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From: cw@eagle.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Moral Arithmetic and AA
Message-ID: <999@eagle.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Jun-83 22:53:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: eagle.999
Posted: Mon Jun 13 22:53:20 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jun-83 03:20:11 EDT
Lines: 36


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.

If you feel the first quantity is the larger, at least you know where you
stand.  But do not be surprised at the anger the blacks have at your attitude.
AA is clearly not perfect, but it is a fragile thread leading to a
better world; if you break that thread, you must replace it with something
specifically, demonstrably, and immediately better.  Nothing I have seen
in this discussion comes even close.

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.

Charles