The affirmative action case is little interesting.
Something that stood out to me was "for no reason other than the color of their skin, they need special assistance.." when I read this, my immediate reaction was "WOW... really?" This statement alone is NOT TRUE, ans you can tell that it comes from a PRIVILEGED PERSON! When they make EVERY elementary, EVERY junior high school, EVERY Neighbor hood, equal in EVERY neighborhood, with the same resources and skilled teachers, then maybe just MAYBE it would make a tad bit of sense. Then we would have to take make the the background of people, the experiences, and family history of others equal as well, and I'm afraid that is just not possible.
Sure, I agree with that it should target disadvantaged, it just so happens that the disadvantaged is usually majority black and Hispanic. Even if we were born in to a "privileged" family of doctors and lawyers, I honestly believe that the privilege of a successful black person still doesn't add up to the privilege of a poor white person. It's sad, but SOCIETY made it that way.
Wow. I didn't even notice that quote in the article. That shows a lot about where he stands on a lot of issues concerning race. Unfortunately, the reality is that "for no reason other than the color of their skin," people of color are discriminated against and denied access to certain privileges. When this dynamic is fixed, then maybe we can do away with affirmative action. In a sense, after reflecting one can say affirmative action is almost a way to appease people of color without actually changing the barriers that they face, such as the fact that students in low socioeconomic neighborhoods, often receive lower quality of education. Yet no one rushes to fix this. It's a "character problem," kind of like what was talked about in the Bob Herbert article. But we know that isn't entirely the case. Things have to change.
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