Affirmative Action Essay, Research Paper

When it comes to affirmative action I have mixed emotions and opinions. Although I hate what affirmative action does and what it represents I strongly support its continuance.

I hate the fact that affirmative action defeats the ideal of awards such as jobs and college admissions going to those who deserve them. Providing the less qualified to get the job, while the better qualified is left in the cold for something that is not their fault. If all people are created equal, then shouldn t hiring someone be based on merit? What a person does with their life should determine their employability. By hiring based on race, affirmative action is generating negativity for persons involved. For the one who was cheated out of his or her job, a resentment is formed of the system or worse, the benefiting race. For example many whites will now initiate joke on the blacks; because they feel the other got the job unfairly. Now we have the whites and blacks beginning to mistrust each other and like each other less and less. In doing so affirmative action is creating what it was meant to do away with, segregation and discrimination. All of this because we as a society are trying to over correct past mistakes. Try to imagine a man driving towards the side of the road. Overcorrecting the problem and turning the wheel to sharply he plows into the cars into the next lane causing many accidents and deaths. All this happened just as in affirmative action because he tried to correct a past problem, only to create a bigger problem in the process. And for these reasons I hate affirmative action.

However as I have said before I strongly agree with it s continuance. And this is why. White men still hold 95%-97% of the etop jobs in this countries major corp. (NOW- national Organization for Women). Affirmative action is needed for women to gain the same privileges as men in the work place. By comparing the following statistics you will see why. Women hold only 3.5% of senior management positions, and while 23% of female workforce is made up of women of color only 15% of the female managers are members of minority groups. In 1972 there were 402,205 women business owners in the U.S. And by 1996, the numbers increased to 7,950,000 (Equal Rights Advocate). By 2005 women are projected to make up 48% of labor force in U.S up from 46% in 1994 (Women in the Work Force). Which is why eliminating affirmative action will not only stop the progress that women are making, it would make a leap backwards in our country journey towards women s equality.

Affirmative action should also be continued because of this; Minorities continue to suffer a disadvantage in our society. Most have in the past and continue today to have access to inferior schooling or are subject to conditions that encourage them to drop out. Poverty has afflicted minorities for years and even today it is difficult to break. Affirmative Action is one way of ending this cycle. We must allow minorities or any one for that matter the opportunity to succeed. And in doing so allow them to break away from the poverty in which they live.

I hate Affirmative action and what it stands for; but I support its continuance. Until everyone truly has an equal opportunity to educate themselves and their children; and they have the skills to succeed in any job they choose; then will I be able to agree with the ending of affirmative action