Affirmative Action is Not Justified

Sorry about abbreviations. "This is not true because nobody is, in any way, arguing that non-ethnic minorities are somehow lower people than ethnic minorities or marginalized groups." There are those however that believe that Women and POC(WAPOC) should receive better treatment in hiring processes than Cis Het White men(CHWM). Racism is discrimination on the basis of race. In this context, it means that a Caucasian has a harder time getting a job if a POC or woman applies for a job. They aren't viewed as inferior under Affirmative Action(AA), but they are according to AA, are less deserving of the job than a woman or POC of the same merit. "We are however recognising that we live in an unequal society with levels of discrimination against marginalised groups such as black people or women. Therefore, we are recognising that they come from a position of disadvantage and thus we have an imbalance that we need to fix." While equally merited WAPOC may receive discrimination because of their status, it would be subtle and therefore minor. AA makes this much more intense against CHWM. "Therefore, we need a level of positive discrimination at the top to adjust this imbalance due to the negative discrimination inherent in our society." The only positive discrimination that exists is the on the basis of merit. Preventing equally skilled CHWM from getting a job because of WAPOC is as bad as preventing equally skilled WAPOC from getting a job because of CHWM. "Rather it is recognising an unfair status-quo and discriminating in a way that equalises our society and thus fixing the historic injustices faced by marginalised groups." Here my opponent claims that white people are privileged due to history. What about Latinos? They were never slaves here, yet they are less likely to get jobs. Jews and Japanese people on the other hand, endured discrimination and endured concentration camps. Yet, these groups are doing just fine. "We see that right now white men are at a position of immense advantage and thus we need to put in measures to lift up others in order to end the imbalance we already have." This is because white men tend to be more qualified and more skilled at rich positions. Black men dominate basketball, but is this a problem? No. Whites tend to be smarter. Blacks tend to be more athletic. men tend to be ambitious and they tend to love competition. Women tend to hate competition. That"s life. "Then you made this weird assertion that white men were more likely to be CEOs because they are more qualified and more interested in those fields. I wonder why?" Biology. Men are biologically different from women and this gives them different interests. Men have XY, women have XX. "They are more qualified because less POC go to university due to their disadvantages" Most college students are women. "and because women are discriminated against in the workplace." No. They simply lack interest. My mom wants to be a stay at home(SAH) mom and she has a job. Many women want the same thing. Some men want that too, but they are outnumbered by women. http://www.pewresearch.org... states that 20% of moms are SAH. I"m not encouraging it. They tend to be poor. However, women tend to not care about money as much as men. Pew does not state anything about SAH dads possibly because because it"s not newsworthy. "Plus I don't believe that POC and women should be expected to "emulate" the supposedly great white " men." They succeed.(http://dmc122011.delmar.edu...). THeir work ethic should be copied "Finally, women DO want to be CEOS but they can't due to discrimination and a society that has told them for years "you are girl and should do girly jobs like nursing"." Some women do, but this does not apply to all women. Most people that want to be CEOs are male.(http://www.pewresearch.org...). Many women want to be teachers because they involve small kids, which is like a family. Women also tend to want to teach younger kids than men because women tend to be fun and men tend to more assertive and ambitious with their work. High Schoolers rebel, kindergartners don"t. "Now onto my arguments. Firstly, we live in a society which is inherently racist, sexist and discriminatory." Only slightly/nominally. "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." It"s because men tend to be more ambitious with their salaries and tend to be willing to sacrifice family more to be able to work more to justify their raises. Women tend to like the family. Men tend to like work. This sounds like gender roles, but it"s based off of general biological preferences. Women for example, are more likely to take sick days in order to care for their child (if they make the same as their husband) because women tend to love kids. It"s also why they are more likely to be school teachers. "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." This is because whites tend to earn more than blacks because they tend to be more qualified for certain positions since white families tend to value education more, which help supply better jobs. "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" Jews escaped their previous discrimination. Japanese people escaped their previous discrimination. It"s time for Blacks to do the same. "thus a degree of government action is necessary." This hurts POC that this effects. This happened to Hispanics who may have a name advantage since Latino names tend to correlate to Latinos who tend to be bilingual, a skill many businesses want. SInce they tend to know 2 languages, you think they would be pretty successful. But since they tend to rely on the government for stuff like AA, they don"t get very far. "In this way, racist and sexist attitudes can be forcibly reversed." Not by AA. Instead, it could be by waiting it out since race mixing will eventually make people more socially connected. It"s why Europeans rarely discriminate against other Europeans on the basis of race. European ethnicities have become so mixed that they united into one "white" race. Because of this, many claim that racism exists against Blacks, but almost no one claims racism exists against Italians. This is because the Italians merged with the rest of the Caucasians in the US. The solution to racism is time. "Secondly, these new POCs and women in such positions can act as conscious or subconscious role models to other POCs and women." I wouldn"t say this. Black people tend to think of Bernie sanders as more of a role model than Ben Carson and for White people, vice versa applies. This is because they don"t see the race in people. They see other non superficial similarities. "The reality is that currently many WAPOC don"t want to apply for such jobs due to a pernicious culture of "it"s not my place"." Given that I"m Caucasian, I didn"t feel out of place much when I played Basketball, a Black majority sport. I was more focused on, "how do I beat the other team?" Although I switched sports, it wasn't because Basketball was a black sport. It was because I was bad at basketball.