COLUMN: "A Status Quo Solution"

From Harold Ford's "Papa Don't Take No Mess," Spring '92.From Harold Ford's "Papa Don't Take No Mess," Spring '92.· The traditional anti-affirmative action posture maintains that black Americans benefit unfairly from college admission, job hiring and promotion practices that actually result in, according to anti-affirmative action dogma, reverse discrimination. Other opponents of affirmative action site the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech, when King dreams of the day that all Americans are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Some of the cruel and vindictive opponents of affirmative action claim that the Founding Fathers would not sanction any policy that granted certain individuals special preference or privilege over others. The standard pro-affirmative action stance contends that the policy's intent is to try and cure the racial, sexual and economic injustices endured by blacks and women over the last three centuries, by creating hiring and admittance goals for American companies and universities. The Clarence Thomas hearings last October fueled the anti-affirmative action campaign because Thomas divorced himself and his accomplishments from affirmative action, suggesting that he owed everything he had achieved in life to hard work and hard work alone. (Like Yale Law School would have voluntarily begun accepting black applicants without a slight nudge from the government). As a result, several black Americans are ashamed of any connection their success might share with affirmative action, believing that hard work and affirmative action are incompatible concepts. Author Shelby Steele, an English professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, has written that affirmative action encourages a sense of dependence on the system among blacks. Steele, who is black, suggests that black Americans would be better off without affirmative action. He argues that others -- mainly whites, I assume -- would not scorn the accomplishments of blacks if affirmative action ceased to exist. In addition, blacks would feel better about themselves and their position in society. As a product of affirmative action, I am not ashamed nor embarrased by any connection with the program because I view affirmative action as a status quo remedy to a non-status quo problem. · In order to comprehend the need and meaning of affirmative action, it is important to place it in its proprer historical context. Dr. Mary Berry, a history professor at the University, explained in a seminar I'm enrolled in this semester that affirmative action is founded in the laws of equity. (When she said this, I pretended to understand. But I really didn't, so I waited -- just like you are right now -- and luckily she explained.) Black Americans have labored in this country since 1619, or about 375 years. However, for 250 of those years, blacks were not compensated. Thus, affirmative action's legal foundation rests on the premise of reparations. And with a little research, I found out that reparations have been a part of the American political system for decades. After World War II, the U.S. government granted economic reparations for Japanese Americans who were illegally imprisoned during World War II. Also after World War II, America supported another kind of reparation for European Jews who rightfully feared for their lives in Germany and Europe. The reparation was called, and still is called, Israel. After slavery and Jim Crow, America's reparation for blacks -- who suffered longer than any aforementioned group -- is affirmative action. In my estimation, affirmative action is a pretty conservative reparation compared to what others have gotten. Imagine if Jews were forced to wait out the Holocaust only to receive priority on college admissions and job placement in return. Yet, people still complain that blacks benefit too much from this conservative, status quo program. To be honest, I wish blacks were benefitting unfairly from affirmative action -- then maybe a majority of my peers would be in college instead of in jail. Perhaps we'd have more black teachers and professors if blacks were grossly profiting from affirmative action. Or maybe there would be more blacks in the upper management of professional sports, or maybe there would be one black in the U.S. Senate. (Maybe there would also be more than two women). Okay, I know that we elect -- as opposed to hire -- our representatives, but if affirmative action is so beneficial to blacks, I'd have to think that there'd be at least one black in the Senate. All of this left me puzzled as to why, then, so many people -- both black and white -- could be opposed to such a conservative reparation as affirmative action. I pondered this as I watched the NCAA Finals featuring Michigan versus Duke. Then the answer hit me. It had always been there -- I had just never seen it. These opponents of affirmative action fear the day that affirmative action invades college and professional athletics. They fear the day that Michael Jordan, Chris Webber -- who is "nas-ty" -- and Shaquille O'Neal will no longer be able to entertain them with their athletic and acrobatic brilliance. Or, more horrifying, the day when Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant won't be allowed to play together because their collective presence exceeds the Bulls quota for black players. Or maybe, these opponents are too stubborn and ignorant to realize that America has a history of ruthless treatment towards blacks. It has a history of blacks picking cotton for twelve to fifteen hours a day without any compensation. America has a history of restrictions that kept black men from bequeathing their name to their wives and children. Our great country has a history of laws that made it illegal for blacks to ride on the front of the bus. (I can't imagine boarding an Escort van only to be told to move to the back in order to make room for a white student). Sure, times have changed, but blacks still suffer from the daunting spirits of racism and exclusion. The creation of Israel certainly has not put a stop to American anti-Semitism. Economic reparations to the Japanese Americans have not put a stop to American Japan bashing. And affirmative action has not put a stop to racial exclusion. Some actions are more liberal than others. But all of these measures -- affirmative action included -- are steps in the right direction. · Harold Ford is a senior History major from Memphis, Tennessee. Papa Don't Take No Mess normally appears alternate Thursdays.

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