Affirmative Action

I'm giving a speech to the President's Advisory Council of my college to end affirmative action in my school. This is my speech, tell me what you think and if you find disagreements. I'm curious what opinion is.

Affirmative Action
The writers of the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “All men are created equal”. Do you think that they honestly believed that? Many of the same men allowed for the perpetuation of slavery in our US Constitution, this is evident in the clauses such as the 3/5ths compromise. To claim that America was founded on the basis of equality at all is simply fallacious. Furthermore, it is naive to believe that that all men and women are born with the same intellectual ability or advantages. The tendency for the intelligent and skilled to transcend their lesser intelligent and lesser skilled peers is a natural fact. This means that true equality is unrealistic and unachievable without true physical equality and genetic equality. This means that the best way to promote equality in America is to make all children test tube babies and genetically engineer them. I have a feeling that people would be pissed if we tried to do that. Sadly this type of artificial creation of equality exists in many government programs one of which is affirmative action.

America has had a history of discrimination against blacks and women and we can’t dismiss this injustice. I think it would be nonsensical to believe that racism and discrimination do not exist today, however, it is equally nonsensical to think that it exists in the same capacity and to the same degree as it did many years ago. The question today is, “How do we differentiate between discriminatory actions and de facto inequality”. For this purpose we shall look at the definitions of discrimination:

1. To discriminate is to recognized or perceive the difference.
2. Discriminatory means being biased or having a belief or attitude about a subject beforehand; Prejudice.
3. Discrimination means the unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of Prejudice.

People who promote affirmative action would like you to believe that they fighting to end discrimination. That is to say they are fighting to end the unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice. This is true in the same way as the concept of “Fighting fire with fire”. Indeed, I submit that we end violence on campus by beating up some kids. Their logic is that, “We can end discrimination by using discrimination as a tool against discrimination”. That very concept is extremely counter-intuitive. This logic basically brings us to the conclusion that the goals of affirmative action are not ending discrimination but promoting discrimination for blacks and women.

These people who promote affirmative action say that due to different backgrounds, blacks and women are disadvantaged in a “white man’s world”. This is amazing to me because the white population is less than half of the world population. I suppose that believe that women and blacks are just too stupid and too poor and too ignorant to succeed without the help of the white man. God bless the white man we’re just so good at elevating people, usually with a rope around the neck. They do all of this while trying to carry the flag of non-discrimination which is pathetically ironic considering the facts.

Let us assume for a moment that all blacks and women are of inferior intelligence, and that the white man has the genetic monopoly on brain power. If this were the case, I would then ask why bother helping blacks and women? If they are indeed dumber than white men why would we send them to college so they can flunk out or appoint them to jobs so they can fail? Does being of a certain race qualify you more for a job than sheer ability and experience? These people seem to think so.

Now let us assume that blacks, women, and whites all have the same intellectual potential upon birth. That is to say that all races have an equal chance of having a gifted or talented child. I know this is hard for some of you to believe but I think Barack Obama is a tad bit smarter than George W. Bush. How do you think affirmative action specialists would address him? He’s black so he’s dumb, but he’s also white so he’s smart. He’s black so he’s disadvantage but he’s white so he’s also rich. He’s blacks so he’s done drugs but he’s white so he hasn’t. He’s black so he’s committed crimes but he’s white so he hasn’t. Could it be that Barack Obama was a man of high intelligence and ability who just happened to be black? Could it be that Barack Obama wasn’t the genetic lottery winner and somehow the Keanu Reeves of black people sent here to free us from the domination of machines? The truth is that individuals each possess their own level of intelligence and ability. Individuals each possess their own potential for success. We should then address the issue based on individuals and not on race, because race is theory and a stereotype not a scientific law. Affirmative action is obsolete and fundamentally flawed because it has never addressed the true question that this nation needs to answer, “How can we get our talented and gifted citizens into college so they can graduate and get a job to help the community?” Instead affirmative action addresses this question: “How can we get blacks and whites into our schools and jobs so we can exploit their status as a minority as some form of pro bono and act of charity?” Affirmative action is fundamentally racist, sexist, intolerant, bigoted and counter-productive.

I want to add that I dont neccessarily support this position as radically as it is addressed. However, for the purpose of the councils we have a speech pro and con for affirmative action.

A con for Affirmative Action is that its the African-American way of getting back at the white man for all the slavery *** that for some reason they just can't seem to leave in the past. And they use it excessively.

Affirmative action is just a different kind of discrimination. And creates more ill will all around. I've definitely seen minorities get treated badly cause it was let known that much more qualified people were denied cause they weren't the right ethnicity and weren't allowed to be hired, accept to school or whatever

cut out the line with the rope around their neck. could piss some people off

I thought I did take that out. I wasn't sure if that would really upset people. We had this nut-job come speak at our school last night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Xe1kX7Wsc

you should add that line in but make it tasteful. I know its possible.

Well, alot of this BS comes down to the fact that the government wants to segregate everyone, yet call us equals. It's contradicting in a sense if you have to put your race on any kind of job application, medical form, or any other kind of registration. What's it matter if i'm white, black, yellow, or whatever? Yet we still have to list what we are and that seperation is one of the many reasons that there's still racism and segrigation to the point that it still is. Look at Black History Month, for example, Why? Are we trying to make someone feel special? There's also a spanish heritage month. Why? What's the goal of it? reminding us that we're different? Why don't white people get a month? What about asians? Why do the irish only get 1 day? that's discrimination if you ask me.

I feel the same as Morgan Freeman on this one, IF you STFU about it, and just let people have one less worry. If jimmy down at the tire repair dosent like blacks, he's not going to hire tyrone to change tires at his shop. The government already wastes a *** ton enough of everyone's money tryng to magnify awareness that we're different. Why else would they give a grant to an employer who maintained a certain percentage of minority employees? Theyre tryng that in my work... most firemen are white, for reasons i dont know, maybe most black people dont like fire, who knows, it's not a great paying job, and you pretty much have to have a passion for it, but alas, fire departments are offered grants to hire minorities. So my department has a program where we somehow get 4 candidates per year that are "Economically challenged" pay for them to go to school on top of paying them a salary, and to this day, out of the past 5 years that this has started, not one of them has made it. Out of 20 candidates, not one "economically challenged" person has either finished school, continued to show up for work, or performed at a reasonable level. Granted this might sound racist or something, but it's not meant to be, it was merely an example of the amount of money wasted trying to force people into affirmative action where it's not needed.

Last night Tim Wise said this:

"You ask why we have a black history month and not a white history month; we do. White history months are not called white history month's they are called by trick names like June, July, August, September, October, November, December, Janurary, March and April.
You ask why we have african american studies in school and not white studies; we do. They are called by technical names like Math, Science, Art, Music, Physics, History, English, Writing, Literature, etc. All history is white history"

I didn't know that Affirmative action only addressed "White" vs "Black & Female". My understanding was that it encompassed more races than that.

Also I was wondering what you meant by this quote.“How can we get blacks and whites into our schools and jobs so we can exploit their status as a minority as some form of pro bono and act of charity?”

Might also want to reference where you got your definition of discrimination from.

Edited to add that I Don't agree with affirmative action also. Some people have been over looked just to fill this quota. Wish there was a better system in place though.

It is typically addressed as helpful mostly for the black and women, indeed that's where its creation came from.

For your question that quote means: "Hey guys how can we use affirmative action quotas to make it look like we give a ***about minoritys and women and make our college look progressive."

Affirmative action assumes that schools couldn't do this without affirmative action therefore if they are doing it because of affirmative action it must be because they lack the benevolence to do it without. If you force them to do it do you think they truly care then? Or maybe they do truly care in which case we didnt need affirmative action anyways.

How many people do you think are gonna call you a racist after this?

Well for medical forms it is kind of understandable since some races are more suceptible to certain medical conditions. But for most of the forms you mentioned those are usually optional choices to include.

Affirmative Action = Selective Racism

I have been in areas where affirmative action is needed and others where they aren't. Times are changing to where we don't need affirmative action anymore but it was needed when it first came out. I think it needs to be revised to the times.

I don't care. I refuse to believe that our society has devolved to the point where we are afraid to speak the truth out of fear of being called dumb or unintelligent. People have pushed it so far that if you don't concur with the elite that you must be defective and dumb.

I find that government mandates involving acceptance/hiring ethnicities to be extremely offensive. The government is practically saying "You're incapable of making it on your own, so we have to force people to hire you". The government is pretty much flat out calling ethnicities worthless. Equality is treating everyone as though they are the same race/gender. If anything, companies/schools should be mandated to hire the most qualified regardless of race or gender.

I had two friends back in high school that were applying to the same University, one of them was caucasian and the other african american. Both of them had marks in the low 70%s, I think the caucasian friend was 2-3% higher. The caucasian friend was denied acceptance and the african american friend recieved early acceptance with a $6,000 bursary for minorities enterieng first year of university. Isn't that a little unfair?

I think a common misconception is that people who don't want affirmative action are insensitive and don't give a ***about black people. I think injustice is injustice no matter who it is done against and should not be tolerated. I can't, however, say that one race is more deserving of justice than another. I can't say that because of slavery and prior oppression we must elevate a race to where they would have been if they weren't slaves. Maybe if there wasn't slavery black folks on average would have a higher house-hold income. Maybe if there wasn't slavery blacks wouldnt have as many problems getting a job. People these days say that racism holds blacks and women back from getting a job but the presence of affirmative action provides the basis for undermining and questioning the qualifications of all women and all blacks whether it is right or it is wrong. I fully understand and I'm disgusted by slavery and the segregation and oppression but we as a society can not evolve until we choose to evolve and transcend those standards.
This is my favorite quote of all time:

"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."
-Einstein

He also said:

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Does that not describe us as a people?

People should be judged based on their abilities and nothing else. Forcing companies to hire based on an ethnic quota is racist in itself, not to mention demeaning.

that guy needs to stop sucking the *** of the minorities

not being racist just saying he's kissing everyones ***

I was expecting a laughter track... Then I realised he was serious.

really thou Excelior

your speech is pretty good

except i would get rid of a few things like the He’s black so he’s committed crimes but he’s white so he hasn’t stuff lol, just seems like thats pointing out that sort of thing

In the town that I grew up in, there is a factory that use to employ the majority of the men and women. The town fully supported the company and the company would have picnics, carnivals, and other different functions for and with the town. When I was in High School, they laid off half of the workforce, built housing near the plant, and shipped in hispanics from another one of their sites to take the place of the white workers that were laid off. This was done because they were told they would receive governmental funding. This is the problem that I have with Affirmative Action.

yeah thats ***

if people already have the job u shouldnt lay them off and hire others for any reason (unless the people u have suck)

affirmative action really is just a *** thing

can't do that anymore because america is full of unskilled manbabies anymore. but that's because of our poor school system IMO.

i blame people becoming weak and dodgeball being taken out of gym class

and mcdonalds, and lack of discipline

To be honest, you're being too abrasive. I guess it really boils down to who your target audience is, though. But I can bet that a large portion of the audience will tune you out after your first paragraph, if not earlier. I think you could show passion in the subject without sounding like a ***. Build up the first part slowly to play ear to both sides of the table, then come through with your message. This way they'll be more eager to listen to everything you have to say instead of tuning you out.

Just my advice on public speaking... Be well aware of your target audience.

If you have to turn this in for a class, I bolded what I believe to be a mispelling.

Affirmative action works both ways. It's a little known fact, but there are Whites who go to predominantly Black colleges for practically free. GPA doesn't have to be spot on either.

There are also Whites who have joined Predominantly Black fraternities/sororities as well.

I've asked why and they say that Employers have looked at their resumes and have told them that they have experience working with different groups of people. They also have experience in overcoming obstacles.

If the races were truly equal, there would be no need for Affirmative Action.