| >We don't interview each participant to ask them how they were traumatized, we only look at the statistics. Yes, because implementing something like that would be near impossible from a legislative standpoint. Legislation has to be spelled out and enforceable or it will do nothing. And affirmative action is not there just to prop up the numbers. It is there to push companies to hire minority groups. There are two reasons for this. For example, on college campuses, the supreme court has upheld that it is lawful to use race as a factor in admissions because a well rounded or diverse student body is a desirable trait that will produce better outcomes for all involved. Including the white men. The second is that it is trying to undo the many, many years of oppression (i.e. slavery) that carries generation to generation. Programs like affirmative action are trying to tip the scales for these descendants to give them a chance to compete. After all, they were systematically disenfranchised as a race. It makes sense that we attempt to systematically bring them back up to speed with the rest of the population. >we just assume .. numbers need to be fixed first and then the rest of it will follow We don't have to assume anything. It is both empirically evident (as well as just "duh") that getting a higher percentage of minorities into jobs and higher education will result in a higher percentage of their children having the opportunity to do so without something like affirmative action in the future. |