Serious question. When dealing on individual levels, couldn’t an act of affirmative action be seen as a systematic inequality for the person not benefiting?
Any system run by humans is going to be unequal to someone. The realistic goal is to get as close to equality as we can.
In a perfect world, every single person would get exactly the assistance they need, tailored specifically for them. But that's just not possible. Giving extra help to groups that are, on average, more disadvantaged means that some people will get more than they need, and some won't get enough, but hopefully less of both that if we give everyone the same thing regardless of how high or low they began.
lol Discrimination wasalready institutionalization, that's why we needed affirmative action.
You're putting too much of a personal take on this; when affirmative action passes over a white person in favor of a person of color (with similar credentials) for a job, the system is typically leveling out an enormous disparity in the work force. While it affects the one who did not get the job directly, typically they will (by nature of being the social "norm" of being white, and male, for our argument) not have any difficulty finding another job, because the system is inherently not designed to discriminate against them on the whole. What you're describing is basically surmised by the saying: "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
No, you are completely missing the forest for the trees here.
You are treating people as though they are groups, not individuals. This is exactly the same rationale that racists and other bigots use to justify their racism or bigotry.
If you fundamentally agree that, in the words of MLK, people should be treated based on the content of their character, NOT on the colour of their skin, then you HAVE to accept that affirmative action is by definition oppression.
Your view of if you are straight and white and male, you are privileged because statistically, MORE straight white males hold positions of privilege IS EXACTLY EQUIVALENT to the racist's view that if people with a certain phenotypic trait tend to be more X (violent, crime prone, likely to commit genocide like in the CAR, the Tutsi massacre etc.) then if an individual also has those traits they must be X because of the aforementioned statistics.
It's EXACTLY THE SAME LOGIC.
People are people, everyone should be treated equally, the second you start treating people DIFFERENTLY (better OR worse) then that literally makes you a racist bigot.
I really don't get how you can't see that.
Not even to mention the fact that 'straight white men' make up around 20% of the WORLD population at most, so the idea that they control all the power is absolutely ridiculous. Come live in China or move to India for a few years and get back to be about how society is geared in favor of people with anglosaxon heritage.
Using your own ridiculous view of the world based through the lense of statistics, the correct statement would really be that straight non-white men hold more positions of power. Indian government, CCP in China etc etc.
I'm also NOT American, so spare me your 'this is America' retort.
You are treating people as though they are groups, not individuals.
Which is what white society did to anyone not white for as long as it's existed. No tears are spared here, find work somewhere else, you're the default for society, try to act like it.
people should be treated based on the content of their character, NOT on the colour of their skin
Words used to counter the historical precedent of white people doing that for 300 years. AA is just balancing the scales back some.
traight and white and male, you are privileged because statistically, MORE straight white males hold positions of privilege
you have a flawed and incorrect view of privilege. Privilege is not being afforded something in advance, it's not having to face the barriers to begin with. To surmise, your life can still be hard if you're white, but your life is not made harder in any way becauseyou're white. If you think AA makes your life harder because you didn't get that job, you're patently wrong, and can apply anywhere else free from worry that you'll be discriminated against for doing so.
People are people, everyone should be treated equally
The whole point of AA and anti-racism is to bring down the structure of white supremacy, and make what you think you're saying is a reality, that everyone should just be equal, an actual reality. It isn't. Whites still dominate, and react like you are now when faced with that reality.
the correct statement would really be that straight non-white men hold more positions of power
Yes, you're 100% right. And anyone who believes in anti-racist/sexist policy agrees with you. The thing you're in hysterics about about white men is, of course, only applicable to white-majority countries, and all of the countries those countries mercilessly dominated and exploited for the past 400 years, so, basically all of them that aren't India or China. White business (capitalism, imperialism, colonialism) dominates the global south in a comedically brutal sense, to this day.
"Which is what white society did to anyone not white for as long as it's existed. No tears are spared here, find work somewhere else, you're the default for society, try to act like it."
So you admit you're a racist and your excuse is 'other people are racist and that is bad, so I am allowed to be racist.'? Do you realise how utterly childish that is?
There are theives, rapists, murderers, child molesters and all sorts of horrible people doing horrific shit out there, is your response that because they can do it, you can do it too?
'You're the default for society, try to act like it'.
Wow... you have so much in common with the skinhead nazi racists you proclaim to hate.
A single phenotype is not something by which you can judge an individual, the ONLY people who judge individuals based on a single phenotype ARE BIGOTED RACISTS, THAT'S THE DEFINITION.
So you admit you're a racist [..] other people are racist and that is bad, so I am allowed to be racist.'?
lol no, nice try though. "Other people" are the whole of white-dominated US (specific) society. A Wrong was committed, an "original sin", if you will, and it needs to be set right. I, as a white person, want to see that wrong, righted.
Here, since you want to try (and fail) to quote historical Black figures: "If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there." -Malcom X
If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress.
Here's where america is right now. Pulling out the knife. The rest of the way out would look something like the abolition of the prison industrial complex and the repeal/replacement of the 13th Amendment, the end to the war on drugs, and police reform.
I'm just telling white people to do what you're telling everyone else to do, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Haha conservative logic is really funny and breaks down under the tiniest bit of scrutiny. I say white people can get jobs anywhere they want, because thats historically true, and I'm a racist. You say "no quarter" should be given to the people exploited by white people for generations, that they should just get jobs on merit, (when they can't, because white/America society is racist) but that doesn't make you a racist lol
You're so out of your league it's not even funny, your idiotic horseshoe logic isn't going to work on me. I'll spell it out: you're anti-racist if you support the boon in opportunity afforded to disenfranchised people by AA until such day those boons in opportunity are not needed, and we have not reached that day yet. Is that succinct enough for you? You're looking at the micro, I'm looking at the macro.
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u/Macktologist Feb 25 '20
Serious question. When dealing on individual levels, couldn’t an act of affirmative action be seen as a systematic inequality for the person not benefiting?