Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watdcsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!dmcanzi 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