Affirmative Action Promotes Inequality
January 28, 2012
Thomas Sowell: the strongest critic a program meant to help members of his race?
Last week, The New Yorker published a review of the new book describing the Obama marriage, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage. In true New Yorker fashion, author David Remnick produced a voluminous piece of esoteric aggrandizement, cobbling together five pages of irrelevant narratives and Oval Office anecdotes in an effort to applaud the President and First Lady. A read through the cumbersome and longwinded article reveals that under the auspices of writing a review, Remnick birthed a heinous heap of pro-Obama grandstanding that reeks of unabashed liberal partiality. Like much of what The New Yorker excretes, this is an article to be avoided at all costs.
Or is it?
Buried within this convoluted mass of unfounded admiration lies one excerpt of particular interest. While exploring the state of the Obamas’ personal life, Remnick describes the first couple’s well-educated and distinguished African-American friends. After introducing a series of prominent doctors, attorneys, executives, and legislators, the author observes that in spite of their immense success, they still “talk about how African-Americans of their class and generation feel the weight of race most acutely in relation to affirmative action, sensing that whites often think they have not truly earned their place at Harvard or Princeton or on the medical faculty.”
“How horrible!” Remnick wails; they’re bosom buddies with the President of the United States, leader of the free world, and they still have to shoulder this fundamental insecurity! Something is clearly wrong here! And with that bit of throwaway analysis, the author retreats from the uncomfortable subject of race relations and back to his unbroken string of praise for the First Family. But, despite the inconsequence of Remnick’s discussion, the anecdote reveals something of immense weight; in alluding to the unintentional effects of racial favoritism, it unequivocally verifies what critics of affirmative action have said from the beginning.
In the debate over affirmative action, there is an unfortunate tendency to argue across purposes. Any discussion of racial preference presents two issues. The first is the moral worth of what the policy hopes to do. In other words, are its intentions agreeable to such a degree that the policy is worthy of implementation? It is this contention that supporters dwell on, for who wouldn’t want to promote racial equality in modern society? The second is the righteousness of the processes it sets in motion. Can we implement this policy’s intention in an efficacious and equitable way? It is in this second question that the true political question lies, yet liberals seem unwilling to engage at this level. Instead, they chose to focus exclusively on the first issue, calling anyone who objects to affirmative action “racist anachronisms” for failing to legislate equality. This tactic not only confuses the issue, but it also fails to address the primary problem with affirmative action, namely its potential for inequity.
As much as supporters clamor about the inherent morality of supporting disadvantaged social groups, affirmative action is and will always be a failed doctrine for one simple reason; it is one immense self-contradiction. At its very heart, affirmative action attempts to promote racial equality by institutionalizing inequality in academia, the workforce, and all levels of society. Under the standard of righting centuries of wrongdoings and opening avenues of success to the disenfranchised, liberals have birthed a system that enables the government to assign privilege to certain groups based on race and race alone. Inherent within this designation is a dichotomy that perpetuates racial self-consciousness and tension. When the government is allowed to elevate the interests of one demographic over that of another, equality cannot possibly exist. Instead, a heightened sense race consciousness pervades society, prohibiting progress and undermining the program’s original intent. It is in this way that affirmative action promotes self-defeating processes that more than erase the nobility of the policy’s intent. As The New Yorker illustrates, not even a degree from Harvard or friends in the Oval Office can fix that.
--Nick Desatnick
Reader Comments (2)
As an African I grew up in a class conscious South Africansociety created after the British took over the Cape in 1806. Sir George Grey followed later in that century as governor of the Cape of Good Hope, issuing a decree at one stage which declared the Eastern Cape Fish River as the border between White Farmers and the Xhosa peoples.
Gradually illeterate dark-skinned people were given so-called "homelands" with the noble intent to protect them against unscrupulous travelling traders and give them a chance to develop skills and levels of perfomance to equal those of the peoples of European extraction.
This quickly turned ugly, making the homelands a convenient dumping ground which could be used to bury policital prickly pears.
But it matters little what the British stole from South Africa and the two Rhodesias, what the Belgians caused in the old and now defunct Belgian Congo or the Italians, French, Germans and Portuguese in North, East and West Africa. The all had one thing in commong: they regarded locals as cheap labour to carry of metals, minerals and other commodities which cost these countries a pittance but created untold welath - which was not shared with the African colonies or their inhabitants,
Along with this rape of Africa came the atitude that Europeans were more advanced in knowledge and ability and in general a better class people than blacks. This atitude of superiority contained an inconsiderate approach of "they don't matter" as born out by the misnaming and mispronunciation of places, countries and ethnic groups, and scant respect for aboriginal cultures and traditions.
In a nutshell, the superiority syndrome of the white and other interlopers created deep-seated resentment coupled to a selfconsciousness which even to this day let many black women wear fancy wigs to emulate white women's long hair and cultivate Western pretentions to grandeur alien to African culture.
Smultaneously, native communities in Africa and elsewhere were not allowed to govern their communities and restricted ( e.g. blacks in Southern Africa and Redskins in America and Canada) in where they could live.
They were often left to their own devices as far as schooling was concerned and many did not even learn to read or write.
This all on top of an undercurrent of "leave them be, they are happy as second class citizens" which tranlate to "keep them in their place and undeveloped as they are a very handy source of cheap labour".
Of course this had to backfire some time or other.
But the old saying "a bashed baby becomes a baby basher" holds true in this instance as well. With the advent of equality of opportunity and voting rights, came an unwelcome phenomenon: choosing people to posts because they where of similar persuasion, political and/or ethnicity and colour - not on the basis of ability or insight.
Some of this was given legal status in affirmative action on a grand scale in South Africa and Zimbabwe, bundling out many very capable administrators, specialists and in Zimbabwe's case, very able farmers.
In both countries some sectors are in a terrible mess, down to serious health problems with sewrage management. The lack of management and work ethis, which nobody took the trouble to install in these developing societies, led to a lack of grasp of what the power of governing meant and inevitably caused fraud, misuse and financial favouritism with disastours consequences.
A less measurable tragedy is that people placed in specialist positions they did not understand or where totally unqualified for, either left in shame or because they were patently incompetent. Some ended up in far lesser positions and some in the dark valley of unemployment.
The worst if affirmative action is that it is in a sense an admission of an inability of some groups to compete on a level playing field. Whether this holds true or not, special dispensation does make many people in these selected groups regard themselves as inferior. It smothers optimism and a spirited approach to the promise the future holds for everyone.
JB
This in short is the background