Pro-Minority Affirmative Action

My opponent argues that because a person's ancestors had troubled lives, that person is entitled to correction. We all have to deal with everything ever done in this world. The fact that African-Americans were enslaved is sad, yes. However, it does not entitle them to an advantage over everybody else. Like I've argued, if two kids, one black and one white, both lived on the same street their entire lives, going to the same schools their entire lives, the black kid should not be favored over the white kid on account of history, because guess what? They have the same personal history. There's no reason to go back any further. My opponent did not respond to my statement, "Should a person be rewarded because his great-great-great-great-grandparents suffered? No. That doesn't make sense." My opponent also ignores the fact that people applying for college today didn't live "anywhen" near the times of the Jim Crow laws. Again, the racial diversity, which claims to "remedy imbalances" without any proof that there is really any unjustifiable imbalance. Plus, racial diversity exists without affirmative action. Getting people into the workplace just to have racial diversity undermines them. There are already skilled members of minorities in the workplace. A continued attempt at racial diversity is valuing one race over another, i.e. racism. Also, what about mulattos? They are half-white. They often have a European culture. How do they help in racial diversity? My opponent generalizes that all whites have had a 400-year head start. That is far from the truth. Many African-Americans were released from slavery in 1777 [1], and Jim Crow laws didn't even exist in the north. Many European-Americans never really had this head start. A white farming family in Tennessee would currently be behind a black suburb family in Chicago. "Ruralism" plays more a part than racial factors in socio-economic status. Plus, "undoing past wrongs" doesn't even play into the definition of affirmative action. All definitions from Merriam-Webster [2]. Racism - racial discrimination Discrimination - the act of discriminating Discriminating - making a distinction Obviously, affirmative action makes the distinction that some applicants are European-American and others are African-American and others are Asian-American and so on. Racism is, in full, the act of making a distinction based on race, which is affirmative action. As I have already said, my opponent is accusing a large number of Americans of racism, and the burden of proof to do this falls on him. He has made no argument regarding this placement of the BoP. My opponent's (4) says nothing about race whatsoever, but is instead about unemployment rates in different states. There is one factor that the study I sourced took into account that my opponent's do not: marriage. This has already been proven to have an effect on employment, income, etc. [3]. This, coupled with the poor marriage rate for blacks [4] makes a huge dent in the black income, employment, etc., which explains everything. Why this marriage rate is different is unknown, although it is probably cultural. As for the names, it is difficult to counter, as it does not list which names were used. However, connotations are important. Take the name Muhammad (Ali), for example. The name is common for Muslims as well as blacks, and is also incredibly popular with terrorists (Steyn 64). As for the school thing, the solution is to require the state to fund all schools equally in a function based on total students enrolled. This would not be affirmative action, as it would not take race into account. It would be color-blind. My opponent then goes on a rant about statistics. However, it was clear that he had the BoP when it came to accusing America of being racist. Therefore, I only had to refute his arguments. Here are some statistics to back up the crime rates [4]. "And I would like for him to show me how I'm misinterpreting the statistics." Simple. You don't take all of the factors into account. For a fact, when comparing people of different race that only have a difference of race, you find that they are all pretty much equal [5]. "The hypothetical addition of a million people from another planet has nothing, whatsoever, to do with affirmative action. These arguments are simply hyperbolic and prove nothing." Actually, it was just an exaggerated satire of immigration from Mexico. So, you basically admitted that we should not have affirmative action for Hispanics. As for Sowell, he backs up his arguments very well. The racial chapter in "Economic Facts and Fallacies" alone has 83 sources and almost just as many studies. "He tells me that statistics show that just poor blacks and poor Hispanics are affected, then he proceeds to quote an irrelevant statement regarding college-educated black couples." The statement was not irrelevant. It shows that the college-educated married black couples are unaffected, which only increases the argument that socio-economic status is the cause. "Again, my opponent's proposal just affects blacks moreso[sic] than whites. It doesn't directly address the problem at hand, and that is the huge inequality between races." It would help blacks more than whites, but it also wouldn't help middle-class blacks at the expense of lower-class whites. In conclusion, Pro-Minority Affirmative Action is racism. Statistics that seem to show anti-minority racism don't take all of the necessary factors (socio-economic status, crime rate, relationship status) that vary among races. A much better alternative is Pro-Disadvantaged Affirmative Action, which would solve the socio-economic problems, and not value people based on the color of their skin. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org... 2. http://www.merriam-webster.com... 3. "Economic Facts and Fallacies," by Thomas Sowell. More specifically, Chapter 3, "Male-Female Facts and Fallacies." 4. http://www.saysuncle.com... 5. "As far back as 1969, young black males whose homes included newspapers, magazines, and library cards, and who had also gone on to obtain the same number of years of schooling as young white males, had the same incomes as their white counterparts [6].... By 1989, blacks, whites, and Hispanics in the United States of the same age (29) and with the same IQ (100) all had annual incomes within a thousand dollars of one another when they worked year-round [7]." (Sowell 174) 6. "Black Elite," by Richard B. Freeman. Chapter 4. 7. "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life," by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. p.323 "America Alone," by Mark Steyn.