Quote:
Quote by: castille  They have this stuff in the US about having to hire a certain number of black people. In Australia we have this stuff about giving Aborigines extra welfare or giving them easier access to college.
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Affirmative Action in the US actually is counter productive to the people it is aimed at helping in America. It is simply a "feel good" solution to the ruling class politicians that initiate programs administered by the government to gain votes so as to re-elect those very same politicians by those who the program is supposed to help.
See this link:
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2637
From the link:
The Grand Fraud: Affirmative Action for Blacks
by Thomas Sowell (April 1, 2003)
No issue has been more saturated with dishonesty than the issue of racial quotas and preferences, which is now being examined by the Supreme Court of the United States. Many defenders of affirmative action are not even honest enough to admit that they are talking about quotas and preferences, even though everyone knows that that is what affirmative action amounts to in practice.
Despite all the gushing about the mystical benefits of "diversity" in higher education, a recent study by respected academic scholars found that "college diversity programs fail to raise standards" and that "a majority of faculty members and administrators recognize this when speaking anonymously."
This study by Stanley Rothman, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Neil Nevitte found that "of those who think that preferences have some impact on academic standards those believing it negative exceed those believing it positive by 15 to 1."
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What of the idea that affirmative action has helped blacks rise out of poverty and is needed to continue that rise? A far higher proportion of blacks in poverty rose out of poverty in the 20 years between 1940 and 1960 -- that is, before any major federal civil rights legislation -- than in the more than 40 years since then. This trend continued in the 1960s, at a slower pace. The decade of the 1970s -- the first affirmative action decade -- saw virtually no change in the poverty rate among blacks.
In other words, most blacks lifted themselves out of poverty but liberal politicians and black "leaders" have claimed credit. One side effect is that many whites wonder why blacks cannot lift themselves out of poverty like other groups, when that is in fact what most blacks have done.
Affirmative action is great for black millionaires but it has done little or nothing for most people in the ghetto. Most minority business owners who get preferences in government contracts have net worths of more than one million dollars.
One of the big barriers to any rational discussion of affirmative action is that many of those who are for or against it are for or against the theory or the rationales behind group preferences and quotas. As for facts, the defenders simply lie.
And another link regarding Affirmative Action around the world:
http://www.hooverdigest.org/044/sowell.html
From the link: Many—if not most—people who are for or against affirmative action are for or against the theory of affirmative action. The factual question of what actually happens as a result of affirmative action policies receives remarkably little attention.
It is my belief that the intentions of those who wish to force Affirmative Action upon society are merely misguided "do gooders" who pay no real attention to the results of their programs and only wish to see short term goals that will gain those politicians votes in the next election.