[448] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
In Defense of Affirmative Action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Rezek)
Wed May 2 01:43:13 2001
Message-Id: <200105020538.BAA28152@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 01:41:23 -0400
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
From: Chris Rezek <crezek@alum.mit.edu>
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Hello,
I was going to post another note about the non-existence of evaluation
criteria or methods for the Residence Based Advising Program, but first
some thoughts on the current topic-of-the-moment.
RACISM AND SEXISM ARE REAL:
I guess I wanted to add some testimony that 'white skin privilege' and
racism and sexism are real and alive. The short version is that I know,
personally, racist and sexist white men in positions of power in business,
politics, and academia. As a white male myself I suppose they felt
comfortable enough in my presence to admit these things and joke about
them. And as a fallible person I admit that I did not always speak up for
my views that racism and sexism are factually foolish and morally wrong.
I had one boss joke that he was glad I was working for them instead of a
'lazy Mexican'. We had quite an argument about that one. I've heard
plenty of 'why women aren't good at business (or computers) jokes' when
there were no women in the room.
My suburb (Darien, CT - the highest per capita income town in the highest
per capita income state) was so narrowly WASP that there were
letters-to-the-editor in the town newspaper in the early 80's when
Catholics(!) (including my parents) were moving to town. I know real
estate agents that joke uncomfortably about discouraging blacks and Jews
from moving to town.
I feel the reality of white [male] skin privilege all the time. When I can
catch a cab at 4am in NYC. When I get a summer job and I find out my boss
was racist. When I walk into a company to interview and notice that 90% of
the people there are white men, and that one of the three women is a
secretary. When I hear talk behind closed doors that a black women would
never hear in such a relaxed tone.
So - racism is real. I am sure that racism is less prevelant than it was
in the 1960s, but it is real.
WHY RACE-BASED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS ESSENTIAL PART OF ACHIEVING EQUALITY:
I believe that overcoming a few hundred years of legal and cultural racism
and sexism is a very difficult task. I know that the end is not here
because of the personal experiences I describe above. I believe that the
road to social equality is through economic equality. I know that earning
power is tied strongly to the education level of the individual AND the
education level of his or her parents.
I do not know MIT's admissions policy in regard to race. I hope that it
has a policy that gives non-whites an advantage. This would be a racist
policy, yes. I used to oppose affirmative action for just that reason -
two wrongs do not make a right.
But then I started thinking about what kind of society I wanted to have -
one where race was not a predictive factor in social, economic, or
political power. And I tried to think of how you get from where we were
after centuries of legal racism (1600s - 1960s) to a society where race
didn't matter. I thought of it as a 400M footrace with two runners of
equal speed and endurance. The footrace starts in the 1960s, when legal
racism was ended.
The anti-affirmative action argument is that it would be unfair to give the
non-white an advantage. What is usually forgotten is that the white runner
has a 100M headstart. The footrace didn't start with both runners on the
starting line - one of the runners had a few centuries of legal superiority
(leading to economic & political superiority) on his side.
What affirmative action does is to STOP pretending that both runners
started at the same point. It acknowledges that the race (begun in the
60s) started with one runner ahead, and aims to give the non-white runner a
boost so that when the race finishes the head start of the white runner
won't matter as much.
The anti-affirmative action argument also usually neglects that sucess is
an inter-generational transfer. My great-grandfather rolled cigars (no
school), my grandfather was a plumber (high school), my father was an
industrial engineer (local college), and I'm an Oracle Database
Administrator (MIT).
Think of the race now as a 400M relay - again, with both teams equal in
natural ability. The non-white team of 4 starts at the beginning. The
white team starts at the 100M mark (but still has four runners). The first
generation of affirmative action eats up 1/3 of the lead, the second
generation eats up the next 1/3, and finally, after three generations, both
teams finish at the same time.
The fact of a huge headstart for whites in 1960s is hard to dispute. The
question is - how do we ensure that, eventually, a generation is born that
is judged as individuals rather than as members of a race? I think that
affirmative action in colleges, especially top colleges - and for at least
two or three generations - has to be part of the answer.
It is a long term project and harder to defend than the anti-affirmative
action rallying cry of 'affirmative action is racist' - but I think it is a
worthwhile idea to defend. Some could argue that we used to need
affirmative action but we don't any more, but I think I've helped show that
racism is still here.
Racism will likely not ever disappear entirely, but until non-whites born
in the 1960s have children who go to college (the current college
generation) and their children go to college (in the 2030s) then
affirmative action will still be needed. I hope that MIT admissions policy
recognizes this and accordingly implments a policy of affirmative action.
Chris
