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From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Affirmative action
Message-ID: <1052@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Mar-85 02:16:56 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1052
Posted: Sat Mar  2 02:16:56 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Mar-85 04:30:02 EST
References: <343@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <360@sftri.UUCP> <257@mhuxr.UUCP> <1013@watdcsu.UUCP> <259@mhuxr.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 61
Summary: 


Marcel Simon says:
>Once again, affirmative action DOES NOT imply that disadvantaged are not
>expected to be up to the standards of the job. It implies that IF all
>else is equal, THEN the disadvantaged group will receive preferential
>treatment. To avoid losing out to a minority, be BETTER than that minority!!!

The term "affirmative action" seems to mean different things to different
people.  What I have been assuming it to mean is a system of percentage
quotas to be met by employers in their hiring.  In *that* version of AA,
underqualified people would have to be hired, and they would have little
incentive to learn on the job and *become* qualified. But what you seem
to be talking about is AA as a tie-breaking rule for the personnel
department to use instead of the ol' coin toss.  I have no good reasons
to oppose that version of it.

			*	*	*

>> >But if we do nothing else it will take an approximately equal number
>> >of centuries to undo that discrimination. ... [mfs]
>> 
>> The centuries of discrimination *do* *not* accumulate.  The people who
>> were wronged long ago, and those who wronged them, are dead.  The length
>> of time it would take today's disadvantaged groups to "catch up", given
>> equal treatment, is much shorter than that.  Equal treatment would take
>> the form of equally good education, and equal job opportunities for those
>> with equal qualifications. ... [dmc]
>> 
>As you notice, it takes a certain amount of education to attain certain
>levels of employment. ... Since education *also* takes significant amounts
>of $$, the young children of discrimated against poor cannot
>just pick up an education to reach equal employment qualifications. In the
>absence of other measures, the process must then be incremental, ... [mfs]

Your comments above mainly apply to blacks, not to women.  Women, for
most of the centuries of discrimination, tended to marry men and have
children of both sexes.  If the parents were poor, then their children
of *both* sexes were poor too.  On the other hand, interracial marriages
have been rare, and two parents of the same race *do* tend to have children
of the same race.

The passing on of the disadvantages of poverty does not imply that the 
effects of centuries of discrimination accumulate.  In fact, the blacks
provide an excellent counterexample.  Somebody said that the blacks were
slaves for 3 centuries.  If the effects of discrimination were
cumulative, one would expect the situation of blacks to worsen as long
as discrimination existed.  Blacks were no worse off after 3 centuries
of slavery than they were after one.  You can't get poorer when you have
nothing.  Ever since slavery ended, blacks have faced discrimination. 
In spite of over a century of discrimination, that continues today, blacks
are now better off!  It seems that *recent* discrimination has more
effect on the present than those centuries of slavery.

			*	*	*

You are probably overestimating the importance of affirmative action to
the number of women who are working.  The expanding economy you mentioned
is a much stronger factor than affirmative action is.  If there aren't
enough men to fill all the job openings, employers *have* to hire women.  
-- 
	David Canzi