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Forum nameOkay Activist Archives
Topic subjectRE: Why Affirmative Action?
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=4699&mesg_id=4710
4710, RE: Why Affirmative Action?
Posted by LK1, Wed Jun-25-03 03:47 PM
>Contrary to the lies, AA is not and has
never been a hand-out from the U.S. gov.
or liberal whites.

No... THIS IS A LIE. LBJ introduced AA in 1965... let's get this straight.

>...it is a by-product of the Black struggle for equality.

This is not a lie. It is a reaction to the Black struggle, but its means was to suppress the ongoing Civil Rights Movement, which it did. The Movement was going on with such vigor and relentlessness that shit was actually beginning to change (and a lot of white folks were getting scared). So, rather than let the Movement continue at its remarkable (frightening) pace, LBJ and co decided they needed a reason to show minorities that they had something to fight for... in Vietnam, and to show that the Fed recognized their struggle, which it did not.

>"...not just as a right and a theory,
but as a fact and a result" (p.165).

I hate to break it to you, but Steinberg wasn't the dude that said this. It was LBJ, before AA was even put into action...

>Blacks have made the greatest progress in firms and job sectors
where affirmative action has been implemented: in government, in major blue-collar industries, and in corporate management and the professions (eBadgett and Hartmann in Economic
Perspectives on Affirmative Action).

This is true, and this was exactly what the LBJ administration, and those after, needed. They needed "proof" to show that they were compassionate about women and minorities; that they had come up with a "solution" to the discrimination problem in the workplace.

However, what was the real result?

No more CRM. No more Malcolm X's or MLK's. No more massive, world changing protests. More wars. More money. The result was exactly what they wanted: an American identity crisis. They didn't fix the problem. They went around it. So a few (and a VERY select few) skilled minorities and women have high ranking jobs now. So what? What good has that done at all for the whole of America besides convince the vast majority of America (whites) that racism isn't a modern day problem?

The average black family makes half as much as the average white family. This statistic has been the same since slavery was abolished. The overall stat, since AA was put into action, has not changed. What the hell has really been accomplished besides being able to put every American race on the cover of a fucking collegiate brochure while secretly taking millions off of welfare?