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Originally Posted by NOBLE
You're right. It is a problem. In an ideal world, those things would never be a factor in someone getting hired, and the only factor should be a person's qualification. However, the world has never been ideal and things like gender, race, relations, etc have always been considerations in people helping out others or giving others a position. This isn't something new that started with affirmative action or that affirmative action created. Affirmative Action, ironically, was actually created (by an executive order of President Kennedy) to ensure that everyone gets a fair chance and that race, gender, etc IS NOT a factor in someone getting hired by the federal government. Prior to that, it was pretty much only white contractors getting federal jobs and race WAS a factor.
Affirmative Action isn't perfect. As a black man, I don't want to be hired or obtain enrollment in a university simply because someone had to fill a quota. I want to be hired/enrolled because I'm qualified. However, I think what's way worse than getting picked only for the fulfillment of a federally mandated quota (which I still have to qualify for) is NOT getting picked despite having as much as or sometimes even more qualifications than other candidates simply for the color of my skin. That is what was happening in some institutions prior to affirmative action. Affirmative Action might not be the best way to try to address that sort of problem, but what's the alternative?
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The alternative is remove affirmative action, and not hire based on race, gender, etc. While I agree that their may be some closet racist hiring managers etc out there, I think its way blown out of proportion. And I don't think people consider the possibility that if some race is really unrepresented in a particular profession field, maybe there just isn't a lot of people of that race interested in that field, it's not always racist.