Affirmative Action in 2014 are you for it?

For those of us who are happily oblivious to Twitter, what on Earth are you talking about?

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who read this a few times and was totally confused.

@Hawaii_Jake – I googled “american airlines tweet” and got this.
Good luck making a connection to affirmative action, however.

Define your terms. What does affirmative action mean in 2014? What areas? What people?

we still need it here in Missouri. Women & minorities are not hired or paid like white men.

I am in favor of affirmative action past, present and in the future. The link that @Hawaii_Jake provided to the tweet that Sarah sent says “hello my name [is] Ibrahim and I’m from Afghanistan. I’m part of Al Qaida and on June 1st i’m gonna do something really big bye”

Whether it is merely a joke, it is obviously a threat that the airline has to take seriously. It would not matter if Sarah had said that she was a Caucasian Catholic. Affirmative Action has nothing to do with this tweet.

Given that racism is alive and well in much of the United States, I’d say yes, we need it.

There are two questions here: Something vaguely about Affirmative Action, and something specific about that Twitter event yesterday.

Re: Twitter -

I didn’t see it personally, but a member of a Facebook Group I admin for was watching (with perverse glee) and posting screenshots in-group, so I’m aware of what was going on as it happened.

My only real thought was that it seemed the girl was quite young – I’d be surprised if she was all of 16. Those of us who were already grown-ups (or nearly so – I was 15) at the time of 9/11 know exactly what a big deal that kind of message is.

This girl has grown up with no memory of the actual event, what the world was like for the average American before it, or what the world became for the average American afterward. She doesn’t remember several days when no planes crossed the skies afterward, or the months of star-spangled jingoism that followed. She certainly doesn’t know anything about the first bombing.

Literally all she knows is a 13 year old joke about Al-Qaida, that the airline still has to take seriously because for some reason we’re still involved in a war that we never hear a damned thing about, with no end in sight, because it is still serving to line the pockets of the people who own our government.

You can be against it, but calling affirmative action racism (WTF is “reverse” racism anyway?) is ridiculous. It’s about acknowledging that people suffer from racism, and remedying that. Whether a particular policy is right or wrong might be another question.

But I don’t see what the tweet scenario (link to a story about it) has to do with affirmative action.

@bolwerk Hiring a non-qualified minority to fill a ‘minority-only’ position, is what people usually mean by that.

@KNOWITALL: another myth that just won’t die. I mean, really. That happens somewhere between rarely and never.

@bolwerk No, actually it happens quite a bit, in my area anyway. You’d have to be from a white area with few minorities before you’d notice, perhaps.

@KNOWITALL: at worst, it probably means that whitey there doesn’t hatch such highfalutin workers either. The cases where workplace affirmative action is common are often positions where the standards are…troubling to begin with (e.g., with police).

Regardless, hiring an unqualified over a qualified applicant for racial reasons is basically illegal.

I didn’t find this news out because I am on Twitter. In fact I don’t have a Twitter account. However it is my fault I didn’t provide a link! Sorry gang! I had it copied but I never pasted it

Here is a rundown according to USA Today

@pleiades Please explain how this has anything to do with Affirmative Action. I, like many others, see no link, and therefore cannot understand your question.

@bolwerk I’ve worked with two black people my entire life, and I’ve worked in real estate, a Lamborghini dealership and media, a little high falutin’ I’d say….lol

On one hand, I can see how it would reduce opportunities for white, esp. poor or even middle class. On the other hand, it helps non-whites, who might be at the bottom of the economic ladder. I think I got some advantage from AA getting into undergrad, but it moved me up from “below poverty line” to well above. My roommate during grad school picked strawberries when he was younger. He was the son of a Hispanic gardener. He likely got into college under AA. Now he runs his own law firm, and makes a lot more money than me. So AA helps poor people escape poverty, which reduces inequality and the need for govt handouts.

@KNOWITALL – your argument seems to be that you work in industries that have potentially high paying, customer facing, jobs and have only worked with two “black people”...

but affirmative action has caused unqualified people to get hired due to race “quite a bit”...

Something is missing, and I think you may have made @bolwerk‘s head explode.

@funkdaddy In my area, minorities are not hired in many ‘high-falutin’ industries, and when they are it appears to be because management needs the token minority, then when they are let go, no other’s are hired (“well we tried.”) It’s not that difficult to understand is it?

@funkdaddy: hurr, most of my friends are black.

@KNOWITALL: usually companies have diversity requirements. Maybe you or the OP disagree with that, but it’s a whole other stretch to say the diversity requirements result in an unusually high number of unqualified candidates being selected.

@bolwerk Companies with diversity requirements IN MY AREA don’t seem to have a lot of qualified applicants coming in. So if two minority candidates come in, perhaps they’ll take the most qualified, even though for that particular job they are not actually qualified. Does that make sense?

I have nothing against ANY minorities, my first real boyfriend and my third were Vietnamese.

@KNOWITALL – if that happens a lot, why have you only worked with two black people

I’m not arguing with you, or attributing a whole section of beliefs on you, I’m just trying to point out the obvious contradiction in what you’re saying, and why it makes no sense.

Reframed, as another hot topic, to take race out of it. If I said I was tired off all these unqualified women getting hired in tech at my company, and you asked how many women I worked with, if my response was “two, in the past 10 years”, my argument that unqualified women are being hired “quite a bit” wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

@funkdaddy Oh, I see what you’re saying….because this is still essentially a small town-type area, many of us know each other, and we all talk about it.

Race is still a pretty touchy subject here for some people, and those of us with minority friends try to keep in the loop.

@KNOWITALL: I can believe that it happens now and then, but it doesn’t mean you should jump to the least benign conclusion. Most probably they are selecting a member of the protected class who is comparable to the participants in the dominant class – maybe impaired in some way, but not utterly unqualified. They might even have business reasons to want someone who is culturally fluent in the protected class’s culture. Do African Americans males have different tastes than in cars than white women? Do African American women have different tastes than white women in clothes? There are benign reasons for diversity policies that have jack to do with affirmative action.

But where workplace affirmative action is operative, selecting someone unqualified for racial reasons constitutes an abject impact on the more qualified candidate and pretty much gaurantees a winning lawsuit by the injured party if discovered. Courts might take remedial action to require hiring more people in a protected class in some cases, but in those cases the company in question has probably already committed gross acts of discrimination.

@bolwerk When previous experience in the field is required of everyone except the new guy, it’s kind of obvious, but okay.

I’m mixed about this even though I know full well racism is still prevalent in America. I just can’t get behind any initiatives that promote people for their sex or race alone, and not their performance or qualifications.

I also believe many minorities, especially in the inner cities, oppress themselves. Why are their projects and schools like war zones? Blaming rich white men is not going to solve the problems we’re facing, and will only promote more racism. Most white people whom I know are suffering and struggling too to survive.

I’m very liberal, but this is one issue I simply can’t get behind progressives on no matter how hard I try to. Everybody needs to be responsible for their actions regardless of their sex or race.

@Paradox25 Why are their projects and schools like war zones? Redlining, for one reason.