From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: AA-related ramblings
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 20:13:50 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.154501.23918@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>jenk@microsoft.com (Jen Kilmer) writes:
>| ...
>| AA is at least teaching segments of the society that had otherwise
>| never experienced discrimination based on gender what it's like. 
>| Sauce for the gander, as it were.
>| 
>| Think maybe NOW we can all agree that it's wrong?
>
>But almost no one thinks it's right or good.  The question 
>is whether it's a worse evil than the evils it is supposed 
>to cure or mitigate.  


	To do wrong is to do wrong.  It doesn't matter if doing something
	else is more wrong.  


>The teaching aspect seems peripheral,
>by the way, since it focuses the resentment of the victim
>on the law rather than on the underlying condition which
>gave rise to the law.  For example, a white person who is 
>done out of a desirable job because it had to be given to 
>a black person resents black people and the affirmative
>action law, rather than the racism which was the cause of
>the law and the discrimination which was its pretext.


	That white person is not responsible for some other persons
	racism.  I am not responsible for what a bunch of people did
	200 or 50 or even 20 years ago.  I am responsible for my
	own behavior.  This affirmative-action-to-right-past-wrongs
	notion is contradictory to almost every facet of American 
	culture.  If your father was a rapist but killed himself before
	he was caught and punished--should you take responsibility for 
	his crime? 

>The clever thing would be to come up a cure for the
>problems of discrimination which was neither quotizing
>affirmative action nor handwaving.


	"Cure"?  What kind of "cure" would that be?  

	The problem of discrimination is anything but clear.  For instance,
	black Indians (visually indistinguishable in many ways from american 
	blacks) don't seem to suffer the same rate of failure, poverty, 
	teenage pregnancy, crime, whatever--yet if there is discrimination
	(and there is--I'm not saying it doesn't exist) they should be
	in the same position as American blacks.

	A lot of the problems that people are blaming on racism 
	are really problems of classism.  American blacks speak, act
	and dress in a fashion that is visually similiar to the 
	typical whodlum that you see on the evening news.  The successful
	american blacks tend to dress more, well, "white" and speak
	a more standard dialect of english (note that I am NOT
	claiming one dialect is better than another, rather that
	one dialect carries undeniable connotations of being uneducated).
	
	I would be willing to bet that if someone came up with a pill
	that turned all whites black or all blacks white, there would
	still be about the same level of discrimination that we see
	today.  

	In any case, the case for blacks isn't remotely similiar to 
	the case for women.  Can you even cite an example of clear
	discrimination against women?

	<Please, none of this $.69/$1 business--we all know that that's
	bogus>

-- 
      Blaming "society" for your problems is like blaming clouds for rain.
 ---  boycott == coercion == censorship == closed mindedness == cowardice  ---
	      "Psalms 23:1  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."  
		Shepherds are for sheep.   -----      Pain teaches.
Newsgroups: alt.feminism