Affirmative action promotes rascism.

My opponent argues that affirmative action is used to assist truly disadvantaged persons regardless of race and therefore does not meet the definition of racism presented in round one. To show this my opponent has posted a link to a web page where a man, is asked for and gives his opinion on who benefits from affirmative action. I will be referring to this link from my opponent as 'the article' for ease of reference. Voters can follow the link themselves, but I will summarize several key points presented there and offer my rebuttal. This is necessary because of the fact that my opponent has only used the article as a general support of his claim rather than citing a specific statement or statistic from the article. Also, because my opponent has only cited this site to support the claim that, in my opponents words, "All ethnicities, white, black, asian, spanish, native american, and other [ethnicities] benefit from affirmative action" I will only refer to parts of that web page that deal with that assertion. With this in mind, let me begin by introducing the articles claim, how it pertains to my opponents argument, and my rebbutal of the claim made by the articleFirst the article presents a scenario in which a black woman with more education and (presumably) more qualifications is given a lower pay grade and title than her white coworkers. The question is then asked: Who are the recipients of affirmative action? According to the article, "Practically every white person in this country disproportionately benefits from affirmative action. " The reasoning behind this statement is made clear later in the article, where it states the following:"Affirmative-action programs are necessary to provide access for people who were prevented access by reasons of racism. They are a benefit to our entire society because increasing wealth for underrepresented groups increases wealth for all. Here"s a quick fact: Black households have one-tenth the wealth of white households in this country. If our society caught black households up it would be the equivalent of injecting the entire GDP of Japan into our economy. Who would benefit the most from this? White people. A rising tide lifts all boats, and there are more "white boats" in the bay. "[1]Essentially this statement can be summed up by saying that if affirmative action programs are put into place they would result in an increase in the average wealth of 'underrepresented groups' and therefore an increase in the average wealth of the nation, which is good for minorities and non-minorities alike in the big picture. At face value this seems plausible, and it is this face-value plausibility that the article and my opponent rely on as the article provides no real world examples of such a big picture benefit actually taking place. In fact this statement simply does not hold up to critical examination. The nature of affirmative action programs is such that they cannot provide an opportunity to any person, black or white, without also taking that opportunity away from another person, whether that other person is black or white. No reason to think otherwise has been presented because this fact is built into the very nature of what affirmative action actually is. In the big picture no actual wealth is gained when implementing affirmative action programs, rendering the articles claim invalid. Besides the claims made in the article my opponent has not yet presented any reason to believe that affirmative action really is about helping genuinely disadvantaged people rather than just trying to 'even out' the opportunities of minorities compared to non-minorities by taking away opportunities away from non-minority groups. I spent more time in rebuttal than I had intended, so I will make my positive case in favor of the proposition short and to the point: Basically, as I touched on before, affirmative action is not about helping minorities or impoverished persons. Affirmative action is about 'evening out' the opportunities of minorities compared to non-minorities (blacks and whites in the example provided by cons article) by taking away opportunities from non-minority groups. It does this by defining a certain group as in need of assistance because of their race and using resources that otherwise would have been avaliable to individuals who do not qualify as the governments definition of who is 'in need of assistance'. When one or more groups are actually singled out to have opportunities taken away from them (remember, affirmative action creates no new opportunities in the big picture) the racism of such programs is made all too obvious. I will attempt to build a stronger positive case in the final round, but unfortunately that is all I have time to say for now. I hope that I have at least given my opponent enough to work with in defending the assertions they have made in round one. [1] Quote from the article linked by con in round one.