[Peace-discuss] Will I.P. elect McCain?

[Jenifer Cartwright]

John, I think yr sentence should have read, "There is a segment of the African-American population who benefited greatly from affirmative action during its brief heyday, and who would now like to deny it to OTHERS, INCLUDING THEIR OWN MINORITIES. (And yes, Clarence Thomas IS a prime example, tho' of course HE doesn't see it that way.)
 --Jenifer


--- On Sun, 8/3/08, John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Will I.P. elect McCain?
To: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com
Cc: "peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>, kmedina at illinois.edu
Date: Sunday, August 3, 2008, 10:38 AM





On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com> wrote:


My point was that in considering how dogmatic and strident to be about
the insignificance of "at best stopgap" reforms, it's ok to give some
deference to the question of whether one belongs to the category(s) of
people who have benefited or were intended to benefit from the "at
best stopgap" reforms.

if the folks who were the stated intended beneficiaries of such
reforms, by and large, hold them to be meaningful, that ought to cool
somewhat the ardor of those who wish to dismiss them as meaningless.

I would qualify this in one important way.  There is a segment of the African-American population who benefited greatly from affirmative action during its brief heyday, and who would now like to deny it to other minorities.  Clarence Thomas is a prime example.

I agree with Carl (I think) that if there is to be any sort of affirmative action, it should be class- or income-based rather than exclusively race- or gender-based.

John Wason


 


On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 5:41 AM, Karen Medina <kmedina at illinois.edu> wrote:



> Jenifer,
>
> I think Bob Naiman's point is that sometimes the rules help make the change, and without them things would be much the same as they were.
>
> Societal rules, like seggregation, do take a long time to reverse. And sometimes we need rules like affirmative action to counter the seggretation rules. Does affirmative action work? Well at least we can talk to each other on the train.
>
> Knowing when to let the rules fade is not easy.
>
> I'll just point out a few other things that society still accepts without much of a fight:
> * Women still do not have equal pay. In some places, yes, but overall, not yet.
> * Neighbors still look the other way with spouse abuse, elder abuse, and child abuse.
> * Homeless people are treated as trash.
>
> Yes, the rules that are supposed to move us in the right direction can be taken advantage of (just as an example, a woman can wrongly accuse a man of sexual assault in order to hurt the man), and that is most unfortunate. But, overall, we hope that the rules help more than they hurt.
>
> There are many places that we have given power to the person who society has made weak. Yes, the new power will be abused. All power is abused.
>
> Somehow, we need to find a balance.
>
> -karen medina
>
>
>
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 23:24:46 -0500
>>From: "Robert Naiman" <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
>>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Will I.P. elect McCain?
>>To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>>Cc: peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>>
>>once, many many moons ago, when i was a young radical whippersnapper,
>>i happened to be on the amtrak train between champaign and chicago,
>>and fell into a conversation about politics with a middle-aged
>>african-american guy.
>>
>>in the course of the conversation, i expounded views not dissimilar to
>>the ones that carl is currently expounding about affirmative action.
>>
>>he patiently waited for me to finish ranting, and said,
>>
>>"well, you have a point...on the other hand..." - here he paused for
>>dramatic effect - "we _are_ sitting together on this train, having
>>this conversation." then he smiled.
>>
>>of course, i had to concede that he also had a point.
>>
>>i think that interaction permanently cured me of being ultra-left
>>about affirmative action.
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