Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!wivax!linus!allegra!eagle!harpo!floyd!trb From: trb@floyd.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: A Honky Speaks - (nf) Message-ID: <1555@floyd.UUCP> Date: Thu, 2-Jun-83 16:35:30 EDT Article-I.D.: floyd.1555 Posted: Thu Jun 2 16:35:30 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Jun-83 01:22:22 EDT References: hpda.408 Lines: 119 Beatriz Infante observes that AA is working because she has noticed that the quality of recruitable black engineers is much improved over the past few years. That's plain for her to see, and that's good in some sense, but for her to say that that's evidence that AA is working is avoiding some issues. If "working" means that it is producing results, then AA is working. But if we want results that are efficient with respect to the resources squandered, can you call that "working?" I can probably produce my own light bulbs for some outrageous capital outlay, does that mean I'm better off not depending on the store bought variety? Blacks should certainly have educational opportunities. I'm just asking whether the productive ends justify the AA means. Beatriz brings up an interesting point: It takes time for education to affect a whole generation; you can't take a kid in high school and say *zap* you're now receiving equal education - the process must start much earlier, before elementary school. Is AA teaching today's generation that they are all receiving an equal chance? I think not. It's teaching some students who yesterday might have received no chance that today they are receiving preferred treatment. It's teaching some students that the squeakiest wheel gets greased, and if you have a problem involving discrimination, you'd better belong to a group with a powerful lobby, like blacks, women, Hispanic surnamed, etc, depending on location. Is this what we want to teach? Is this what's meant by equality? Is AA (as bvi puts it) educating to affect a whole generation? I would think that the desired effect of AA on the whole generation would be for us to look at all of us as deserving equal opportunity, but I know that when I think of AA that I think of blacks, women, minorities, quotas, ridiculous meetings at work, and such, rather than just lots of equal people. I think that's the wrong way to lead the whole generation. In a previous netnews item, I disagreed with ssc-vax!jobe (the person who posted the root note of this discussion) and claimed that everyone has problems like his. After jobe said that he was the only black hacker in his vicinity, I mentioned that there were at least five excellent black hackers I could think of where I went to school. These two claims generated a bit of heat for me. When I said that everyone had similar problems, I wasn't trying to belittle the plight of blacks or to ignore their problems. I was trying to suggest that many of us are unsatisfied with our present situations and often we feel that we are being passed over for advancement opportunities because we possess some attribute which our management doesn't fancy. This could be anything from race to religion to circle of friends to physical appearance to age. I don't see how blackness is any different from fatness or scruffiness when it comes to not being promoted. You might say that a person can get thin or neat but a person can't become white, but I claim that denying your rights to individuality isn't the solution, so if a black could become a white, that would be just as unreasonable. Again, I certainly believe that blacks have trouble advancing in many companies, and if you look around I think you'll realize that it's not just blacks but anyone who doesn't fit into an unreasonably strict mold. Some people wondered about my standards when I said that there were five excellent black hackers at my school. By excellent, I meant that they have no trouble finding work and that they are successful as hackers. They excel in that sense, but I can't that all five of them are first-rate wizards, though at least one of them is, maybe more. Anyway, one of the old hacker pals to which I referred called me up upon reading my netnews and we talked for a while about the how's and why's of the black hackers where we went to school (Worcester Tech (Worcester, Mass)). He noted that back when he started school (early '70's) blacks were not welcome at fraternity parties, and certainly not at fraternities. Attitudes like that kept blacks out of many social circles, and hackers tended to be liberal-minded. Hackers were also outcasts. In the good old days, Chem-E's made the big bucks and they were the glory engineers. Then EE's ME's and down on the bottom were Civils. Way below that somewhere came the CS majors, a low life form known to the WPI engineers as "gweepers." CS's didn't make as much money as engineers in those days and they were looked down upon as nerdy jerks (by engineers!). I remember that there was more than one engineering student who would only go to the computer center in the middle of the night for fear of being seen by her peers. Times changed, and now the CS majors aren't ridiculed any more, and the Chem-E's are the ones who get their degrees and then get a job bagging at the Grand Union. I've noticed that people don't seem to go into CS for the love of it like they used to, but that's fodder for another discussion. Anyway, it seems that when/where I went to school CS's were outcasts, and, as such, accepted blacks, who were also outcasts. In my further discussions with my old pal we discussed the plight of the black hackers today. He explained that there was a feeling among them especially in the suit & tie industries like banking and insurance that middle and upper management was still a white man's world. I suggested that even as a young bright Jew I didn't have much of a chance in that world because of my image. He also told me about some of his own experience as a consultant and I realized that no matter what a corporate image is, if your company's clients are bigoted then you won't be able to make it as a black, and if you don't fit into the mold then you will be stuck because it's pretty impossible to prove that it's manifest destiny that you should be promoted. After reading all this stuff I hope you might see why I don't like ill-conceived broad stroke programs like AA. They might produce results, but at some unknown cost in money, effort and anguish. And while it's true that they do produce some result, there are still very real and subtle problems of bigotry and prejudice which slip through such a broad program. Also, people rarely talk about the hatred generated by the inequitable policies of AA and the result that that hatred generates. Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ (201) 386-6491