Lifelong North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms quietly went to the Good Ole' Boy's Club in the sky this past weekend. While I'm always respectful of the departed, I have to admit I didn't really shed any tears for ole' Jesse. Growing up in the Tarheel state, I'm intimately familiar with his flavor of bigotry and stark racial politricks. He used the whole "Negroes are evil and not to be trusted" style of campaigning his forefathers like Ben Tillman and Strom Thurmond perfected to play on the hidden sentiments of many Southerners.
While Helms list of political sins is lengthy, perhaps no incident personifies this tactic more than his infamous "hands" anti-affirmative action ad employed to deep-six the Senatorial aspirations of his black opponent, Harvey Gantt back in 1990. You know it, you've seen it, but here it is just in case.
Yep, he went all the way there. And he did it because he knew it would work. And it did, as he barely squeaked by his African American opponent. You could argue that the subliminal undertones of this ad delivered the margin of victory.
And you wonder why I have no love for CNN's Alex Castellanos.[1]
18 years later, with ole' Jesse 6 feet under, I'm suddenly thinking about affirmative action yet again. While there's lots of talk about the war and the economy, one seldom discussed undertone of this year's Presidential campaign is the likelihood that as many as three Supreme Court judges could retire in the next term. Since those likely to retire lean somewhat liberal, it's a given that John McCain would replace these guys with staunch Conservatives, upsetting the relative judicial balance that currently exists. Abortion would be dealt with. Gay rights too. And somewhere on that checklist would certainly be the issue of affirmative action, which McCain (in a quite flipflop from his position as recently as 2000) would look to eliminate altogether.
I'm sure many anti-affirmative action proponents would tell you that Barack Obama's thus-far successful run for Prez would signal the fact that affirmative action is no longer needed. And on some level, they just might have a point.
But I beg to differ. For the average non-Rockstar Negro™ seeking a job, reality is that a need for structured government programs to ensure equality in hiring is still very necessary. Just google the term 'racial employment discrimination' if you need a refresher. It's not exactly 1960, but we haven't come as far as the Obama campaign might like you to think.
I'm not going to do too far off the deep end about my Day Job[2], but let's just say I know a thing or two about which I speak. To wit, I was an affirmative action hire. I have no problems putting this out there. There is no shame attached to this. No lasting stigma. Reality is, my school wasn't a huge recruiting target until some pressure was put on the company to start looking for minorities. I was hired in such a program, along with many others from my Negro College HBCU. And over time, each and every one of us has continued to ascend the corporate ladder. There was no weak link in the bunch. Everyone was fully qualified. Nobody was hired simply because they were black. We've all panned out, probably well beyond what anyone at this company could have imagined. We just needed a chance.
Affirmative action opened that door. Our personal competency kept us inside.
Again, I'm not trying to throw too much out there, but I think the need still exists, at least in subjective terms like employment. For more objective areas like education, particularly issues like admission, the area's a bit grayer. I will concede that much.
Either way, this is yet another reason why I'll vote for Obama. He acknowledges that his own children shouldn't benefit from affirmative action, by virtue of their socioeconomic status. Yet it shouldn't be done away with because of the issues of bias that still exist. I couldn't have said this better, although you might argue that I just did.
I'm sure Jesse wouldn't agree, but then again, what can he do about it now?
Question: Do you think affirmative action is still a necessary evil? Are there some things about AA that should perhaps be adjusted to fit the times?
Affirmative Action, Another Possible US Presidential Debate Topic? [Digital Journal]
Helms was ahead of campaign curve [Politico]
[1] He was the mastermind behind this ad, just in case you were wondering. Lee Atwater was smiling inside.
[2] Because I've got a mortgage and 529 plan to worry about.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Affirmative Action: Still Necessary or Totally Obsolete!??
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Average Email
Average FAQ
Average Bio
AB @ AOL BlackVoices
AB @ NPR
AB @ WashingtonPost
Posts
16 AverageComments™:
I'm feeling your stance on this. I won't say it's obsolete, but I don't believe it's as necessary as it once was. With the current discrimination laws in place, I thinks it's more relevant for us to focus on enforcement of those laws instead of mandating hiring quotas. I respect the spirit in which affirmative action was founded, but there's something ironic about trying to defeat racist behavior with race-based hiring.
http://www.darkangelsunite.org
i don't need to write too much.
the answer is, yzr. affirmative action is the reason i have met the interesting black people from other elite schools, and the reason why i have found half of the friends i have. it's the reason i got into chelsea clinton's high school, it's the reason why goldman sachs hollered at me for an internship.
ok, i made up that last one. completely. but i'm sure someone out there could co-sign that statement wholeheartedly.
NOW! on the flipside! what about your good friend, who just so happens to be of the caucasian persuasion!? ok? what about that guy, having doors repeatedly shut in his face because me and my homies keep on taking all the crucial job opportunities?
think this is a problem? i don't. we're outnumbered. so this scenario happens like 10 fold when you flip the table. plus, they used to rock us with water hoses and beat us. look at emmitt till. the least they can do is let me get that internship at the local ad agency after i busted my balls for 10 years bussing in from the hood to that nice private school to get my education so i could get even with my white peers.
sure, all that sounds a little jumbled and harsh and whatnot. but it's just what goes through people's heads when this debate topic resurfaces.
do i have any in favor of anything i've just said?! lol let me know.
Hey AB,
Just came into agree with you and DCtoBC.com.
I guess I found more to say :-)
The point has to be driven home that with AA, you HAVE to be qualified and that it's not just a Black thing either. White women were the greatest benefactors of AA but for whatever reason, Raheem and Shante are the faces of "reverse racism." Whatever. Becky was riding the hell out of that gravy train for a minute but they wanna front like that wasn't the case.
It's a toss up to me. It may not be needed all across the US anymore but there are some places in the US that are still bitter about it. The last comment was interesting about White Women benefitting from it also. And the names used for the Black people...that's part of it to. As much as we want to be different with naming our children, we need to remember that they carry that name for the rest of their lives. And that includes trying to get a job. Mary and Marquita applying for the same job...Mary will get an interview, even if Mary is Black and Marquita is White (of course without putting their race on the app).
I think it's extremely important to correct a large mistake in your post: the current court voted 6-3 to overturn sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, with only Scalia, Thomas, and Rhenquist (now gone) dissenting. There's no indication that a McCain-appointed collection of judges on the SCOTUS would rule any other way... and even Scalia's objection in his dissent was that it was the job of voters to overturn the law, not of the SCOTUS to invalidate it Constitutionally.
Similarly, it would be very unlikely for any Court to act on the Abortion issue other than how it has acted already, and even Constitutional scholars who agree with the intentions and effects of Roewill tell you that it was a terrible decision in the legal sense. Something desperately needs to be done to fix the judicial-precedent mess that Roe created. There are better ways to guarantee abortion rights (and yes I firmly believe this should be done) than relying on bad law, poorly decided.
Voting for McCain does not guarantee a Conservative court, if there even is such a thing... traditional Conservative vs. Liberal labels are largely meaningless when applied to the SCOTUS, and pasted on by a media too lazy to explain decisions in the proper Constitutional context, and a public too poorly educated to understand even if they tried.
At any rate, George H.W. Bush nominated David Souter, and he regularly votes with the "liberals" on the court.
Take the high road here, AB, don't dumb down the SCOTUS issue... and don't buy into the Democratic scare-tactics. You're a deeper thinker than that.
I was born in 1967. I have written software for a living since I was 16. I got my masters degree in computer science from a "white school". I got into because I wrote an essay. I did not check race on the application.
I can say that I have never used any program. My father told me I didnt need them and he certainly grew up at a time when it was not cool to be black.
And now in 2008, I celebrate the fact that I havent had a job in 12 years as now I employ others.
I managed to do all of this and be black at the same time in this mean country of ours. Its not impossible, right Barak? Right Michelle? (Well, she might not agree) Right Thomas Sowell? Yeah, he might agree.
Was it harder because I am black? Probabbly so. However, I managed to succeed anyway.
I am willing to bet good money that AB would be right where he is in his life if he didnt have Afirmative Action.
"The Struggle" is not necessarily the struggle of black people. It is however the struggle of the uneducated and the uncouth regardless of color.
@daedlus
That's all well and good but you may be beneficiary of some AA that you may not be aware of. How do you that throuought you travels, the person on the other side of the table wasn't put there because of AA. Or even more likely, the person across the table has seen AA in place and understands that he/she should give you a fair chance.
@AB
If I didn't know any better I would have thought that you have a bug in my car listening in on this conversation that I had with my wife. I said the exact same thing that AA in employment is probably still necessary because it's still subjective and with education it's probably not as necessary.
I think AA sucks, but it is never going anywhere because we black people will probably never wield enough clout to create our own "good ol' boy networks" to ensure that "our own" get taken care of. That's just the reality of the situation.
MissJay,
Another sneaky strategy for filtering through resumes is zip code lookups. So if you live in an undesirable neighborhood, you resume could get tossed.
Another strategy that I saw on 20/20 (or maybe 60 Minutes) was the voice test. This brotha was cold-calling employers and used a "White" voice and a "Black" voice. Guess which voice got him interviews. I wonder if I've failed one of those :-D
As far as names go, I have a very safe (read as "White") name but my hometown's got a bad rep and my voice says that I'm a sista. My last name is African but some (White) ppl thought that I would be Japanese or Hawaiian before finally meeting me. I wonder if the last name helps.
I agree with your last point about AA still being needed in non-progressive parts of the US.
Check this out from today's NY Times.
How Much Does It Cost You in Wages if You “Sound Black?”
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/how-much-does-it-cost-you-in-wages-if-you-sound-black/
Ha I have to laugh. I got my job by word of mouth AA. A woman I went to grad school with saw me working at the major retail store I had worked at to support myself while in school after we both had graduated. She mentioned to me that the head of HR at the place, I latter applied to and still work at told her that she needed to hire some black people asap and if she knew any to have them send a resume in. Hell I was'nt shamed or offended I need a j.o.b. to pay off that student loan so I sent in a resume and she saw me liked me and hired me.
anonymiss, I agree with you 150%!
Becky is still riding the gravy train.
and that is the difference of AA for Becky & Shante. AA for Shaunte doesn't mean she gets an EZ Pass like Becky. No, no....Shante gotta come in with proof of every credential, honor, award, degree,a Cisco cert,a MBA,typing 200 words a minute and able to change the oil on the CEO's whip while answering his e-mail. You know what I'm saying?
I think everyone here has missed the point entirely. Is there discrimination in some workplaces? Certainly. Does Affirmative Action solve that? No.
There are a host of federal statutes and even a Constitutional Amendment that provide an avenue of relief for citizens who've been discriminated against. Having institutions enforce either a voluntary or a mandated quota system does not prevent or address discrimination. It's a bribe, folks, not a solution.
You can tell, because when you remove the name of the high school and the applicant's address, and the name, race, and gender of the applicant, and leave only the Social Security Number as an identifier on a California State University admissions application, you get... a lawsuit, brought by minority interest groups against the state university.
It's not about fixing discrimination or promoting equality, it's about bribery and payback. If you're gonna be about that, at least have the guts to admit it.
daedalus,
Affirmative action is really about the inequality of access to opportunity. There are many criteria, some subjective, and some that are not, that are used to screen the desirable candidates from the undesirable ones.
If the methods are the ones likely to be used in your field, or an essay like the one that got you into grad school, you're right - the candidates talent and skill pretty much decide who gets in and who doesn't.
But all of us aren't techies. The subjective methodology that most of us undergo are why you have this mandate.
The first job I had as a stockbroker was with a small branch of a regional firm in my hometown. The owner/manager liked me, and my father's business was headquartered across the street. But he couldn't commit to hiring me, he said, "until I talk to the owner of the building - I don't know if will allow me to hire anybody black to work in here."
This was in 1992 in South Carolina, in the same town where Clinton and Obama held one of their debates this year.
Until we can:
De-niggerize niggers
De-uglify wide noses, big lips, black skin.
we need to go ahead and face the fact that America has three kinds of Negroes.
We in these other two groups of the highly educated elites and the employed have become complicit with our white cousins in throwing our most poverty stricken, most africanized blacks under the bus.
Until you can neutralize the effect that dark brown skin and african features has on those who are the decision makers in this country, we MUST HAVE the police presence that government oversite provides.
I'll agree, there are a lot of things that our community needs to do to get itself together, but just because I have ten dollars doesn't mean I should turn around and say, "the rest of y'all nigras shoulda figured this thing out the first go round."
EBW,
LOL! Yes, you've got to be exceptional to be an AA candidate.
Great discussion. I have something on affirmative action from a Christian perspective; for anyone who might be interested.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi Shahinian
Parables of a Prodigal World
Post a Comment