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The Pros And Cons Of Affirmative Action

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Minorities are found all over the world, and tend to be disadvantaged; Brown and Langer recognize this and address the attempts that have been made to equalize lives through affirmative action. The disadvantages around the world, along with the affirmation tactics, vary from place to place, but some of the main places analyzed in the article, “Does Affirmation Action Work”, are the United States, Malaysia, South Africa, and India. Through analyzing some of these places, Brown and Langer were able to identify some of the negative and positive aspects of affirmative action. One of the first things to consider is what affirmation actually does. It is intended to help readdress inequality, but unfortunately this process sometimes highlights …show more content…

One instance of this is when George W. Bush referred to it as the “soft bigotry or low expectations” (53). This statement suggests that the poor should be upheld to the same standards and expectations as the rest. According to these standards, minorities should work their way from the bottom up without the extra help. There are two ways to look at this idea, and it is up for the individual to decide whether or not giving the extra help is okay or not. The first view is realizing that minorities often face more challenges than the average person, but secondly there is also the fact that the extra help can be taken advantage of. Just as most things in the world, this is probably a case that requires a fine balance between taking affirmative action, and stepping back to prevent corruption. Affirmative action can help many people, and in some cases not the intended ones. Unfortunately there have been cases of corrupt entrepreneurs manipulating the process to benefit them instead of the people who actually need the help. Along with that, Brown and Langer also made the statement that “the equation is simple: more benefits to more people, equals more votes”, which is one of the reasons why various forms of aid get so manipulated (54). To prevent this, the article suggests emphasizing that affirmation needs to target the poor and keep it out of the wealthy’s

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He asserts that these programs are not only discriminating against blacks, but actually contribute to expanding the gap between black and white Americans, which is judged in terms of the quality of jobs, educational achievement, and equal pay. As Katznelson argues for the necessity and the importance of affirmative action in the present world, he urges readers that policy makers from then and now have failed to consider how unjust and how unfairly blacks had been treated by the government before any movements or revolutions became normalized in the

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Risk-taking is someone doing a task and not knowing what will happen after, whether it ends in a good or bad way. People can take risks for many different reasons, the satisfaction of themselves, to help somebody else, etc. When people take risks there is no way to know what the result is going to be, I think that’s why a lot of people are willing to take risks, the majority of people believe that the result will be profitable to them. In Alan Gratz’s book ‘Refugee’ Josef, a young Jewish boy lives through his life as a refugee with his family as they try to escape to Cuba while Nazis try to confiscate Germany. In ‘When the Waters Rise’ by Alex Shultz, 4 teenage boys help + rescue a world full of people after a devastating hurricane hits Houston,

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Affirmative action in the United States I believe that affirmative action negatively affects on both minorities and majorities. From a minority’s perspective, the idea that minorities can receive benefits from others due to their race, ethnicity, or gender can cause them to feel segregated against anyway. Since the term, ‘minority,’ no longer applies to every females or person of color today, female students or students of color with affluent backgrounds may feel segregated and devalued even when they did not get any special benefit from affirmative action policies. Majorities, in this case, male or white students, will also get discouraged because this can be regarded as a form of reverse discrimination, especially with racial affirmative action programs.

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These cartoons depict affirmative action as a hurdle that whites must jump over and as a pedestal upon which a minority stands to reach the top of the admissions mountain more quickly. By providing an unfair means through which minorities can more easily gain admittance into universities, affirmative action does a disservice to majority races. The added difficulty to enter university reveals the additional burden

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RESEARCH PAPER Affirmative action is a set of governmental policies which tend to give privileges to minorities who suffered from discrimination in the past by providing them with access to educational and employment opportunities. First nuanced by Franklin Roosevelt with war-related work, Affirmative action only became an executive order (10925) in 1961 under John F. Kennedy to ensure that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color or national origin, to which was later on added sex by Lyndon Johnson in 1965 (11246). From that day till now affirmative action has been a controversial issue in America, with some who find it fair and some other who consider it as a reverse discrimination.

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In this essay, I will be objecting to the use of affirmative action—a policy that aims to favor members of certain groups who are perceived to suffer from discrimination in society—with the help of Thomas Hill’s The Message of Affirmative Action. In addition, I will be arguing against certain arguments in What Good Am I? by Laurence Thomas.

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Rohit Joshi, who serves as a student at John Hopkins University, states in his article, “It’s Time to Change Affirmative Action in Colleges,” that affirmative action “over­corrects” racial “bias” by providing minorities with “advantages.” Joshi’s word choice conveys his criticizing tone which enhances his idea that affirmative action does not help minorities in a fair manner. Instead of equalizing every student’s benefits, Joshi believes affirmative action provides minorities with more benefits that discriminate against non­minorities. In response to Stanford University’s consideration of re­evaluating affirmative action policies, authors of The Diversity Myth: "Multi­culturalism" and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, David Sacks and Peter Thiel, state that the purpose of affirmative action was to “redress” discrimination and develop “integration” among enrolled students.

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While preparing for this essay, i had to research both modern day and historical examples of discrimination. And while thinking about discrimination and means to overcome it, it became evident to me, that while it is critical to ensure equality of all members of society, and make sure that there is no room for bias and discrimination, it is also important to keep in mind that the anti-discrimination measures we take, can accidentally lead to undesired effect of discriminating other groups. An example of one such debate is debate around Proposition 209 enacted in California on november 3rd 1997, which in short is "A state ban on all forms of affirmative action was passed in California: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." It is my hope that one day we will live in a society that is free of descrimination, and in which the only criteria by which people are going to be judged is

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This idea is conflicted against Affirmative Action however. Affirmative Action aims to help disadvantaged underrepresented minority groups, but it is ironic that most disadvantaged people in this country are white people who

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In this essay, Affirmative Action is looked upon as a positive attribute to minorities as a whole. In addition, it is a stepping stone that was put into place for minorities to be able to thrive. With Affirmative Action, there are more fair opportunities for an individual other than a Caucasian male or female. Thomas Jefferson said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are treated equally…” this was embedded in the American way of life, but are all men created equally? Minorities in America are already at a disadvantage from birth.

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9. One of the goals of affirmative action was to promote educational and vocational access for underprivileged minority groups. The idea behind the program was to counter the socioeconomic trends that had been historically developed in the United States. The benefits of affirmative action are that it promotes diversity, it can eliminate socioeconomic differences, stop stereotypes, helps people achieve their goals, and breaks the glass ceiling. The consequences of affirmative action are that it promotes discrimination in reverse, it continues to reinforce stereotypes, and it lessens the achievements that minority groups obtain because they are labeled as having received help.

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These allies also see Affirmative action as a way to compensate and repay minorities for the decades upon decades of slavery and oppression, two hundred forty-five years to be exact. Supporters place the argument that labels are made to identify cultural strengths or obstacles that and that minority status is a framework for the interpretation or determination of what constitutes achievement (Butler

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“None of this is to deny that there are some people in America who are racist and that there are some features of American life that are legacies of a much more racist past. But racism is not everywhere, and there is very little at a place like Stanford. Certainly, no one has accused Stanford's admissions officers of being racist, so perhaps the real problem with affirmative action is that we are pretending to solve a problem that no longer exists. Moreover, there is a growing sense that if affirmative action has not succeeded in ending discrimination after 25 years of determined implementation, then perhaps it is time to try something else”. (Paragraph 10, Stanford magazine)

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Why is it a Sin to Kill a Mockingbird The mockingbird sings to entertain the listener, it is also a symbol of peace. It is a sin to kill a mockingbird because it doesn't hurt anyone and is innocent. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Miss Maudie said, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.

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Despite over fifty years of laws and legislation to combat racial discrimination, the majority of Americans still feel that race-based issues persist based on several modern polls. With affirmative action, this is a significant controversy in college admissions and employment processes. Because education and work contribute to people's livelihoods, affirmative action impacts many individuals differently in the United States. Affirmative action, however, is harmful to society overall because it acts as a catalyst for conjuring racial problems while deterring from a system which fosters skill and potential. Affirmative action, in reality, intensifies the racial prejudice in America through reverse discrimination.(anecdote) When I was young, I remember watching that one television show where one of the episodes predicted, laughed, and mocked about acceptance biases towards Hispanic and African Americans, while being against White and Asian Americans in job applications for an unknown corporation as if it was a humorous circus performance (simile).

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