As we’ve seen, individuals are shaped by the groups to which they belong, willin

Question

As we’ve seen, individuals are shaped by the groups to which they belong, willingly or unwillingly. Very often our identities are shaped by the characteristics that society attributes to the individuals belonging to certain groups. Gender preferences are differentially accepted in societies, for example. Even “racial” categories are differentially established by social forces working within specific historical contexts. All this becomes evident when you complete your readings for this week. Patterns of domination and subjugation are often associated with group characteristics. In many societies, conquest plays a role in establishing which group is top dog. Once domination is established via conquest, social structures develop to maintain the relationship between the conquered and the conquerors. So it was with the France and the Algerians, the British and the Indians, and the United States and the Native Americans and African slaves. The institutionalization of the structure of dominance and subservience can be clearly seen in the history of slavery in the U.S. Slavery was legal until 1865. After its abolition, social structures continued to exist that attempted to maintain the segregation of the ex-slaves and their descendants from participation in civil and political life. Affirmative action programs were put in place in the 1960s to break down some of these structural remnants of slavery. In the readings, you are exposed to arguments which support the maintenance of Affirmative Action programs as well as arguments for their abolition. Using the readings (and links) as your basis, present your argument for or against the continuation of Affirmative Action programs.

Explanation / Answer

THE founding principle of affirmative action was fairness. After years of oppression, it seemed folly to judge blacks by the same measures as whites.

“You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race,” President Lyndon B. Johnson said in a 1965 speech that laid the groundwork for affirmative action, “and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”

With affirmative action boiled down to a diversity program, it finds itself in retreat. Five of the six states that have held referendums on racial preferences have banned them, including California and Florida. The Supreme Court limited the legal forms of preferences in 2003 and suggested that they had only 25 years left.

Yet supporters of affirmative action do not necessarily need to despair. They still have a path open to them, one that remains legal and popular. It involves resurrecting vision of an affirmative action program based on fairness, which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also favored.

three separate but related reasons for opposing affirmative action:

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