Let me start off by saying that I also have had my issues with affirmative action in the past. There have been times when I questioned the validity of it. Also Sydney, you’re right. Affirmative action probably does prevent equality. If we really want to achieve equality, we shouldn’t judge people based on the box they check, whether they be a minority or LGBT, but rather on their resumes. An African American girl I knew was recruited endlessly by Ivy League schools who were trying to make their schools more diverse. She was later accepted to Harvard with a 3.2 GPA and a score of 26 on the ACT. That was a very obvious case of affirmative action and I didn’t think it was fair at all. There was also a time when a friend of mine didn’t get his dream job at NASA because it has a hiring system that places a higher priority on minorities. It wasn’t that he was unqualified. He had a spectacular resume and is now pursuing his master’s degree at Stanford for heaven’s sake. Furthermore, in this time and age, affirmative action probably is unnecessary because a company or a school would be sued within seconds if it rejects someone because of his or her race.
(Read Zink’s article here.)
So if I’m not a huge supporter of the affirmative action, why do I still think that Sydney Zink is one of the most ignorant people on campus? While she’s free to publicly oppose or support affirmative action, she should have done so with better arguments to base her opinion on.
Zink seems to be under the impression that she and “her people” are the only victims of affirmative action. First, if she is at Northwestern, she’s obviously not a victim of any academic system. Second, it works against me too. Did I mention I’m not white? I’m ASIAN. Yep. That’s right. I’m Asian and affirmative action works against me too. There have been times when I was turned down for scholarships or couldn’t even apply for scholarships because the committee wanted to give priority to other races.
She also seems to think that racism is a thing in the past that no longer applies to our world. What world does she live in? Honey, racism is still ever present. You think being called a “rich white person” is more offensive than any other derogatory comments about minorities? Oh, I’m SO TERRIBLY SORRY that you have money! But let me ask you this. Have you ever had the experience of walking into a public place to have someone screaming at you, calling you a “chink,” and telling you to “go back to where you came from?” Or has your garage door been vandalized with the statement, “Filthy Asians. Go back to China”? Or have you been refused service at a restaurant or a store just because you’re African American? These are just a FEW of the racist cases that happened this PAST DECADE.
Another thing that also really bothered me was that she thinks affirmative action was put in place to make the U.S. feel better about the injustices of the past. When affirmative action was first used, it wasn’t to make people feel better about the injustices. It was actually a necessary step. It forced the University of Texas, a university founded by white Texans for white Texans, to admit Herman Sweatt, a highly qualified African American, into its law school. To make things even more interesting, in the past, affirmative action was actually also used to discriminate people even more. The University of Michigan, along with a countless other universities, used affirmative action’s racial quota against the Jews to limit the number of Jewish people accepted into the school. Even after all the horrible things they went through in the past, they were still being discriminated against by the very concept that Sydney thinks was put in place to “make up for the injustices of the past.” .
Sydney, it’s perfectly okay for you to oppose affirmative action. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But you should never think that you’re the victim of affirmative action because you’re a “rich white person.” You should never think that affirmative action works only against the white people. You should never think that affirmative action was America’s attempt at justifying its past. And you should never, in a million years, think that racism is a thing in the past.
Sources:
http://www.seattlemedium.com/News/article/article.asp?NewsID=114704&sID=34&ItemSource=L
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/19226/with-affirmative-action-again-an-issue-jews-temper-views/
Photo credit: http://whitemanblackmanchineseman.com/?attachment_id=1291