Is Affirmative Action Fair?

America has a history of racial discrimination, three and a half centuries of maltreatment of its racial minorities. America’s history of racial discrimination in both the public and private sectors, from top to bottom. Discrimination either given official government imprimatur or otherwise condoned and permitted. For generations blacks were denied employment opportunities and chances for advancement, or denied admission into institutions of higher education.

After decades of struggles in the courts and streets of this country, after countless deaths of persons demanding that the country live up to the ideals espoused in its most sacred founding documents, the courts of this country determined that, pursuant to law, a remedy was needed to address the long-standing wrongs of racial discrimination. From its English heritage, America jurisprudence mandates that when a wrong has been established, a remedy is appropriate. Often, fashioning the remedy is as difficult a struggle as was establishing the wrong.

What remedy is appropriate for generations of exclusion? Our society has struggled with this question for only a short time. Affirmative action as a remedy, like most remedies, is not perfect, but is fair under the circumstances. Even an imperfect remedy is preferable to no remedy at all. Only a certain few will disagree that racial discrimination needs to be remedied. Some will suggest that discrimination is a thing of the past, and is no longer a problem. However, various examples prove otherwise, including the Texaco "black jellybeans" case. Racial discrimination is still with us, and failing to address it is antithetical to American values, and weakens the fabric of our society.

Whether a remedy is fair always depends on who answers the questions. Some people will call a remedy unfair anytime it could remotely affect them. Others will misunderstand the remedy, and then call it unfair. Among its definitions of "fair", Merriam Webster includes, "conforming with the established rules or consonant with merit or importance." Certainly, attempting to right or correct the wrong of racial discrimination and its remnants conforms to our established rules of jurisprudence and is of great importance to our society as a whole. The alternative is to do nothing, to pretend that racial discrimination does not exist, or is not a problem if it does. Doing nothing about our history of racial discrimination is unfair to America.

Racism in America

Racism is inherent in America. But for racism, there would be no America.
By the time Europeans arrived on these shores with settlement in mind, native peoples had already established rich and intricate cultures. Because Europeans believed the native peoples were savages and less than human, they took what they wanted, the land. For the same reason, the native cultures were destroyed.
Racism created the environment that bolstered the American economy. Most people have the incorrect notion that slavery was limited to southern states. Not true. Slavery existed all over the United States and its territories until it was confined to the south in the 19th century.
Racism did not disappear with slavery's end. Both northern and southern states had some form of Jim Crow though the 1960's. Just one generation ago! Remember, in the 60's at least two southern states abolished all public education just to keep black children from going to school with white children. Every advance in civil rights had to be fought for either in the streets or in the courts. Not a single solitary advancement came about because the white politicos decided to do the right thing. Not until the Voting Rights Act in the 60's did black have an enforceable right to vote. Before that, blacks were subjected to threats and intimidation at the polling place, and at the mercy of poll taxes and other schemes to deny them the right to votes. And, I must repeat, this was not in 1865, lasted until 1964.
We live in a country where nooses are still hung up in workplace break rooms (WalMart), where minority workers are made to use certain bathrooms (Tyson), where white executives refer to black employees as jelly beans at the bottom of the bag (TEXACO), where blacks are denied applications for certain apartments (NALCO), where black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants.
Racism is a part of our complicated heritage.