Elfdart wrote:Try reading what King said or wrote. How about this from his book
Why We Can't Wait ?:
Martin Luther King Jr wrote:No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries; Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of a the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law.
You know, that
might be valid for blacks in the 1960s, who suffered
directly from discriminatory laws, segregation, unequal hiring practices that were legally unchallengable at that time, etc. But we are now about two generations past that point. Today, any employer who openly employes hiring practives that discriminate against blacks (or other minorities for that matter) will be haled into court so fast he'll leave skid marks on his way into the court building. How long does this process have to go on before the books are balanced? It is human nature to milk a resource for all it's worth. Preferential treatment is something that blacks will (understandably) want to hang onto as long as possible, for it is human nature to try and keep an advantage - we're a competitive species. But affirmative action has passed the point of diminishing returns. Any leg up it may give to minorities must now be balanced against two other serious factors. One is the divisiveness of the issue, as a qualified white applicant is likely to be understandably resentful as losing a job to a less qualified minority applicant because of something for which the white applicant is not personally responsible. People, very understandably resent being penalized for the wrongs of others. This is particularly so when those others are long dead. The second factor is the fact that it really does no favors to take a less qualified person and put him in the game where he must compete with others who are fully qualified. The law may have put them in their jobs or in their classrooms, but it did not magically impart to them the necessary skills to compete with other, more qualified applicants. (Look at the example of Dr. Patrick Chavis, a black physician admitted to the University of California-Davis medical school under a special racial-preference quota, who became something of a media darling and a poster boy for affirmative action programs - and who in 1997 lost his license to practice when the Medical Board of California suspended his license, for his "inability to perform some of the most basic duties required of a physician" - the law got him into med school, but did not magically imbue him with the same level of skill the more qualified applicants who were also there had, and his patients were the ones who suffered for it.) If affirmative action ever had a justification, I think that justification has long since faded. Despite your dishonest and frankly comtemptible attempt to paint me as a racist who advocates laws favoring whites, I think the "race" (and the gender one as well for that matter) box is something that should be omitted from all job applications. The job should go to who is most qualified, no matter what race, religion, creed, or gender, and that should end it.
The time has come to implement the words of another great black figure, Frederick Douglass:
Everybody has asked the question ... "What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!
Elfdart wrote:Here's MLK on affirmative action (from
Where Do We Go From Here?):
King wrote: "A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis."
again, same source:
MLK wrote: "If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas."
I wholeheartedly agree with much of what Dr. King had to say, but this is one area where I disagree
sharply with him. Whatever his other qualities, he was no economist or sociologist. If he had been, he would have realized that this supposedly equitable percentage of representation was a chimera that never applied to
any race in
any country, not just blacks in America. To quote another black scholar (Dr. Thos. Sowell) who
is an economist:
The grand fallacy of our times is that various groups would be equally represented in institutions and occupations if it were not for discrimination. This preconception has undermined, if not destroyed, the crucial centuries-old legal principle that the burden of proof is on the accuser.
In Malaysia, Chinese predominated in certain jobs. The same is true in India. In Africa, Indians predominated in certain jobs. In this country, Jews predominated (and still do) in certain jobs, such as in the garment industry, or in the jewlers' trade. Irish and Italian Americans predominate among firemen and police officers in many parts of the U.S.. All over the world certain ethnic groups predominate in some professions, and are notably scarce in others. And often this is simply the result of certain people having certain skills and backgrounds, not discrimination. This is not to say that discrimination never plays apart, but if you look, this homogeneity that is supposed to exist, never does. ANYWHERE. And discrimination is simply not always the reason for it. To force a representation in every profession that matched up exactly with the percentages of each ethic group in society would be an attempt to force into existence a condition that is wholly artificial and has never prevailed anywhere at any time. Such an effort cannot ever be completely successful, and will likely do far more harm that good.
Elfdart wrote:And so-called "black culture" just sprouted out of someone's head? I have news for you, a lot of people in Texas like Dubya because he says "nucular". When people born and raised here go abroad for school and come home, they go out of their way to talk "Texan" -especially if they want to run for public office. To lose the local accent is considered a sin and a sign that the person has turned into a "Yankee" and a communist fag.
Bullshit. These things may happen
sometimes. But there is not nearly the negative reaction that black kids in gang ridden areas, steeped in this black gangsta culture get when they hit the books and study, and try to speak correct English. There, they can often get physically assaulted for "acting white" and being "Uncle Toms", and race traitors. I come from a southern background. My grandparents were North Carolina born, Baptist fundies from a rural background. I sound like an educated Yankee, I can read Latin, speak German, I have a master's degree, I correct my grandmother's grammar (grandad's passed away, unfortunately), I listen to classical music and attend the opera; I like Shakeapeare, and am currently reading Milton's
Paradise Lost, and in almost all ways I am the very epitome of this type of educated person who goes away and comes back to find he no longer quite fits in - and I have entirely failed to notice any recriminations or resentment on the part of my grandparents or anyone else I know. They don't understand me completely anymore, but their reaction is an amused toleration - which is the same as my reaction to them. On the other hand, at work, I constantly see black police officers who are accused of being Uncle Toms and race traitors because they simply seek to enforce the law against black people as well as white. There IS a reaction by some blacks against other blacks who do make a real effor to assimilate into mainstream American society.
