The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #58403 Message #924466
Posted By: Sam L
02-Apr-03 - 10:01 AM
Thread Name: BS: Deciding Affirmative Action
Subject: BS: Deciding Affirmative Action
As this is being decided I feel I've moved to the middle. Bobert's Bush to minorities thread really upset and affected me, and I should apologise generally for being rude in my pro AA position.
I find the arguments against AA unconvincing, petty, unrealistic, the comparison of it to other forms of unspoken, covert, racial discrimination very ridiculous. The legal basis for AA seems to rest on redress of existing discriminatory practice. To deny that ground exists seems to me to willfully ignore demonstrable fact. But though I disagree with these points of view, there they are, all over the place. And I doubt the modest little good AA can do can be really effective when so many people, including many minorities, insist on misunderstanding what it is, what it means, and why it should be. Properly considered, I think it shouldn't stir up what it does, but it does anyway. Maybe it's done all it can really do, it's time to let it go, and hope against hope that we can do better without it.
I've heard that little preparatory gestures have been made to reconsider the legal title that prescriptively supported women's athletics programs in colleges. Sigh.