[E]nding preferences will allow minorities and women to take the full credit for their accomplishments.
One of the reasons I advocate doing away with race and sex preferences is to allow minorities and women to achieve on their own merits. Even if individual blacks and women are admitted or hired based on grades, scores, skills, and experience, there’s a perception these individuals in some way were treated differently. Fair or not, that’s the way it is.
Does the same reasoning hold for Barack Obama and Sarah Palin? Did they achieve prominence because they fall into two supposedly underrepresented groups? Or do their candidacies support the notion that blacks and women can achieve on their own? The editors at the Opinion Journal say yes, Obama and Palin show the “roads are open”
Although the editorial focuses on well-funded proponents of government preferences, the underlying issue is whether preferences are needed.
Also consider this: Will a Barack Obama presidency signal the end of government-sanctioned racial discrimination?
Filed under: Barack Obama, Gov. Sarah Palin | |Comments off
Just as I long for people to stop using the term “African American” to describe black Americans, most of whom never set foot on the continent, I want people to stop using the term “affirmative action” to describe race preferences.
Dahlia Lithwick, writing for Newsweek, uses the term affirmative action throughout her 865-word article about Justice Clarence Thomas and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin to describe race preferences, a policy whereby certain ethnic minority groups are given preferential treatment over other groups. She notes that Justice Thomas opposes race preferences, despite “benefiting” from the practice. In his autobiography, My Grandfather’s Son, Thomas wrote about the stigma of race preferences, the same sort of stigma Palin must be facing.
Thomas received preferential treatment based on the color of his skin, as I and many other blacks have received. Was Palin chosen partly because she was a woman? Most likely. It’s reasonable to perceive recipients of preferential treatment as less qualified until proven otherwise. It’s not fair, but the goal is not to change people’s minds about those hired/admitted under preferences. The goal is to eliminate preferences and allow individuals to compete with the entire pool of applicants, so that no one is stigmatized for being assessed based on lowered standards.
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