Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
I take issue with any type of quota system or tokenism. When you are talking about a zero-sum game (and many things fall into this category, jobs, college spaces etc.) then an advantage conveyed to someone - through a quota, diversity requirement, or even a simple desire to appear pro-diversity - is discrimination against someone else. Let people compete on merit... that's what equality means to me. No affirmative action required.
Furthermore, implementing this type of affirmative action implicitly reinforces the notion that minority groups cannot compete on a merit basis, which is an effect detrimental to the minority group.
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Racial preference exists whether we say it does or not. The problem isn't helped by pretending it does not exist. Focusing on merit is great, but what happens is that when you have to applicants with similar experience and credentials, the white applicant will be picked for the job more often than not. That's because the person hiring unconsciously favors the white person and genuinely believes they are the better candidate.
And then you must realize that the black person been implicitly discriminated against their whole life. So they are given less opportunity and have more obstacles each step of the way. So white people will become more accomplished and experienced easier than black people. Therefore, in order to balance things out you have to give black people opportunities more readily than you give white people. Otherwise white people will always have a great advantage in work and education.
Those are the reasons affirmative action exists. Black people are discriminated against unfairly when applying for a job and their whole life leading up to applying for the job.