Racism Reincarnated | Teen Ink

Racism Reincarnated

January 28, 2010
By Blakely Smith BRONZE, Houston, Texas
Blakely Smith BRONZE, Houston, Texas
4 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Imagine, you worked hard your entire school days, to get into the college of your dreams. You have a great GPA and high SAT scores, but what if someone not as ranked high as you got in instead because of their race? Anger would boil inside of you because of this unfair act. Affirmative action is where minorities have advantages over majorities for getting into college. Affirmative action should not be in action because it creates inequality and gives undeserved advantages.

Affirmative action creates inequality between minorities and majorities. The United States stands for equality, fairness between all people. Is giving someone an advantage for no reason fair? I don’t think so. Affirmative action makes, “fundamental unfairness and arbitrariness,” ( Sacks and Thiel 1).The advantages given to minorities in affirmative action are unfair and undeserved. The minority has not done anything special to deserve this advantage, but be of a certain ethnicity. Our nation has fought many years for equality of everyone and what has become of it, affirmative action. School should be based on merits and achievements, not ethnicity. To get into college one must have good grades and personal achievements. The more you do, the higher you are recognized. The higher you are recognized, the more likely to succeed, and that is what school is about. School is defined by, “merits and should be individual achievement… but race and ethnicity do not
have a place on this list; these are traits, not achievements,” (Sacks and Thiel 1). Sacks and Thiel show how school is not based on a characteristic, but on an accomplishment of oneself. Affirmative action kids have drastically different scores than the regular amities’ in the college. Why do they accept these kids? To make diversity. Well diversity is not defined by race.

Affirmative action cannot make up for the past and if it hasn’t stopped it now it never will. Affirmative action cannot remedy the past. Although we have made mistakes by treating minorities badly, we can not make up for them by giving them unfair advantages. Does racism even exist anymore? Racism is making one race superior than the other. There is no more racism to solve, “the real problem with affirmative action is that we are pretending to solve a problem that no longer exists,” (Sacks and Thiel 1). In fact, affirmative action is racist. Making a minority have advantages, superior than a majority, can act as racism. Affirmative action has caused more discrimination on their campus. By making, “racially segregated dormitories, racially segregated freshmen orientation programs, racially segregated graduation ceremonies,” (Sacks and Thiel 1). If that’s not racism, then what is?

Some people say that affirmative action kids usually don’t have a chance to get a good education. They argue that because of the child’s environment, financial support and their family the child may not have a chance to get a good education. Although in some cases this may be true, the truth is that affirmative action kids that are accepted are usually the wealthier ones , that could get into a college anyway. Sacks and Thiel write, “If
preferences were truly meant to remedy disadvantage, they would be given on the basis of disadvantage, not race.” (1) School should be based on merits, not ethnicity, in any case.

Others say affirmative action is fair because there are already so little minorities in colleges anyway. But are the minorities really a minority anymore? Lately, more immigration of different races is coming to the USA, out populating the majorities. So is giving a race, with almost more or equal people advantages over a different race fair? No. No matter who the minority or majority is our nation is about equality and fairness.

In conclusion, affirmative action is wrong because it is unfair, not merit based, cannot make up for the past and remakes racism. Affirmative action should be stopped because it goes against all this nation has worked for, equality. Why should you care? Affirmative action is affecting everyone around us. Not only in the education system, but in the work place. Fighting against affirmative action is fighting for equality, the principle behind our nation.



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