SCAR wrote:I don't want to get into a big discussion on affirmative action but lets just say that the reason laws and practices like that exist is because historically the people in positions of authority were abusing that authority by only giving people chances who looked like them. If there were no abuses of power there would be no need for those sorts of laws. The fact is that it is human nature to gravitate to those whose backgrounds and interests are like your own. Minorities, particularly blacks are about 200-400 years behind the curve in terms of these types of "playing fields." I have to disagree with your somewhat un-informed remarks about Women as well. Just because they don't please you with the way they do their jobs in broadcasting doesn't mean that every single woman is not qualified to do it. What if every male or every white person were judged by the intelligence or competence of a Kevin Federline. "White Males shouldn't be allowed to perform job X because K-Fed is terrible at it." Sounds silly right? But that is how minorities and women get treated on many different things in society. Of course I simplified things to illustrate a point but the point is still sound. When you start using wide sweeping brushes to paint cultures or groups of people, I think you start to tread on thin ice.
My issue with affirmative action is this: I remember watching a news report once and some African-American reporterette really screwed up the live shot. Regrettably, one of my first thoughts was "I wonder how many competent people were passed over for that job because that station had to fulfill a quota." Now, that reporterette could have been tops in her class, highly-accomplished professional, someone who put the hours in and simply made one mistake. But because something like affirmative action, by definition, gives less-qualified people opportunities (if they were fully qualified, there wouldn't be an issue), it becomes impossible to look PAST race and gender and sexual preference.
Look at a hospital. Suppose you need surgery to save a life. I want the most qualifed person operating on me, regardless of race. Right? And when my father was put in that situation, needing quadruple bypass surgery, I'm so very thankful that the best person operated on him. The fact that that person happened to be African-American, well, didn't really matter to me.
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