Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!hocda!spanky!burl!duke!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Moral Arithmetic and AA Message-ID: <5375@unc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 14-Jun-83 15:25:16 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.5375 Posted: Tue Jun 14 15:25:16 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 16-Jun-83 02:30:46 EDT References: eagle.999 Lines: 59 I haven't been following all the AA discussion, just the shorter ones. This one, though, upset me, and this being net.flame... Before you do any more writing about AA, would you please do the following moral sum? 1. Consider the pain of all those whites who have been damaged by AA programs. Add up the psychological damage caused for any reason, including perceived lost opportunities, engendered feelings of inferiority, disgruntlement, whatever you care to include. Also include any direct costs of lower salaries, untaken transfers, and the like. 2. Now consider the pain of one black seven-year-old child in your favorite ghetto (say, Newark). Consider how the child feels with a father shot by a cop for no reason, a mother whose education was eliminated by the need to care for her own siblings, how the child feels about going to school without breakfast, how the child feels about going to a school which would be condemned in your town, how the child feels about supper of Wonder bread and corn syrup (if that), how the child feels with no toys, no place to play, no new clothes (ever), how the child feels about the world seen in a TV screen, visible but never attainable. Consider how the child feels about a life with no future. [paragraph omitted for space reasons] By the way, a few of you will dismiss this argument as emotional and irrelevant. Consider whether you would feel that way if the child were yours. It's neither overly emotional nor irrelevant; after all, emotions are what the issue is about. However, it is very, very incomplete. At a minimum, add in the amount by which AA discrimination against whites perpetuates racism. Remember that from Brown vs. the Board of Education? ANY racial discrimination perpetuates racism to a certain extent. The question here is whether racism is more hurt or more helped by AA. If this is too abstract for you, imagine a racially neutral white man denied a job which is given to a clearly less qualified black. Hey, guess that helped his attitudes towards blacks, didn't it? If he's in a position to dole out jobs later, he's sure going to give a lot to them to blacks over whites, huh? Another factor is recognizing its end. If we embark upon a course of action which is clearly only beneficial as a temporary measure, we'd better be damn sure we have some way of recognizing when it is no longer useful, and a graceful way to tell its beneficiaries that they're on their own. Otherwise, it could outlive its usefulness, becoming that which it strives against, or alienate so many in its leaving that it does more harm than good. Where are these in your "moral arithmetic"? Real life is rarely as simple as a comparison of two numbers, and this is no exception. Tim Maroney, still undecided