From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,ba.politics,soc.motss,ba.motss
Subject: Re: The Harrassing Phone Calls Can Stop NOW!
Date: 14 Sep 92 22:42:59 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Sep12.105039.7439@resonex.com>, michael@resonex.com (Michael Bryan) writes:
> In article <12272@optilink.UUCP> walsh@optilink.UUCP (Mark Walsh) writes:
> >Don't get me wrong, I am a liberal who believes that Affirmative
> >Action had its place.  It was an attempt to right some wrongs.
> >Unfortunately, it has been carried too far.
> >[...]
> >I find it sad that some gays are now trying to get their fingers
> >into this pie.  I don't believe that gays are mentally disadvantaged,
> >and as such do not need bailout programs.  I can see it now:
> >
> >Joe Worker A:  So you passed the big test, eh?
> >Joe Worker B:  No, I'm gay, so I got an exemption.
> 
> There is a *large* difference between anti-discrimination laws and
> affirmative action programs.  I've yet to hear anyone ask for an
> affirmative action program for gays and lesbians.  All we are asking

Of course not.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination
AND quotas.  Affirmative action programs weren't created until 1968.
Why?  Because blacks weren't getting employed very quickly in 
big government contractors.  Why?  A variety of reasons, including
(in my opinion):

1. The inferior quality of public education caused by both de facto
and de jure segregation meant that relatively few blacks had received
adequate educations to go to college -- and in the area where blacks
were overrepresented, the South, state colleges had either not
accepted blacks, or had shunted them off to inferior all-black
colleges until the 1950s.  Obviously, this could be fixed, as the
cohort starting in integrated schools worked their way up through
the grades, but that wasn't doing anything significant in 1968.

2. Government contractors, especially in defense, aren't noted for
their highly competitive approach to business.  (I'm being 
charitable).  Lack of competition means that Economic Darwinism
doesn't drive out of business those businesses engaged in irrelevant
discrimination.

3. Nearly all government contracting in the building trades goes
to union firms (Davis-Bacon Act).  Even into the 1950s, building
trade labor unions were fiercely and openly racist, and even into
the 1970s, blacks were made to feel uncomfortable in many locals.

4. Doubtless, racism persisted, as it persists today.  If AA had
done what it was claimed to do -- which was specifically to
reject use of quotas -- it could have really helped.  The quotas
merely added to the problem, by creating a perception that blacks
couldn't make it in a level playing field.

There's no way in the world that an AA program will be proposed
at the same time as an antidiscrimination law, because that would
be too big a political obstacle.  One slice at a time.

> for are laws to protect us from getting fired just because somebody
> doesn't like the fact that we're gay.  How many people do you know
> who have lost their jobs because they were straight?  The very concept
> of such a thing happening is ludicrous!  Yet I know many gay men

Not if the employer is gay, it's not ludicrous.

> and women who have lost a job, or were refused a job, simply because
> they were gay.  Myself included.  [I don't deny that it's possible
> that a gay establishment might very well exist which will not hire
> straight people.  Such places are far rarer than the reverse situation,
> however.]

I know plenty of people who were refused jobs because they were
white.  But I know better than to suggest a law prohibiting
discrimination against white people.

> Michael Bryan  michael@resonex.com  "Milk and Cheese in '92!"  |     ,_,
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc