Sympathy and Affirmative Action

[1]

(Affirmative action is extremely controversial and commonly talked about today.)

One of the most prevalent topics discussed today among college students and political figures is affirmative action. This is not only an important topic for college students but also for those in the job market and seeking employment. Since the end of slavery and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, the United States has made an incredible effort to make right the wrongs that were done to minorities, African-Americans in particular.

Affirmative action hits close to home for me, as it does most college students. It is something every child is prepared for when beginning the application process. [5] (This is an artistic depiction of the piecing together of cultures that is supposed to be accomplished through affirmative action.) As a white, middle-upper class female, I knew the process that many schools would go through when considering me: they would look at my transcript, test scores, activities and leadership roles, decide that I was a well-rounded and intelligent kid, and still choose someone of a different ethnicity over me. This made me angry.

I try to be sympathetic towards these groups that have been discriminated against “being thus affected by the suffering or sorrow of another” (Course Anthology 129), however it has proven to be quite a challenge.

I understand that minority groups have been discriminated against and life in the past has been a trying. I also understand that although racism exists today, equality has taken a new face and has come to apply to all different groups. We no longer have segregated bathrooms, restaurants, water fountains, or schools. You do not have to look far in the music industry to find another rap song degrading women, African-Americans, or another social or ethnic identity. Chingy (pictured below) [3], in the song Right Thurr, raps about a girl he sees and how he “like it when I touch it cuz she moan a l'il bit
Jeans saggin' so I can see her thong a l'il bit” [2]. However this is a small portion of the great music that is produced these days. Racism and discrimination do still exist, but they are far less prevalent today than they were years ago.

In fact, I feel as though with the direction we are heading, whites have become a sort of target as well. Why is it I can’t get into school when I am equally as qualified as the African-American in my class? Yes, I come from a well-off family. Should I be punished for that? The goal of decreasing discrimination against minorities has in turn increased discrimination against whites. This does not seem right to me.

Close to fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. (pictured) gave a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. urging the public to take action and become an advocate for equality. [4] At that time, “one hundred years [after the Emancipation Proclamation], the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination” (King 121). I do not believe that we are in this extreme of a state anymore. Over the past few decades, we have gone to great lengths to assist those who have been put at a disadvantage because of our (white’s) ancestors. How long will this continue? Until every minority child has the opportunity to go to a great University and receive financial aid while white students are now attending lower class schools that they could not get into because of their ethnicity and paying full price? Yes, this is an exaggerated case, but at the rate we are going, it very well may happen.

The goal of the Civil Rights Movement was to create equality among races.
" (These hands represent the different ethnicities coming together as a united American culture.) We have made compensations for what has been done. We cannot go on forever amending the wrong-doings of the past because they are just that: in the past. We now much move forward and make the playing field equal for all, giving no advantages to certain ethnicities or identities.

[1] http://www.conservativecartoons.com/2003/sat.gif

[2] http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/chingy/rightthurr.html

[3] http://z.about.com/d/rap/1/0/4/4/-/-/ChingyHoodStar.jpg

[4] http://en.epochtimes.com/news_images/2005-1-16-mlk.jpg

[5] http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/27/magazine/30cover395.1.jpg