this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
52 points (100.0% liked)
World News
22083 readers
98 users here now
Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Well, I suppose it depends on your definition of racism, but to me giving preferential treatment to one group and lowering treatment of another based on race is a form of racism. From my understanding of the case, Asian and White applicants needed substantially higher SAT scores to be admitted.
That's not how it worked at all. Affirmative Action actually benefited white women more than any other minority group.
Affirmative Action was never about "lowering treatment for one race vs. another." It was about evening the playing field. That evening is gone and we have no solution as a replacement. It will demonstrably negative for minority groups (that aren't white women, lol) all because white people couldn't stand the idea of not having a leg up in something.
Which, btw, is the reason why your definition of racism is flawed, if not flat out incorrect. There has to be a power imbalance for racism to be real. Me calling someone a cracker doesn't mean anything compared to the structural inequalities I face as a black person. One of the few structural benefits I did have is gone now thanks to mediocre white people seething. Does that make sense?
I understand where you’re coming from since it is literally true, but fails to account for context. Consider a marathon in which half the participants were given 10 pound weights on each leg. Halfway through the race, the judges ruled those participants shouldn’t have weights on. Is the race now fair, since everyone is being treated equally? Of course not - they were immensely disadvantaged from the outset, so the only way to try to approach some level of fairness is to give them advantages to make up for their initial handicap. In theory, AA is meant to be corrective action to restore equity, at which point it can be dropped because it’s no longer necessary. AA isn't perfect and really needed to be replaced with less of a bandaid solution, but it was better than nothing which we now have.
Incidentally, this is also why “race blindness” is considered a bad thing in social justice. In theory it would be ideal that you don’t treat people differently, but in practice it means ignoring their disadvantages.