Affirmative Action

The Most Injust Policy

I grow weary of affirmative action. The old saying "two wrongs don't make a right" certainly applies here. Racism is racism, no matter what you call it, or how you toss the dice, if it walks like a klansman, talks like a klansman, and discriminates like a klansman, then it's a racist. No one who is now benifitting from Affirmative action ever experienced, knew anyone who experienced, or knew anyone who knew anyone who experienced slavery. America is a free country, and I thought that meant equality for all. Guess I was mistaken. I just found out that a prestegious Pittsburg college with the initials CMU, to which I hope someday to go, subscribes to this archaeic way of thinking. In fact, even the way in which this travesty of a concept was presented on their website was astonishing. It was firstly evident that the writers of the page had no idea what Affirmative Action even was, and probably, in their collegially idealistic leftist-infested minds, this was truly the most fair and just system ever contrived. If they truly understood the concept, then I am sure that these craftsmen (or women, sigh) could have made the Halocaust seem a minor ethnic conflict, and Hitler himself a benifit to the landscape of Europe. Affirmative Action is harmful to everyone, from majorities to minorities, and from employers to employees. Majorities suffer from being denied opportunities and advancements, that they may be most qualified for or deserving of, because of the family into which they were born. Minorities do not have to be necessarily the most qualified/deserving applicants for opportunities and rewardsto recieve them. This results in deterioration of the respect and social standing of minorities. Also, because of being given undeserved rewards, minorities would have herder times finding jobs without Affirmative Action, due to poorer skills. Employers suffer from being forced, through government legislation, to fill certain quotas of employess, not by skill or merit, but by somethinbg far more arbitrary: skin color. This will also make things unfair for some minorities. A scenario: An African-American man applies for a job at a small, local CPA office. The hiring company has quotas of of 25% African-American, 25% Asian-American, 25% Hispanic-American, and 25% Caucasian-American, and the have 20 jobs, they must hire five of each race. The company already has 5 Caucasian-, 5 African-, 5 Hispoanic-, and 4 Chineese-American, and a Vietnameese-American is also applying for the job. If the African-American has ten years of experience, and the Vietnameese-American is fresh out of college, then who will get the job? The Asian-American. Affirmative action is also offensive besause it doesn't see people for who they are as people, or even as people at all, but as numbers to fill a quota. This unequal, discriminatory policy all boils down to the ancient (as in societies that don't even exist any more) policy of submitting offenders to their offenses. And, as Mahatma Ghandi once said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves everyone blind...and toothless."