Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ttidcc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!edsel!bentley!hoxna!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!timeinc!phri!pesnta!amd!amdcad!amdimage!prls!philabs!ttidca!ttidcc!regard
From: regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Responses to Cramer, AA and Discirmination
Message-ID: <510@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 14:18:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: ttidcc.510
Posted: Fri Jun 28 14:18:36 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Jul-85 06:02:16 EDT
Organization: TTI, Santa Monica, CA.
Lines: 78
Xref: watmath net.women:6193 net.politics:9684


>Clayton Cramer:
>Things *have* dramatically improved, mostly since the 1950s, and because
>the attitudes of many people in our society changed --- not because the
>government started trying to force a change in the late 1960s and early
>1970s.  I can see a dramatic reduction in racism just since 1962, when my
>earliest memories of racism start.  I suspect that the belief that government
>must intervene are reflective of your faith in government's power, rather
>than a rational evaluation of recent social history in this country.

I'm sorry, but this is so whacko, I can't stand it.  Blacks were freed
100 years ago, and women have had the vote for 70 or so, and this person
is satisfied with change showing up 40 to 80 years later??!!??!!  Prof.
B. Bielby of UCSB has done extensive research on women in the workforce
(his specialty was _not_ all minorities, unfortunate for the breadth of
this discussion), and he points out that EVEN given the move of women into
the work force during the industrial revolution, EVEN given the women who
moved into the work force during the war years, that there was no significant
rise in the wages and movement into management for women until approx.
1968-71 when women began to sue.

Until LAWS were put into place for women to sue on the basis of violation,
there was no significant level of improvement.  None of this stuff is con-
clusive, of course -- he hasn't interviewed every single woman and employer
out there to discover motivations for the sudden change, and there is an
outside chance that it all correlates to sunspots.  Clayton, I can't
_PROVE_ anything, but for some reason, I've got very little faith in your
"rational evaluation of recent social history" in which apparently so many
people did an about-face with no real urging beyond the goodness of their
hearts.

Given the "self-interest" motivation (the latest fad in managerial study),
the reason that businesses would change their hiring practices would be
because there was something in it for them -- positive publicity maybe,
and expanded workforce maybe, increased government hassel maybe, a higher
rate of lawsuits maybe.  Up until the latter two forces went to work, it
appears clear to me that the former two forces were not strong enough to
override the perceived benefits of a homogenized workplace, and the comfort
of working amongst "your own kind", supporting (by hiring) the good of your
"community".

Then, of course, your follow up comment:

>At least in California, they would have had only slightly harder of a time
>than I had --- perhaps back East, where the governments are further left,

Define "slightly" and define the time-frame.  Starting in the 50's, I doubt
there was any significant difference between California and other states in
the Union, they were all pretty lousy.  And "slightly", when one is hanging
on by one's fingernails, as, fer instance, I've had to do for years at a
stretch, is a matter of perspective, which I'd be damned reluctant to let
you determine for me (or use as a basis for policy).

Re your responses on the "guilt" issue of AA:

>(a six-screen rebuttal quoted in full, as if we hadn't all read it before)

>The above posting is a highly selective set of quotations; the reason that
>many of us arguing against affirmative action have spent as much time as
>we have arguing against collective guilt is because of postings that stated
>that (and I'm paraphrasing a little) America is like a highway lined with
>silver dollars, and the people that got there first (white males) got the
>easy pickings, and there white males deserve less so that other groups can
>have more.  It is entirely possible that the editor of the above
>items hasn't been following the debate long enough --- nonetheless, the
>forces against affirmative action have been arguing *against* collective
>guilt, with *some* pro-affirmative action people who have argued in *favor*
>of collective guilt.

Yeh, even at 6 screens, it was selective.  More so than yours.  So he gives
you a whole raft of instances where people specifically decline to place
collective guilt, and you come back with "somebody out there said somethin"!!
Now _that's_ news.

Let's talk about collective guilt again, o.k.?  And who is placing what
on whom.

Adrienne Regard