jonathan-cunningham: (via queerwatch) This is an always reblog- I think this is the third time it’s been on my blog.  The source is Ampersand by Barry Deutsch, by the way- I highly recommend reading his work.  I’ve added the click-through to his political cartoon site. I’ve never been a fan of many affirmative action initiatives as public policy. While I like this cartoon, and it’s very accurate about our past, I don’t know that I agree with some of the things it may imply. One example is the idea that the amount of colored people in an institution or group is worth monitoring. Diversity’s great, but measuring seems a bit off. How does one decide what’s an appropriate number for an organization. Many people groups have a strong culture that can tie together with their race. This can decide what kinds of occupations they tend towards, which can affect the amount of people of that could have applied for the job in that organization. Culture can also affect what organizations a people group might tend towards. There are plenty of other variables that make measuring diversity a little silly (at least to me). This isn’t to say all forms of affirmative action are bad, I’m a big fan of private organizations, charitable organizations (& whatever other non-public org I’m not thinking of) providing scholarships/grants for underprivileged. Those organizations holding conferences, groups, classes etc on bridging culture gaps between the popular work culture and culture of some groups. I like publicly funded groups or organizations that want to help the under privileged. But it should be by setting up programs/scholarships/grants that target the certain circumstances of of underprivileged. But I do not like requirements or specs that could be called racist, reverse racist or otherwise. I don’t qualify race as a primary identifier for the disadvantaged. Public policies like that imply a few things that I don’t like: That an underprivileged white person is less important to help than an underprivileged colored person. Somehow the current generation is owed something for something their lineage paid for, by the progeny of those that incurred the debt. A colored person cannot help themselves enough to make it (when it’s a private organization I don’t think helping implies this, it implies solidarity, not pity.) The cartoon (and in some ways affirmative action) implies that white people owe colored people something. If government is the one to pay for affirmative action, does that mean the government is the work of the white people? Not really an important point, but it is a thought that sticks to the back of my mind when these conversations come up. Last big beef I have is you can’t magically turn around or undo all of the bullshit that has happened. This kind of pulls from an opinion that guided my thinking on Iraq, so I’m going to explain that first. If we wanted to give Iraq democracy (not that I actually think that was our reasoning) what would work better: going to war and deposing their legal (albeit kind of evil) government; OR exposing them to our way of governing, when something really bad happens (ethnic cleansing, mass poverty, etc) stepping in and trying to help, and allowing their change to happen organically. I vote the latter. Sure, it’ll take a long time, but if our way really works, and theirs is that bad it won’t last. You can’t hand a country a revolution. It has to happen on it’s own. There is one very important step that you can’t give Iraq. Unification. ‘We hate that so much let’s get together and do something about it.’ That seems to be Iraq’s biggest problem right now, there’s no common mindset on where to go. Tying that back together with the problems affirmative action tries to solve, you can’t hand a marginalized under privileged group an equal share in our world. Change doesn’t work that fast. If it happens more organically, it will last longer. Individuals that have been set back from what their people group have suffered aren’t usually going to become Fortune 500 CEO’s after one or two generations. How many generations are we from slavery? (Not as many as you might think) How far are we from Civil Rights? Not very far at all! Does that mean no one should help, no. But I think it does mean that we shouldn’t expect everything to be equal right now. There’s still growing to be done, and its not the governments place to mandate it, and it’s no one’s business to mandate how many colored people there should be in any group/organization/institution (internal mandate or otherwise). And as shitty as it may be, I feel much better about helping myself than the scrawny arian bastard helping me up to that ledge. It’ll happen eventually, and the scrawny little bastard won’t be nearly as awesome.

jonathan-cunningham:

(via queerwatch)

This is an always reblog- I think this is the third time it’s been on my blog.  The source is Ampersand by Barry Deutsch, by the way- I highly recommend reading his work.  I’ve added the click-through to his political cartoon site.

I’ve never been a fan of many affirmative action initiatives as public policy. While I like this cartoon, and it’s very accurate about our past, I don’t know that I agree with some of the things it may imply.

One example is the idea that the amount of colored people in an institution or group is worth monitoring. Diversity’s great, but measuring seems a bit off.

How does one decide what’s an appropriate number for an organization. Many people groups have a strong culture that can tie together with their race. This can decide what kinds of occupations they tend towards, which can affect the amount of people of that could have applied for the job in that organization. Culture can also affect what organizations a people group might tend towards. There are plenty of other variables that make measuring diversity a little silly (at least to me).

This isn’t to say all forms of affirmative action are bad, I’m a big fan of private organizations, charitable organizations (& whatever other non-public org I’m not thinking of) providing scholarships/grants for underprivileged. Those organizations holding conferences, groups, classes etc on bridging culture gaps between the popular work culture and culture of some groups.

I like publicly funded groups or organizations that want to help the under privileged. But it should be by setting up programs/scholarships/grants that target the certain circumstances of of underprivileged. But I do not like requirements or specs that could be called racist, reverse racist or otherwise. I don’t qualify race as a primary identifier for the disadvantaged.

Public policies like that imply a few things that I don’t like:

  1. That an underprivileged white person is less important to help than an underprivileged colored person.
  2. Somehow the current generation is owed something for something their lineage paid for, by the progeny of those that incurred the debt.
  3. A colored person cannot help themselves enough to make it (when it’s a private organization I don’t think helping implies this, it implies solidarity, not pity.)
  4. The cartoon (and in some ways affirmative action) implies that white people owe colored people something. If government is the one to pay for affirmative action, does that mean the government is the work of the white people? Not really an important point, but it is a thought that sticks to the back of my mind when these conversations come up.

Last big beef I have is you can’t magically turn around or undo all of the bullshit that has happened. This kind of pulls from an opinion that guided my thinking on Iraq, so I’m going to explain that first.

If we wanted to give Iraq democracy (not that I actually think that was our reasoning) what would work better: going to war and deposing their legal (albeit kind of evil) government; OR exposing them to our way of governing, when something really bad happens (ethnic cleansing, mass poverty, etc) stepping in and trying to help, and allowing their change to happen organically.

I vote the latter. Sure, it’ll take a long time, but if our way really works, and theirs is that bad it won’t last. You can’t hand a country a revolution. It has to happen on it’s own. There is one very important step that you can’t give Iraq. Unification. ‘We hate that so much let’s get together and do something about it.’ That seems to be Iraq’s biggest problem right now, there’s no common mindset on where to go.

Tying that back together with the problems affirmative action tries to solve, you can’t hand a marginalized under privileged group an equal share in our world. Change doesn’t work that fast. If it happens more organically, it will last longer. Individuals that have been set back from what their people group have suffered aren’t usually going to become Fortune 500 CEO’s after one or two generations.

How many generations are we from slavery? (Not as many as you might think)

How far are we from Civil Rights? Not very far at all!

Does that mean no one should help, no. But I think it does mean that we shouldn’t expect everything to be equal right now. There’s still growing to be done, and its not the governments place to mandate it, and it’s no one’s business to mandate how many colored people there should be in any group/organization/institution (internal mandate or otherwise).

And as shitty as it may be, I feel much better about helping myself than the scrawny arian bastard helping me up to that ledge. It’ll happen eventually, and the scrawny little bastard won’t be nearly as awesome.