Don’t Discriminate.
This started out as a comment on David’s post regarding race and college admission, but I decided to go ahead and post it here instead of leaving a small book in his comment section.
It irks me to no end when people pull the discrimination card when its not warranted. Now don’t get me wrong - there have certainly been, and still are, many occasions in modern times when someone has been blatantly discriminated against due to their race. The problem I have is when the situation does not even come close to being racially motivated, and is instead due to the fact that the person or persons have some other trait that is a valid reason to disqualify them, or that the so-called discrimination is actually just choosing someone based on merit.
I see headlines all the time claiming that someone was fired from their job or denied a job, or whatever it happens to be, due to race. Again, sometimes this is valid, but sometimes it is just a lazy, ignorant person trying to take advantage of previous cultural stigmas. If a black applicant can prove that he is more qualified as the white co-applicant (or can prove obvious racial discrimination, i.e. derogatory comments) and is still denied the job, then he has a valid complaint. If, as it often seems, the black applicant appears to be about equally qualified with the white one and does not get the job, that does not automatically mean it was due to racial discrimination. It most likely means the other applicant had some trait or ability that made him slightly better for the job. Maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion, but this seems to happen all the time if we’re to believe the media.
This is the type of thing I am reminded of by situations like the one David discusses; a racially oriented group (NAACP in this case) claims that something being done will discriminate against their constituents. In this situation, the NAACP is claiming that raising the minimum GPA for admission to the University of Nevada Reno may discourage minorities from getting a higher education. While this may be true on the surface, it is not discrimination against Blacks, Hispanics, or any other ethnic group. Its “discrimination” against those who did not exert the effort, or did not have the intelligence to do well enough in high school to maintain a 3.0 GPA. The fact that minorities have a lower average GPA shows that there is something that needs to be fixed at that level. It does not indicate that we should lower the standards of higher education to allow those minorities a chance. That, by definition is actually discrimination.
Dictionary.com defines discrimination as the following:
“Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.”
Yes, it works both ways folks. By making special considerations for minorities, we could possibly discriminate against others. If we really want to get beyond racism, beyond the hatred and classification of people based on their color or gender, then we have to stop both the discrimination AND the special treatment. Equality cannot exist otherwise. While I understand that we are not there yet, we have to start thinking that way.
If I was a minority and felt that it would be more difficult for me to get a certain job, I would not want special treatment because it would only reinforce the fact that I was different in some way. I would want to work to be thought of as no different, equally as capable and incapable as everyone else. For true equality to exist, race can’t be a negative or a positive factor. End of story. It really can be that simple if we just try.
06/17/08 | Permalink | Current Events | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0] | 
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