Affirmative Action
2003-06-30 1:14 p.m.
argumentative quote of the day: "How emotional do you want me to get over a diry bathtub?!"so yes, spring cleaning 2 = arguements about how much i don't care. It's my apartment, of course I care... but oh well.
So I'm just finishing up an arguement with a few people I don't know about the necessary evil of Affirmative Action. Without which i probably would not have made it into the 2 colleges that I immediately dopped out of.
So here was my first and only argement on the subject (the arguements eems to have died down since):
------------------------------------
Her arguement (summary) is that she doesn't feel she should have t oshare a classroom with minorities JUST BECAUSE they are minorities regardless of hwo well they do.
Arguments came to her about the struggles of minories in this country, and she replied with this:
------------------------------------
Yea, you're right! You wouldn't care about my parent's background and how my mother grew up without her parents because they were thrown into concentration camps. You wouldn't care that my mom had barely enough to eat and was starving!!!! You wouldn't care that when they finally did escape to America that they lived in the Bronx where they opened a tiny laundry mat made ends meet to put food on their table! You wouldn't care about how many time they got robbed! You wouldn't care that my mom didn't speak a lick of English and had to go to an inner city school and was faced with the things you describe in your email. So you TRY having HOPE while BOTH your parents are in concentration camps. YOU TRY having HOPE when you dont' have enough $ to even put food on the table!!!!! But because my mom is white, it doesn't count, right??????
Yea you're right this white little rich girl doens't know what the hell she's talking about. Guess what, I DO work 2 jobs.....I DO NOT GET ANY BENEFITS.....I am putting myself through school and to top it off, once a week I do work with kids through my univeristy to help educate them. I just started traveling to this predominantly Mexican community that lives out in San Luis Valley in Colorado where I educate them about diabetes and help to teach them about their health and about obesity so that maybe they can avoid the cost of having to go the the doctor to get insulin and other treatment for their condition becuase they have no health insurance.
Excuse me, but before you open your big mouth about what some flaky white girl whose biggest challenge in life was overcoming school policy about band and honors credit, I would like to hear what you do with YOUR life to make a difference for any one person, except to bitch about white republican/conservatives.
------------------------------------
To which i replied with this:
------------------------------------
I've had the fortunate account of coming from a brown family as well as a white family. Both families struggled, and both have done well, but there's not a day in my professional career that goes by that I'm not thankful that my skin is lighter. I refuse to go toe to toe with darker friends when job hunting, because regardless of how much more qualified they may be, I still have a better chance at getting the job. It's an ugly fact of the world we live in, and I've seen it first hand.
Most of our families have some incredible stories of how they've gotten here and struggled to make it to the lower middle class. The unfortunate part of that story is that the majority of the lower class has darker skin, and the majority of those with darker skin stay below the poverty line, and that's what affirmative action is based on. It's far from a solution, but whining about sharing a classroom with a "minority" is even further from one.
regardless of your family's struggles prior to arriving to this country (my polish family's story is incredibly similar), you're here and doing well, and there's a great chance that your light skin had a part in that fact. Meanwhile, I watch very close friends with latin last names miss jobs time and time again although I know damn well they are highly qualified. If you take a look at your family's struggle, and then darkened your skin by a few shades, you'd find that there's a good chance you wouldn't even have a computer to email from. There's a good chance you'd hate the police. You would most likey hate the white folk because all the ones you've seen are on TV and seem to be doing well. You would most likely hate the establishment because regardless of how hard you try to overcome economic issues, you're tied to your dark neighborhood where opportunities don't go far beyond the corner.
You see that skin of yours, just like mine IS your BENEFIT.
I commend you for all the action you take to help out people. The fact that you point out such actions shows that you realize that the Mexicans in your community need a little extra help. They are less educated and require the help of people who can give it for that education. Now take that knowledge of that lack of education and apply it to all lower income neighborhoods throughout the country, and you'll realize that whatver help that can be given on an overall scale to employ and educate those with lesser means is a VERY IMPORTANT issue.
The question becomes, are you helping them becuase they are Mecican or becuase they need that help?
------------------------------------
Ah well, whatever's clever. Now that I'm freelancing and most of my clients are nothing but digital letters on my screen, I deal with the racial issues less and less.
Hopefully, we will succumb overall one day, educate our youth regardless of color or economic class, and marvel in our equality at ber b q's and bars...
until then, mr. whitey, quit whining about losing a piece of that which you've guarded fo so long. and mr. non-whitey, quit whining that succeeding is too damned hard. That's been established, so now what?