Affirmative Action

Unfair Racial and Sexual Discrimination

by Stephen M. Golden

“If you believe in individual rights, you can’t believe in affirmative action.”

- William A. Donohue, Insight, March 21, 1988, p. 10

The Pendulum Effect:

I had a teacher in High School who described the principle of Affirmative Action as the swinging of a pendulum. She would say, “For years, the pendulum has swung in the direction of Whites and White Males, and now in order to equalize things, the pendulum must swing the other way.”

There is a problem with this way of thinking. The pendulum must swing each way many more times before it stops—even if you presume nothing is powering the pendulum. Each time it swings the other way we will have more racial discontent, discrimination, and bigotry. Who will stop the pendulum? I propose this way of thinking to be more akin to “The Pit and the Pendulum” where the body under the blade of the pendulum is cooperation and brotherly love. By the time the pendulum stops it will be dead.

The White Male: A Minority at Last.

There is a growing feeling among American White Males that they are being passed by, and even persecuted. More and more I am frustrated with the fact that I am a white male in our society.

I attend staff meetings at work where I am made to feel guilty for being a white male. Everything concerning EEO/Affirmative Action is obviously directed against white males. I am given the distinct impression that I should not seek promotion or advancement because preference for these positions is being given to women and minorities.

Well, excuse me for being a White Male. Look, I had no more choice than anyone else as to my sex or skin color. I suddenly find myself in the persecuted majority. Of course, if you count all the minorities as a group the way Affirmative Action does by singling out white males, I am in the largest MINORITY in the United States. (You’re either a white male, or a “minority”.)

I thought the whole point of Equal Employment Opportunity was to remove skin tone and testosterone from all job requirements. That was MLK’s dream. If jobs are set aside for women and minorities, and I am prevented from advancement because I am a white male, is that not Unfair Racial and Sexual Discrimination? Is it right for someone else to say, “Now you’re getting a taste of what it’s like.”? The Pendulum.

No matter how you look at it, being treated unfairly is unpleasant and causes resentment. Does anyone deserve unfair treatment? No. Unfair treatment should be eliminated for everyone. And yet, Affirmative Action, by setting jobs aside for women and minorities, and singling out white males, is nothing short of unfair treatment. Unfair Racial and Sexual Discrimination. Job acquisition and advancement should be based on ability and performance alone.

The Affirmative Action Security Blanket:

Too often, the cry is, “You just don’t like me because I’m ________.” (Fill in your own word. All the racially relevant ones fit.) Oh, grow up. Usually the disagreement in the workplace, the only place I’ve ever heard this line, has nothing to do with who the person is, but with the quality of work the person is doing. How do you reason with this kind of thinking?

It is not my goal, nor the goal of any white male with whom I associate, to persecute or discriminate against any individual. But from all the noise, you’d think we were a race of ogres out to dismember anyone who is not the same as we are. I try my best to like everyone, but if I have hard feelings toward someone, it’s because I feel they intentionally treated me unfairly. Now think about that for a moment.

Many times, Affirmative Action, and EEO decisions hide employee incompetence. There are many cases (I know of several in Government positions) where people make continuous EEO filings just to keep from revealing they cannot perform their own jobs. They spend so much time with this process their job is done by others in the department.

If we’re going to have true Equal Employment Opportunity, the race or sex of applicants should not be revealed. Yet on almost every form in where I work, I am asked what race I belong to. I leave it blank if possible — I don’t want to be in anybody’s little box. I suppose that singles me out as a white male, doesn’t it? (Racism by default.)

“Race Issues in the Workplace”:

I am appalled at what is coming out of courses like “Race Issues in the Workplace”. Courses like this are causing, or at least contributing to, race problems in the workplace by creating the illusion that the situation is as bad at the given site as the worst place in the country. It brings anger and resentment into people’s minds. It causes people who have worked side by side for years to become suspicious of each other. It is damaging to the very fabric of the ideal that we are all equal and that we should cooperate as equals. It has caused me to become MORE color conscious—not less.

A statement was made in this course that whites are portrayed on television much more often than their percentage in the national population, and that this is racially damaging. I don’t have a television (I consider them to be intellectually damaging). As a result, the times I sit and watch television are far apart and quite random. Of the evenings in 1989 on which I have watched television, there have been more nonwhites than whites on each given show, and non-whites held more than half the leading and starring roles.

There was a time when I didn’t look at life as whites and non-whites, but nowadays, I am being reminded of it constantly. Is this what we want? To look at someone else and first assess their skin tone or race in terms of white and non-white? Aren’t we just replacing racism for racism?

Racism in Pious Disguise:

Some are saying the whites should pay for the last 200 years of racial discrimination and persecution. This is as bigoted a statement as anyone could make. Oh, so I should be punished for acts I didn’t commit because of my skin color? If it were determined my great-grandfather had committed a murder should I be executed? A dangerous response to this indictment is, “If I’m going to pay for it, I’m going to get the satisfaction of doing it.” I fear this is an attitude that is beginning to form in the minds of many White American Males. It’s a defense reaction that can breed reactionary racism in minds that have never been racist. Resentment is quietly building. I feel rumblings of discontent. I fear their potential in the next few years.

Oh, let us consider carefully where we are, people. Let us re-examine our goals. What do we really want? Vengeance for past wrongs, or equality and fairness for everyone?” …With liberty and justice for all.”