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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (149513)	8/12/2002 5:00:00 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1580216

Fifty years after the passage of the Equal Opp. laws, of all people below the poverty limits, the greatest percentage are people of color, the lowest paid people in our society are people of color; the poorest sections of our cities are inhabited by people of color; the shortest life spans in this country are people of color. Can you develop the argument based on these observations rather then trying to have them stand by themselves. Given the context of our discussion you are obviously not arguing against equal opportunity laws but your paragraph in isolation would make it seem like you are. You probably mean that equal opportunity laws are insufficient to even out the disparities that you list. If that was all you meant then I could agree with you, but it isn't. Your don't actually state it but your implied argument seems to be that because equal opportunity laws don't produce equal results then affirmative action is needed. But that argument falls down in several different ways. One simple one is that affirmative action also doesn't produce equal results. Another one is that even if equal results are are goal that doesn't mean that any action that can help achieve them is desirable or even just. But the most important way the argument falls down is the idea that we should pass laws to try to produce equal results. It would be almost impossible to actually produce equal results and the attempt can produce results that range from mildly negative to disastrous. Actually, my point was that inspite of the Equal. Opp. laws and AA, people of color still are mired in poverty. Certainly conditions have improved overall thanks in good part to these laws. However, there is a ways to go. I know you will choose not to get this but there was no way to get any results without making it a law. As late as the fifties there were convenants in many cities not allowing blacks to live in certain neighborhoods. And when blacks began to negatively impact downtowns, there was state and federally assisted urban renewal programs for the cities which essentially removed blacks from the downtown areas. As late as the 60's, there were public places where blacks were not allowed. When I was a kid, we moved from my neighborhood because my parents feared that blacks may be moving in our direction. Without those laws and the riots, all blacks would still be living in 'the ghetto'. Don't tell me laws weren't needed to approximate equal results. And disastrous results did not result from instituting these laws. On the contrary, without these laws, disastrous results would have been guaranteed. You all want to convince yourselves that whitie is getting screwed under AA, go for it. But don't forget LA rioted just ten years ago. Yes, just 10 years ago after years of affirmative action (which apparently started in 1965). What a perfect example of how affirmative action prevents riots. First, LA was the only city that went up in flames. In the 60's, just about every American city erupted. Secondly, there were mitigating circumstances that made LA more ripe for civil disturbances.....AA or no AA. For two decades, the city had been the destination of choice for almost every racial, religious and ethnic group in the world. It was growing fast and had become the land of opportunity. Then suddenly in the last 80's someone pulled the plug, and LA lost nearly a million jobs in three years. Of course, the first to lose their jobs were the blacks and Latinos........making LA a disaster waiting to happen. But the key point to remember is that only LA erupted; other cities did not follow LA's lead......and the reason was minorities had gotten a bigger piece of the pie thanks to the Equal Opp. laws, and were not willing to risk losing their gains. Where there is hope, people do not resort to violence even when they still are far from equal. So you should be grateful for Equal Opp. and AA but instead you complain and want to dismantle these laws before the job is done. Go figure! ted