Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!harpo!eagle!cw 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