Affirmative Action

[mathgirl32]

Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer committed to diversity in our workforce. We are dedicated to attracting and retaining the best-qualified people available, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or status as a veteran of the Armed Forces.

This is a notice on the webpage of a company with whom I am interviewing tomorrow. While this is not an uncommon notice / disclamer, I find it to be full of contradictions.....the most gross being that of Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action.

Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: affirmative action
Function: noun
Date: 1965
: an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women

Main Entry: equal opportunity employer
Function: noun
Date: 1963
: an employer who agrees not to discriminate against any employee or job applicant because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, physical or mental handicap, or age


Ok, maybe there is some loophole...for example the word 'opportunities' in the affirmative action definition could be loosly interpreted. I think affirmative action is mostly a euphemism for reverse discrimination. To me it's wrong regardless of the label you put on it. The best person should get the job...period!

I was wondering what everyone else thought on the subject of affirmative action. Do you think it's fair? If you were a minority would you want to get a job because of your color or sex? If you are a white man how do you feel about losing a job because of your sex and color?

[debwalin]

I have a very basic idea about Affirmative Action. It is meant to bring about racial equality. How does specifically hiring someone because she is a black woman bring about racial equality? How does skipping over someone because he is a white man bring about racial equality? When people are judged simply by their resumes and their interview performance, and race and gender have nothing to do with it, we will have achieved racial equality. What would happen to a company that was found to be hiring white men simply because they were white men? The same should happen to a company that hires a black person simply because they are black, even when there are more qualified candidates. Affirmative Action does nothing but continue the myth that black people are inferior and must be given "special consideration" to get a job. It would infuriate me to know that people were thinking behind my back "She only got the job because she is a woman."

[jaguar291]

If you are a white man how do you feel about losing a job because of your sex and color?

I'm a 16 year old white male and the job market isn't my biggest concern yet... but guess what is... college! What was it? Two or three weeks ago the Supreme Court ruled that colleges could use race as "one of the deciding factors in college admissions" and I am quite pisssed.. why does a person of a minority get an advantage over me? I don't understand... it should be the qualified person for the spot, not because someone is black or hispanic or asain.. its complete bullshit...

Another thing that pisses me off along with this Affirmative Action bullshit is how people from minority groups go crazy when someone says its wrong.... whatever happened to equality? They preach that they want equality but when it comes down to them getting an advantage they would kill if it was taken away... damn those liberals... they're taking over the world.. next thing we know, Al Sharpton is sitting in the Oval Office... we need to bring back good old conservatism...

[DeadAddict]

One word answer No it is not fair females and males are equal reguardless of age/color/height etc
I would want the job because of the skills I possess to do the job. sex and color are pointless. In my opinion they hold no value when it comes to employment the persons skills should be the only thing looked at nothing more nothing less.
Now how would I feel about losing my job because of my sex and color. I would be very Po'ed to simply put it. No one should lose their job over something that they had no control over when they were born. If the applicant can do the job they were hired to do then they should not lose their job. unless they were caught stealing,endangering the safety of other staff members and malicious destruction of company property.

[allenb1963]

mg32...I live in a state where basically EVERYTHING is political....it's all in who you know and if you don't know the right people you are screwed. I have a good friend who owns a mid sized construction company. After YEARS of underbidding his competitors on state financed jobs and STILL NOT GETTING THE CONTRACTS he finally wised up....he gave 51% of the company to his wife. Now he can get all the work he wants and doesn't have to worry about bidding things "tightly"....which means that the state is wasting my tax dollars to fill quotas that should not exist.

These laws are leftover from a bygone era and need to be modified badly. It's a shame we ever needed them on the books in the first place.

[powertoad5000]

Affirmative action is complete bullshit. It does nothing except encourage racist tendencies, as people get jobs for reasons other than their skill base/experience/other qualifications, and other people become envious of jobs that rightly should have been theirs.

racism

n 1: the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races 2: discriminatory...behavior towards members of another race [syn: racialism]


Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University

Encouraging interviewers to consider someone's skin colour in relation to their ability to perform a certain task is just stupid, and a poorly thought out solution to a very complex problem.

Ok, maybe there is some loophole...for example the word 'opportunities' in the affirmative action definition could be loosly interpreted.

I think the term 'equal opportunity' means that 'if you're not caucasian there's a chance that you may have had to work harder than the other white middle-class males that have applied for this job, and therefore we should take this into consideration'. The whole statement on that site is self-contradicting.

[bballad]

First a disclamer I think afermative action has played out its role in most of the country.

Life would be wonderful if we where all judged on our ability and talant unfortuinitly thats not how it works. Hell I got my current job through networking, thats how the world works. Ask youself how many people do you hang out with that are not in your same social/economic/racial group?

Try to understand what it was there to fight, every one in busniess was a WASP...every one, now if you where a minority odd where that you wouldn't get hired, wouldn't get promoted because lets face it in the busniess world most people are not promoted by what they know but who they know. afermative action was a way to knock holes in the boys club.

Unfortunintly all afermitivaction did was set up compeating networks (all black, all asian, all women ect.) and increase racial tension in thhose of us who are not in the know who try and get by on talent. In saying that it has done some good in most of the country, you will now see minority busniess leaders, polotitions, lawyers ect where as 25 years ago you woudn't.

[whizkid2300]

Ok Disclaimer I am going to make a couple of people mad with this one, oh well. If you are easily angered about race, God, America, Oh and of Course Swearing, beacause there will be a lot of it. I would personally not read this.

**** Afirmative Action.

There I said it, I am a 19 year old black male, I will be damned if anyone will tell me that I am not as good as anyone. **** that, God damnit I have worked to hard read to much spent to much ****ing time doing stupid ****. For someone to just give me something becasue I am BlacK, **** Afrimative action, **** the Press, and **** the Supreme Court. They definately dropped the ball on this one. Just how the hell can someone actually accept, Affirmative action is beyond me, if I think that someone else is better at something then me guess what I am going to do. Withdraw go back and study, train whatever harder. Who the **** are the to say, basically "Minorities can't make it on there own so we have to help them" Kiss my ass.

Ok now that I have got that off my Chest, I will discuss both sides of this.

Well you have already heard the one side, a

against it and why.

Now why is it needed, at times I will be honest the job, College, and Money Markets are not fair and they do discriminate that was the reason that, Afirmative action was set up. So that in the instance that, a person is not treated fairly, Afirmative Action would help them. So the problem with that is that, you take away a position of a more qualified person. Because I am White, I didn't get the job. In this scenario yeah.

This topic goes right up there with Reparations.

I am going to start a post on that piece of bullshit right now.

Sorry I warned you, this is one of those subjects that really gets me mad really quick.

[bballad]

Whizkid I have to agree with you on this one. I was offered many full rid scholarships due to my haratige, was I deserving of these..no I blew off high school, did I need them..no my family caould afford any college in the country...did I accept them...no, and hoefuly the money went to some one more needy and deserving.

On the otehr side of the argument, no when ever recives a job because they are more qualified. You recive a job because the hireing manager likes the way you look, or you know/are related t osome one in the company that is in a position to higher...that may not be te way it works every time..but thats how it works most of the time..Hell at my current company we only have 1 person in the IT department (me I got lucky) that wasn't refered for their position by someone allready in the company. Its not what you know its who you know.

That is what afermitive action was ment to fix, it faild, but until a better solution comes along it is still needed. Well it is still needed in the parts of the country where the people on top are still all white but you can't say that southern companies have t odo afermitive action but northern ones don't.

My solution, get rid of corperate afermitive action and enfore it on the university level...then find a way to get minorities into profeshional groups and frats while they are in school. That will perpetuate the network (which truthfuly is the problem) but at least it would be mixed.

[whizkid2300]

I have to say that you are correct on the thing about how to fix. But the problem is that it is everywhere what is it right now 1 out 50 CEo's is a minoiry.
Come on

Whizkid2300