rob@osiris.UUCP (Robert St. Amant) (05/29/85)
I've been reading along about discrimination, affirmative action, and so on, thinking "This affirmative action is so much bullshit, merit is the only way to divide up the wealth, etc." Then I read a line (somewhere, I forget where) that described a situation where an employer has a choice between a dozen _equally_ qualified people, and whether he should use quotas in determining who gets hired. "Oho" said I to myself. That's a different story. Merit doesn't figure here. In that case, I hardly see something wrong with stacking the cards a little in order to get a touch more equity for the downtrodden. A point for affirmative action. However, the main problem I have with affirmative action is that it's aimed at curing the effects of discrimination, rather than the causes. Suppose we establish quotas for good jobs that will take poor inner city people out of their rut. Well, fine for them, but we've done nothing about those left in the city. I can't see much happening besides a redistribution of poverty. Those who had now don't. To fight discrimination, you have to get into people's minds. For the case of poor people suffering ethnic discrimination (I know, this doesn't really belong in net.women, but where else?), better education is needed. Better public schools, public awareness of the problems, and so on. Then the problem of whom to hire may be simplified, as a matter of merit and random chance. I guess this doesn't solve anything, but this is my point--you have to help (guide, lead, oppress, whatever) people when they're young, before it's too late. Rob St. Amant