh yes... Affirmative Action.

Everybody loves to get worked up about Affirmative Action. We'll call it "AA" for space purposes. I'm not suggesting that AA is about confessing guilt or remorse or anything like that.

Affirmative Action is a unique American policy and our country seems quite evenly divided on the issue, often along race lines. While AA is in effect throughout most of our country, California recently banned racial preferences in public higher education. And the recent Supreme Court decision signals a shift away from the quota and point systems that made AA a quantitative social policy tool, rather than qualitative assessment of individuals.

Proponents of AA cite a number of different reasons for supporting it. Some say it is necessary to prevent and combat institutional racism. Some say it gives minority groups a stronger presence on campus and helps people of color feel less isolated in traditionally white schools. Many activists cite the educational disadvantages faced by people of color as warranting government intervention when they are not necessarily competitive against those with advantaged backgrounds, and especially when they are competitive.

For a lot of people, the issue of AA is one of practical social policy and of taking an active government role in determining how minority groups are integrated into the large society. In this line of thinking, schools and employers must be legistlatively forced out of their habit of preferring white people and not reaching out to people of color. Not only do white people generally have a socioeconomic advantage, but there are many cultural barriers faced by people of color, the most prominent of which is racism.

The functional argument for AA is simple: the disadvantages and barriers faced by people of color can be dealt with by legalizing racial preferences in colleges, universities, and workplaces. Because improving minority-dominant schools is not seen as an option, AA appears to be the only way to remedy racial disparities.

On the "con" side of the debate, you have people who feel a system of racial preferences will give advantage to the unqualified and the undeserving. Stories of minority police officers and firefighters getting extremely competitive jobs because of quotas has created the perception of reverse racism. Academics and policy makers such as Ward Connerly and Shelby Steele have argued that any system based on race is archaic and doomed to fail. Clearly there is resentment over race-based advantages on both sides-- whether they be endemic or legislated. But AA rasises a spectre in schools and workplaces that some people will be by force, not by merit. The main argument against AA is that it doesn't address the root causes of socioeconomic disparities and cultural disadvantages, and addresses only the symptoms.

The sad thing about the AA debate is that neither side really understands the issue, or the opposition. On the "pro" side, you have people who desperately want to see quality-of-life improvements among people of color as a whole. AA is a legacy of the civil rights movement. Whereas in the 1950s we legislated the end of legal segregation and Jim Crow laws... we are now attempting to deal with a fundamentally socioeconomic problem, by implementing purely political measures. We are changing the cost of admission, but the show hasn't changed.

De facto segregation and economic disparities persist in spite of admissions and hiring practices... not because of them. In other words, people of color face disadvantages in work and school, not because institutions are making a concerted effort to deprive them of opportunity, but because they are disproportionately poor and culturally isolated.

My personal belief is that AA is neither effective as a tool of social policy and/or redress, nor does it hold up under philosophical and ethical considerations. On the functional level, there is no substitute for giving people of color the same educational and cultural advantages as the white people against which they musc "compete" for jobs and admissions. As pointed out by Connerly and Steele, simply putting a person in a position is not enough... there is no substitue for the skills and experience. Now, if the government provided low-income communities with good schools, the appearance of a need for AA policies would diminish dramatically as people of color used a stronger academic background to penetrate higher education and the workplace.

For me, the most troubling thing about AA is not the social policy stuff and trying to help disadvantaged people improve their lot. The most troubling thing is that we are actively perpetuating the myth that race should be the rallying point we use to combat poverty and other social afflictions. At its core, AA is not about disadvantages... it is about race. AA is simply another system by which we distinguish people based on their race. The entire AA argument crumbles when you consider the situation of a black child who is adopted by a poor white family. To suggest that this black child deserves an advantage over her siblings is to acknowledge that AA is racist.

Whether people want to believe it or not... the main reason why people of color face more disadvantages in this country is primarily socioeconomics and cultural isolation... not race. If our goal is to reduce poverty among people of color... we can accomplish that goal by implementing anti-poverty measures that benefit all people, regardless of skin color. But the bottom line is that the only way our country can overcome racism is to realize that we have a persistent belief that race and culture are somehow inextricably linked. To move forward together, we must deracialize ourselves and look for more substantive ways to categorize ourselves for the purposes of social policy.