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I have three thoughts after reading 10 exhaustive pages:
1. The Bake Sale: It's okay to charge white males higher prices as long as they explain in context that the white males had their flour given to them by their rich daddies, and the sugar was a freebie from their country club connections. A little tongue-in-cheek humor but I hope you get the point-their demonstration was one dimensional. They failed to show why different prices might have been necessary in the first place which shows me that they haven't heard one word the Supreme Court said in defense of AA.
2. If you're going to ban affirmative action, then you should ban neptocism, favoritism, sexism, glass ceilings, grandfather clauses, legacy policies and all the other back door ways people "get in" to college.
George W. Bush was not a scholar. It is well known that he got into Yale because his daddy and granddaddy pulled some strings after he was initially denied admission.
Affirmative action isn't perfect, but it's the best tool we have to counteract all the other isms no one seems to want to remember.
Where were the protests of "the system" from white affluent people when they were the primary beneficiary of it? I didn't see George W crying foul after daddy got him into Yale. Why? it was expected. He felt entitled because in his mind "that's the way it's always been done." The good old, it's not what you know, but who you know, rearing its ugly head. Where were the bake sales protesting the special advantages they received purely because they were born into the "right" kind of family?
3. Historically, women and people of color have always had to fight for justice and equality. It was never offered freely, and there was always resistance and bloodshed. If it weren't for the government putting policies in place to force change in behavior, we'd still be dealing with segregated restrooms. With the enforced policies, over time came some change in attitudes.
But those of you opposed to affirmative action are asking women and people of color to let go of a policy put in place to protect us from all the forementioned isms. Are we supposed to "trust" all of a sudden that we will be treated with equality and that mankind will miracuously treat everyone with respect and equality without a public policy in place? I don't have that much faith in mankind.
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