I'm Pro affirmative action: Change my mind.

Is that seriously your response? A one liner? I didn't realise I was debating Captain lazy. It is not wrong to force businesses or universities to hire or offer places to people who society deems have been kept down be decades of injustice and systematic discrimination. Onto my arguments. Firstly, We live in a society which is inherently racist, Sexist and discriminatory. We have a gender pay gap where women earn 71 cents to every dollar that men make, Revealing the underrepresentation of women in the workplace and the implicit bias against them. The raw gap between white employees and black employees in the United States can be as high as 30%. In a recent survey of over 5, 200 newly employed workers, Black job seekers were offered significantly less compensation than whites by potential new employers. U. S. Employers are also more likely to turn away applicants if they have names that sound African-American. Job seekers with white-sounding names get one callback per 10 resumes, While applicants with African-American sounding names get just one callback per 15 resumes. Between 1979-2012, Median wages rose for white women by 31%, But only 20% for African American women. The following link further reveals the effects of implicit bias: . http://kirwaninstitute. Osu. Edu. . . Clearly we have an identifiable problem caused by bias and prejudice. So how will AA solve this problem? Well, We know that just sitting back will not solve this problem as the current system of discrimination will just continue thus a degree of government action is necessary. AA does many things to help. Firstly, It puts people from these marginalised groups into positions of power and influence who would not be there without it. This can help to change stereotypes as people will see these examples of successful minorities and successful women therefore challenging their misconceptions that such groups are "not hard-working enough" to succeed. In this way, Racist and sexist attitudes can be forcibly reversed. Secondly, These new POCs and women in such positions can act as conscious or subconscious role models to other POCs and women. The reality is that currently many women and POCs don"t want to apply for such jobs due to a pernicious culture of "it"s not my place". This sense of "not my place" is derived from an immense feeling of disenfranchisement with mainstream society since nobody in that field of work or education looks like you or has a similar background to you; nobody in that field can be related to you and thus you feel that you wouldn"t fit in or would be an "outsider" (not a nice feeling surprisingly). Sometimes this effect is not explicit and is a subconscious effect. Ethnic minorities in particular think about racism a lot more than the majority does and thus these feelings do genuinely occur to them very much. In this way, AA can provide inspiring role models thus motivating more people to bring about equality themselves but crucially AA is the all important trigger. Finally, AA simply artificially brings about more equality since it rebalances the bias that already exists in our society. If you have a company that has problems with implicit bias then using AA to force a certain amount of POCs into your workplace will guarantee that that implicit bias plays no effect in marginalising POCs. Thus this guarantees more equality. So, As we can see affirmative action DOES work in bringing about more equality. Since current inequality leads to so much injustice and societal problems I think it is completely justified to limit the "freedom" of a privileged few to discriminate against and dominate marginalised, And in many cases, Oppressed groups. Sometimes, It takes the state of action to change the state of man. Affirmative action allows minorities to succeed in a world that is stacked against them and this is why AA is justified.