- Jul 5, 2012
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Notice how, especially with my post, he takes it exclusively one way. I mentioned "women", and for him it was just "white". Intellectual dishonesty does not advance one's cause.You are such an asshole and a liar. Affirmative action has done ZERO for me. I do not get alimony, yet when women do it’s usually because her husband leaves her after she gave up a career to keep his home clean cook and raise his children.White women are the major recipient of affirmative action. And since this country was built on white identity and white women helped, Molly needs to just shut the hell up. So do you. White Women married and fucked their oppressors in many cases. And today women do get reparations, that's what alimony is.The very idea of considering women as worthy of our attention! They aren't even a minority! Why should we concern ourselves with the long history of repression, violence and subjugation that continues around the world against our sisters when we have endless little identity groups to concern ourselves with here?This speaks for itself.
Why I support reparations — and all conservatives should
Like most conservatives, I’ve scoffed at the idea of reparations or a formal apology for slavery. I did not own slaves, so why would I support my government using my tax dollars for reparations or issuing an apology? Further, no one in the United States has been legally enslaved since 1865, so why are Black people today owed anything more than the same freedoms and opportunities that I enjoy?
I remain unconvinced that an apology would have much real value, but the more substantive notion of reparations is worth discussing. In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy. We’ll come back to that. But it is undeniable that White people have disproportionately benefitted from both the labor and the legacy of slavery, and — crucially — will continue to do so for generations to come.
When slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war, African Americans were dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them. Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts. The government even reneged on its “40 acres and a mule” pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel social and economic disparity.
The result is unsurprising. As noted by scholars A. Kirsten Mullen and William A. Darity Jr., co-authors of “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” data from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances showed that median Black household net worth averaged $17,600 — a little more than one-tenth of median White net worth. As Mullen and Darity write, “white parents, on average, can provide their children with wealth-related intergenerational advantages to a far greater degree than black parents. When parents offer gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and build on their wealth over their own lifetimes.”
Black author and activist Randall Robinson has argued that even laws such as those on affirmative action “will never close the economic gap. This gap is structural. … blacks, even middle-class blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. They may be salaried, but they’re only a few months away from poverty if they should lose those jobs, because … they’ve had nothing to hand down from generation to generation because of the ravages of discrimination and segregation, which were based in law until recently.”
In addition to the discrepancy in inherited wealth, even conservatives should be able to acknowledge that Whites enjoy generational associations in the business world, where who you know often counts more than what you know — a reality based not so much on overt racism as on employment and promotion
Should women get reparations for being denied equal rights and opportunities? How about the Irish? They were denied equality.
On June 17, 2013 Sally Kohn wrote an article in Time titled, “Affirmative Action Has Helped White Women More Than Anyone.” Kohn provides this historical backdrop for the implementation including the reasons why President Johnson added women: “Originally, women weren’t even included in legislation attempting to level the playing field in education and employment. The first affirmative-action measure in America was an executive order signed by President Kennedy in 1961 requiring that federal contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” In 1967, President Johnson amended this, and a subsequent measure included sex, recognizing that women also faced many discriminatory barriers and hurdles to equal opportunity.” Kohn continues by stating that while Affirmative Action has helped people of color, it has disproportionately benefitted white women.
“While people of color, individually and as groups, have been helped by affirmative action in the subsequent years, data and studies suggest women — white women in particular — have benefited disproportionately. According to one study, in 1995, 6 million women, the majority of whom were white, had jobs they wouldn’t have otherwise held but for affirmative action.”
Sally Kohn
The National Womens Law Center did a study on Affirmatives Action and found that: “Women of color have lagged particularly far behind in both employment and education. For example, in 1998, the median weekly salary for Black women was $400 compared to $468 for white women and $615 for white men. Hispanic women earned a median weekly income of only $337. Even in sectors where women have made inroads into management, minority women continue to be underrepresented. In the banking industry, only 2.6% of executive, managerial and administrative jobs were held by Black women, and 5% by Hispanic women, compared to 37.6% by white women. In the hospital industry, Black and Hispanic women each held 4.6% of these jobs, while white women held 50.2%. At the top, women of color represented only 11.2% of all corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies. Women of color also earn fewer college degrees than white women. In 1997, white women made up 39% of college undergraduates and 42% of graduate students; minority women were only 16% of undergraduates and 10% of graduate students.”
Tim Wise had a paper published in the National Women’s Studies Association Journal in the fall of 1998 titled, “Is Sisterhood Conditional?: White Women and the Rollback of Affirmative Action”. His paper was about the reluctance of some white women to advocate for Affirmative Action despites the gains white women had achieved from the policy over the 30 years at that time, due to the policy.
“Thanks in large measure to affirmative action and civil rights protections that opened up previously restricted opportunities to women of all colors, from 1972-1993:
— The percentage of women architects increased from 3% to nearly 19% of the total;
— The percentage of women doctors more than doubled from 10% to 22% of all doctors;
— The percentage of women lawyers grew from 4% to 23% of the national total;
— The percentage of female engineers went from less than 1% to nearly 9%;
— The percentage of female chemists grew from 10% to 30% of all chemists; and,
— The percentage of female college faculty went from 28% to 42% of all faculty.
The gender benefits of affirmative action have extended beyond economically privileged women, expanding opportunity for working-class women as well: The 1985 Perkins Act, which requires states to set aside 10.5% of federal vocational-education funds for girls and women — such as displaced homemakers and single-mothers — has helped these women find new jobs to support themselves and their families. In Florida, thanks to this program, more than 70% of women receiving voc-ed funds found new jobs, at pay levels averaging twice their prior salaries (National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education 1995).”
These increases in white women graduating college then entering into higher paying fields formerly dominated by men increased the earnings of white women. Since white men were already disproportionately represented in high paying positions, as white women married those men, their earnings combined with his further increased white wealth. White women have been the number one beneficiary of Affirmative Action. At the same time, white women have been the fiercest in opposition to the policy. This is an example of the denial a portion of the white population has displayed pertaining to matters of race and overall American equal rights.
EndHate2021
