A634.4.4.RB - Is Affirmative Action Ethical?
Use Chapters 5 and 6 (LaFollette, 2007) as the foundation for your
reflections regarding if affirmative action is ethical. Be sure to include
external sourced content. Present your opinion, support your opinion, and
opposing viewpoints.
After reading those chapters, my
husband and I had a pretty in-depth conversation about affirmative action. I
generically asked him what he thought about affirmative action and he had a
negative reaction to it. He had been an Army recruiter in the 1990’s and said
that he had seen people who were really unqualified in to be soldiers brought
in to fill a quota. He said that these soldiers, primarily black soldiers, were
unmotivated and actually held their units back because they knew they wouldn’t
get kicked out, that it was illegal to discriminate so they really worked the
system. He did say that it wasn’t every single black soldier, obviously, but
there were a few that really made everyone else look bad. I believe it was situations
like this that gave affirmative action the negative connotation it has and also
confirmed the fears of those who opposed it.
Companies today are quick to tout
their diversity metrics, they know that in order to be relevant and to be
attractive to their customers, they must show that they are diverse and
accepting. The most successful enterprises believe that it is necessary to
build in diversity from the ground up. (Anderson, 2015) This is great in theory
but troublesome in practice. Unfortunately, not everyone is on board with this
whether they show it or not. In our text, Lafollette talks about racism as
being a deep seeded habit that no matter how wrong we know it to be, deep in
people’s psyche and their guts, if they are racists, they will always be
racists just not publically or where anyone can notice. Their inner voice is
going to always default to that way of thinking, like a bad habit. Habits have
motivational inertia. Simply removing the cognitive elements that shape them
will not eliminate visceral and reactive elements. (LaFollette, 2007) A manager may not outwardly show that he or
she is racist but their default instincts will tend to favor non-black subordinates.
The same goes for those who are feminists or misogynists. I am a proud feminist
and I know that as a manager, I would have to make sure that I’m not just
giving the good assignments to all of the women on my team because I feel as
though they deserve it more. I know my default reaction is to help build up the
women that I work with because in my opinion, men already have preferential
treatment.
Affirmative action also brings a
stigma to those who fall under its protection. If I was a black woman who was
hired, no matter that I have impressive college degrees and years of related
experience, I would possibly feel like I have to constantly prove that I
deserved to be in that job. Would other people look at me and assume that the
only reason I got the job was because of my ethnicity? That is a heavy burden
to bear. People who have struggled to be accepted will be best placed to
eliminate the cultural and societal barriers that they had to overcome.
(Anderson, 2015) LaFollette mentions that because the black people have been
held back for so long that they’re at a disadvantage. Because white people have
had their wealth and power longer than everyone else, the rest of the non-white
world will never catch up. [S]erious wrongs usually have significant effects
rippling into the distant future. (LaFollette, 2007) The price of slavery and
oppression continues into the future and ideas like affirmative action were put
in place to help correct that gap. People’s history shapes their opportunities.
(LaFollete, 2007)
As a woman, I’m part of a group who
has also been oppressed – although not on any scale close to that of black
oppression. I don’t want to say that my comparison is apples to apples. Not at
all. But for a very long time, women couldn’t own property, had to succumb to
the rule of their husbands and fathers, and were thought of as inferior to the
almighty man. We are the weaker sex, delicate and emotional. We were finally
given the right to vote in 1920. Since then, women have been trying to catch up
with men, financially, politically, and in business. We’re still called “sweetie”
and “honey” by our male colleagues and bosses. We’re not treated as equals and
still have to prove ourselves worthy of our positions and any wealth we
acquire.
But
the benchmarks so often cited -- the right to vote, working outside the home,
laws that make domestic violence illegal -- don't change the reality of women's
lives. They don't prevent 1 million women from being raped, female troops from
being assaulted or the continued legal discrimination against gay and
transgender people. And seriously, are American women really supposed to be
satisfied with the most basic rights of representation? Thrilled that our
country has deigned to consider us fully human? (Valenti, 2010)
All groups who have been held back
from the same opportunities as other human beings have to work harder to be
heard. A program that was meant to help people who needed help bridging this
extremely wide gap in education and employment has become something that people
are hesitant to be affiliated with. Whether that affiliation is at a job or in a
school it still brings with it a stigma of somehow getting something for
nothing. [W]hat affirmative action has done is level the playing field.
It makes sure that people who have potential but whose life circumstances have
meant they have been unable to realize it still have access to all the
opportunities they deserve. (Anderson, 2015) Personally, I think that if we
spent less time trying to guess if someone is qualified to be in a job or
attend a school and more time just listening to each other, affirmative action
and things like diversity metrics will just melt into obscurity. We shouldn’t
still be fighting these fights. We just shouldn’t.
References:
Anderson, D. (2015) 10 reasons
affirmative action still matters today. https://www.listland.com/10-reasons-affirmative-action-still-matters-today/
LaFollette, H. (2007). The practice
of ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Valenti, J. (2010). For women in America, equality
is still an illusion. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021902049.html
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