Affirmative Action
Literature/Composition 10 – Gifted A presently obsolete and skewed affirmative action process “exacerbates racial divisions and tensions,” supporting superior preference to an individual based on race and socioeconomic status (Grapes 38). Affirmative action contradicts and disregards all morals society holds as a whole; it forces quotas into aspects of life to which race should hold no preference. When Lyndon B. Johnson first implemented affirmative action in 1965, he had positive intentions: “We seek… not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result” (Lyndon par. 34). Contrary to Johnson’s intentions for equality, however, affirmative action brews animosity toward minorities. It hurls one race against another. Although affirmative action has opened the doors for minorities in the fields of education and multiple professions, it does so at an unjust and costly price. Indeed, affirmative action has reduced racial injustices committed against minorities. For example, universities now accept more minorities all over the United States. Also, minorities now hold many executive positions for large corporations
In addition to the unconstitutional process, affirmative action hurts its beneficiaries more than it helps them by engendering a sense of inferiority. Exposing minorities to superior treatment leaves them to languish in self-doubt and “’…often transforms their advantage into a revolving door’” (qtd. in Tivnan 198). Minorities prefer to be equal to co-workers, who may think that they received their job not by hard work, but from a policy in which one can obtain a job without hard work, knowledge, or even experience. The policy “’…takes away from legitimate minority success’” (qtd. in Woods 103). A feeling of ineptness gnaws at the minds of minorities even though they may be qualified for the job or scholarship. Furthermore, according to Newsweek magazine, “fifty-six percent of minorities believe that blacks should not obtain preferential treatment” (Fineman and Lipper 29). By creating preferences, affirmative action “send[s] a message that those in favored groups are deemed incapable of meeting the standards that others are required to meet” (Grapes 44). Therefore, the recipients would truly benefit if the lawmakers would bar the process of affirmative action. Additionally, affirmative action demoralizes society--a burden often overlooked. The original intentions of affirmative action have given way to an amorphous system in which, instead of everybody being equal, certain people are more equal than others. Consequently, the “American ideal of merit gets lost in the shuffle” (Woods 100). Today, affirmative action categorizes particular races as non-preferential, denying the concept of “equal opportunity [that] requires that people be judged on the basis of their qualifications
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Approximate Word count = 1167
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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