So yeah. This is my first blog.
So I'm in a government class at my local high school, and today I was assigned a reading in the text book. I, of course, read the assignment, only to have myself sitting here wondering what is right and what is wrong.
Part of the assignment covered majority-minority districts. For those of you who might actually read this and don't know what that means...majority-minority districts are voting areas that the state governments draw. These districts in particular encompass a minority in the United States (aka African-Americans or hispanics), making it easier for them to elect someone of their own ethnicity to the House of Representatives. Although this has led to helping represent previously (and perhaps still presently) oppressed people, I still find the idea rather appaling. I'm not saying that I'm not all for equal representation of different ethnic groups in the United States, but shouldn't political ideology come before skin color? In all honesty, the majority-minority districts become breeding grounds for racism. Particularily in southern states, it's like pitting the blacks against the whites, and by favoring the blacks by giving them oddly-shaped districts to their advantage, it's only being unfair to the other ethnicities in the area. In this regard, shouldn't the United States focus more on the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people? If that's what we really aim for, then it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to throw a perhaps not as strong candidate for representation to a group of people to replace another who could possibly do a better job of representing the needs of a people, regardless of skin color or race or social class or whatever the case may be.
I guess it just bothers me so much that we say race shouldn't be important, and that we've made so many strides to dissapate racism, yet we still have political affirmative action that tend to favor one group over the other. Shouldn't we all be equal, like the Constitution says? Why is the Supreme Court not overruling majority-minority districts?
It's just another flaw in the American political system. Oh well, it'll never be perfect.
Since we are not perfect is the exact reason that affirmative action policies are necessary. We need to first recognize the privilege that certain people hold, me included, acknowledge that privilege and work to create the same opportunities for those who do not have the luxury of privilege. I am a white, male, living in the US, from a middle class family - I have had just about every privilege in teh book, yet I know that others have not had the same advantages and understand the need for policies to 'level the playing field.' Sure affirmative action policies need reform, but for now they are all we have to start reaching for an equal and just society.
- Challenge yourself everyday, if you don't then it is a wasted day.
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The following comment is intended to help you get more reads on your blog. If you don't want your writing critiqued feel free to stop here, and if you don't like my advise feel free to ignore it.
First, having a discriptive title (for example you could have used a title like "Why Majority-Minority Districts Don't Help Us" or "How Our Voting System Supports Racism") would get you more reads from people who would see this post is about a topic that interests them, and/or who only read posts with titles that look like they had some thought put into them (rather then saying you don't want to put the extra thought into writing a title, which implies you might not have put much thought into your post either).
Second, you end very pesimistically saying "Oh well, it'll never be perfect." There are certainly benefits to being realistic, but to me this sounds like it could be an excuse to not even bother trying to change anything. Being more idealistic can encourage more comments on how to be part of a change, rather then seeming to shut down conversations.
I hope you find this comment helpful.
Sorry for the seeming to shut off commentary, as you stated, but I tend to state things the way I see them, despite how they come out sounding. I did not intend to dissuade any conversation - but in all reality, perfection is in itself imperfect, as it is unable to be obtained. A fact of life that I deemed necessary to end this post with. But thank you for your comments, they are greatly appreciated.