I'm an African-American, but not in the sense that my skin is a dark shade. Rather, it's a more literal definition, a crossbreed between a father native to the United States and a mother who was and is a citizen of South Africa, although both are "white". But this isn't what the title usually means, and I haven't used it since second grade, when I was told what "African American" more commonly means. But it does demonstrate that, at least on one side of my family, my ancestors were not even in America, pushing the minorities down and whatnot because of stupid prejudices.
As a matter of fact, I also know that my great-grandparents moved to Utah from Germany on my father's side, and that my father is one of the most friendly human beings I have ever seen regardless of color or creed. As for my mother's family, they moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from England, then to South Africa, and continued moving between England and the RSA while she was growing up. Neither family ever actively oppressed anyone, at least to my knowledge. I may not like many of my relatives, and some of them may be judgemental jerks whom I would definitely never associate with if I could help it, but I know we never owned slaves, or actively persecuted anyone of another race, religion, or creed.
But I'm white, and I'm middle-class. Therefore I am responsible for making amends for the horrendous treatment that so many people went through in the past. Apparently my ancestors (half of whom weren't even in this country at the time) have passed the burden of affirmative action and other nonsensical practices on my head. As I said, I am "African-American", more so that many people I know who regularly claim that title for themselves. For the most part, many of today's "African American" population has parents who are both citizens of the Unites States. It's insulting and it's ridiculous. How many scholarships have I not qualified for because the only people eligible are those of a specific decendency (never European, I might point out), for example? It drives me up the wall; I can't tell you how much I hate the situation.
I understand the desire for retribution to be made, whether it be from a collective guilty conscience from the point of view of the "guilty party" or from a sense of justice felt by the "affictited party," but I must protest. Firstly, things like affirmative action seem to me to be racism in a different form, using the color of someone's skin as a measure of their worth. It doesn't help anything. The people who are getting these benefits are aware of the reasons, which helps them to foster a feeling of being hard-done-by and perpetuates the rift between the groups.
I'm probably just bitter over not having the resources to pay for college and seeing it offered more freely to others than to me. It could also be that I am a victim of racism and discrimination myself, but nobody is offering to help me out because of it. After all, my family has supposedly been suppressing the masses for all these years, and I am to pay for their crimes. I'm just really tired of the whole thing. This isn't supposed to be an attack on the system, or on the people who benefit, it is merely a way for me to vent my frustration with my situation in the only way I know how: by complaining about how incredibly unfair it is.
As for anyone who is a proponent of affirmative action, I merely state that I didn't do it, so please don't hold me accountable for correcting the mistakes of others. If you feel that you or others that you see in the world are being oppressed and need this extra help, then help them out all you can. Although perhaps it would be better to give the leg up to people who need it because of merit or need rather than the color of their skin or their gender. That makes a lot more sense to me. If people was more diversity in a workplace or a school, there are other ways of achieving it besides allowing those of specific groups in at lower standards than the rest of us.
Sorry if I offend anyone. It's just how I feel about the matter.
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i understand where you are coming from. great writing.
I feel a great deal of sympathy about your feelings of "disadvantage" but frankly, you benefit from your race and gender even if you are not a direct perpetrator of discrimination.
First, a little history about affirmative action: it was established in the 1960s to remedy past discrimination and to prevent discrimination when qualified individuals are passed over for jobs and denied opportunities because of their race, gender, national origin and, in the case of federal contractors, veterans' status and disability. Thus, affirmative action was never a matter of advantage on the basis of skin color. Affirmative action is also a form of recruitment and outreach. It enables employers to diversify the pool of applicants so that they do not all look like you but reflect the diversity of qualified individuals in this country - be they disabled, female or of color. In higher education, it enables colleges and universities to diversity their applicant pools. Studies have shown that if race-based affirmative action were eliminated, whites would have only a 1.26 percent increased opportunity of admissions because there are so many more white applicants. The oldest form of affirmative action is legacy admissions, where sons of wealthy white males who were alumni could receive an advantage. George Bush is one of those beneficiaries. Is that reverse discrimination too?
Second, by virtue of your skin color, you are advantaged in this country, and I dare say, were the product of forced advantage in Africa. Every time you buy a shirt or drive a car and are not stopped, or speak up in class, you are presumed to be competent and not a criminal. I suspect you attended a high school with Advanced Placement courses and were prepared to attend a respectable college, even if you did not have the money. You were also prepared to take the SATs. Your parents were probably college educated. Hard work is all you need to be welcomed in American society despite your origins in one of the most oppressive societies in history. Your whiteness (and gender) is your ticket for admission to all this nation has to offer.
If you were black, you would be presumed to be incompetent. You attended an inner city school and never learned about the SAT until it was too late, are presumed to be a thief even though your parents were well-educated and you had money to shop, and were stopped by the police for driving in the wrong neighborhood. Discrimination is often subtle these days, but the effect is the same. I am a graduate of an Ivy League law school and yet am followed every time I shop at an upscale department store. As a woman manager, I have to be assertive in order to be recognized, but not too assertive or I will be labled "unfeminine."
Affirmative action only benefits a few persons of color and women (although they rarely admit it), but is constantly used as an excuse for one's failure to gain admittance to a school of one's choice. I suggest you not use it as the perceived barrier or describe it as a form of discrimination. You do not know truly what discrimination is...For more information about affirmative action, go to: http://affirmact.blogspot.com/
I looked back over what I wrote earlier today, and looked at what's been happening in my life lately, and over what you have written. I came to realize that most of what I put down was more a way to vent frustration over a completely unrelated subject in an attempt to validate my fuming with a topic more people could relate to. It really wasn't appropriate, and I am considering retracting this entry entirely. I do feel that this practice isn't carried out properly, and that there are better qualifications to mete out extra help than the chance coloration of the skin or of gender, but these are much harder to immediately identify and would probably, if used, cause just as much controversy as the current criteria.
Most of my problems with getting scholarships and jobs have nothing to do with these criteria in the first place, and digging up my ancestry was neither here nor there. You are right, in this instance I do not know what discrimination means, I only deal with the far less violent pressures put upon me in life situations that can never be compared to the situations in the past. For the most part, I've lived a rather sheltered life. I do wish, although cannot realistically see it becoming practice, that there was a way to generally pay back those who were wronged in the past without trying to balance things out after the fact. Without a time machine and some completely impossible situations, affirmative action is probably the best way to deal with things for the moment.
I am going to try keeping a better reign on my mouth/fingers next time I feel I need to vent, and either choose a topic that is truly bothering me or spew my frustrations somewhere less visible and more useful, such as a private journal.
Actually, I appreciated the opportunity to explain to many such as yourself who have the same misconceptions about affirmative action. Unfortunately, slavery and its aftermath are not easily remedied, especially when stereotypes and biases become part of the psychic and ECONOMIC fabric of our society. There has also been a lot of misinformation about affirmative action and I suspect that it is done to drive a political wedge between otherwise sympathetic groups. It was a tactic used successfully in California and in the national elections.
Thank you for your candor and I wish you well in your career. I am sure you will do quite admirably and perhaps we will read about you in the future... in a good way.:-)