White Privilege and Affirmative Action – Hands Down Rampant Racism
Americans are getting sick of the double standards of affirmative action in America, and fortunately the tide is turning in exposing knee jerk “racism” or “sexism” it is based in. Affirmative action is nothing more than a tool of the left to keep us divided. A few weeks ago a Princeton student wrote the most epic rant on white privilege I’ve ever read. He was brave enough to put in writing what so many people feel, but have been shamed into keeping to themselves. If you didn’t know, the concept of “white privilege” or even just “privilege” is used by those who believe that any success that a white person has, especially a white male, is not due to their intelligence, hard work or effort, but solely because they are white and/or male. The shameful discounting of the success of others due solely race and/or gender is pathetic.
Affirmative action has been around for decades. It started as laws put in place to ensure that minorities and women got fair consideration in things like hiring, government contracts and acceptance into colleges and universities. Honestly, as a woman I find the idea that I need government to make sure I can get a job or am accepted to a college a bit repugnant. I should be accepted as an employee or into a college program based on the merit of my intelligence, talent and hard work as opposed to what happens to be covered by my underwear. I suppose it goes back to my upbringing. My parents never allowed excuses for poor work due to “well I’m a girl so I’m not good at _____.” They said I had the ability and intelligence, so I better knuckle down and figure it out.
Affirmative action is nothing more than racism and/or sexism. It is making decisions about a person based on their race and/or gender, and not on their ability, intelligence or achievement. I have never understood why those given a pass under affirmative action programs don’t get seriously ticked off. The whole basis of it is “you aren’t ___________ (good enough, smart enough…) because you are a minority or a woman, so we will lower the bar for you.” Can you say condescension?
In fact, gender based affirmative action is unnecessary. Today there are more women enrolled in and graduating from our colleges and universities than men. Women hold jobs from the top down in most, if not all, industries, and any “pay inequality” between the sexes is due to family and employment choices women make over any sexist pay policies.
I’m not the only one. Several states, like California, Colorado and Michigan, have passed laws striking down affirmative action policies. The Supreme Court recently made another decision backing up the voters who made this decision. In Michigan, 58% of the voters voted in 2006 to amend their State Constitution to ban the use of race based admissions in public universities. Supporters of affirmative action got their panties further in a wad and sued. The Supremes said “too bad!” and allowed the Amendment to stand.
Then came 20 year old Princeton student, Tal Fortgang, who took on those who reprimanded him by saying “check your privilege.” You see, according to those morally superior beings, he can’t possibly be responsible for his success (think Obama and “you didn’t build that”) because he is a white man. He got all the “special treatment” and should grovel at the feet of everyone because they are other than white and male. Never mind that women and minorities were considered for his spot at Princeton before he was. Never mind that they possibly had lower GPA’s and SAT scores. He didn’t get first consideration solely and simply because he was a white HE. It’s the biggest load of crap going.
He said:
I do not accuse those who “check” me and my perspective of overt racism, although the phrase, which assumes that simply because I belong to a certain ethnic group I should be judged collectively with it, toes that line. But I do condemn them for diminishing everything I have personally accomplished, all the hard work I have done in my life, and for ascribing all the fruit I reap not to the seeds I sow but to some invisible patron saint of white maleness who places it out for me before I even arrive. Furthermore, I condemn them for casting the equal protection clause, indeed the very idea of a meritocracy, as a myth, and for declaring that we are all governed by invisible forces (some would call them “stigmas” or “societal norms”), that our nation runs on racist and sexist conspiracies. Forget “you didn’t build that”; check your privilege and realize that nothing you have accomplished is real.
You see, that’s the biggest problem with judging people solely on their skin color and/or gender. You don’t know what they have lived through, or what dragons they had to slay, to get where they are. They could be a rich doctor’s kid, or a poor one who went through the foster care system. I’m betting you had specific pictures of what those kids looked like, and you may just be wrong. You can’t possibly know who suffered what, and deciding you do because they have a specific color to their skin is racism in its purest form.
Affirmative action needs to go. It protects mediocrity and makes everyone of us question whether someone truly earned their place. And THAT is truly pathetic.
Image: Courtesy of: http://nachalooman.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/white-privilege-is-a-bitch/
