The politics of fear and hate has manipulated many Americans into feeling like the discriminated class because of perceived systemic ” reverse racism” — an ideology which has coincidentally proliferated since the civil-rights movement. White-Americans began feeling oppressed when African-Americans gained equal rights with the Brown v. Board ruling, Kennedy’s 1961 Executive Order, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order. Since minorities were granted equal opportunity and began attending schools and working alongside them. Thus, equality of opportunity (not outcome) – taking the boot off minorities’ backs – became a form of systemic oppression for whites. Minorities in the workplace and higher education became “unqualified” for the sake of being minorities, and the misconception that Affirmative Action operates on a quota system grew through factoids. Why the rise in this social attitude?
This zealous, warped view of reality, built on a foundation of “alternative facts” and unadulterated racial spite, has infiltrated the White house, and it’s airing its perceived grievances. It’s time for the white establishment to regain power lost in systemic disenfranchisement, the Trump administration has proclaimed. As the DOJ plans to curtail Affirmative Action policies in universities, (sexual predator) Bill O’reilly’s revealing words about protecting the “white establishment” become reality.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/bill-oreilly-electoral-college-white-establishment
“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality (of opportunity) feels like oppression.”
An important distinction detractors can’t seem to make is that Affirmative Action makes equality of outcome (literal equality) illegal. Therefore, simply removing the chains, lifting the boot of oppression which kept children from getting quality educations and blacks from even being in the same establishment as whites, was enough to send many white-Americans into an angry frenzy of victimhood.
So what exactly is Affirmative Action and do these narratives hold any truth? First, I’d like to clarify that I’m a proponent for substituting current Affirmative Action policies with ones based on socioeconomic status, which is a more accurate and objective equalizer. As the law stands today, it attempts to counteract pre-collegiate educational discrepancies between races, but it’s a band-aid solution that doesn’t address the root cause of the problem –poverty. Poor students across the board underperform on standardized tests due to our property-based tax educational system which leaves many with a subpar education. Students across America don’t start off the race to college at the same starting line. The temporary solution to account for this, while we work on fixing our educational achievement ranking, is to account for economic background.
It was a product of its time period – when segregation existed and employers and admissions officers were part of the opposition – but like any ineffective relic of an antiquated time, it must be phased out. Not that racism isn’t rampant anymore, but economic status is a better equalizer which doesn’t condescendingly contend minorities are too incompetent to get in on their own merit. So that instead, it becomes, “we see you already started out from a disadvantaged place but have the potential to excel, you just need the opportunity to.” This would give grant many the equality of opportunity the public education system robbed them of.
Yet there remains something even more condescending and insulting, deep-seated in white supremacist ideas is the idea that minorities in college are unqualified for the simple fact that they’re minorities.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>In grad school, I had grown ass white folks saying they wish they had a "diversity scholarship" like me WHILE I WAS TUTORING THEM</p>— Vann R. Newkirk II (@fivefifths) <a href=”https://twitter.com/fivefifths/status/892727675089027074″>August 2, 2017</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Do you know how many white people truly and genuinely believe that black people get to go to college for free?</p>— Ashley C. Ford (@iSmashFizzle) <a href=”https://twitter.com/iSmashFizzle/status/892557827675480064″>August 2, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Much like the “25% unemployment rate,” and a myriad of other outlandish Trump conspiracies, the myth of the “unqualified minority” being awarded spots while whites are discriminated or at a disadvantage in the college admissions process is quickly dismantled with statistics and facts. Not Facebook fake-news factoids with a racist frog as a background.
Affirmative Action Myths Debunked
Quotas Do Not Exist
Foremost, Affirmative Action as it stands, does not, nor has it ever allowed quotas which have been ruled unconstitutional since 1978 (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.) The Supreme Court & federal courts have repeatedly doubled-down, ruling in favor of Affirmative Action and against racial quotas or race-based point systems (2001 Johnson v. University of Georgia and 2003 Gratz v. Bollinger.) Claiming that in order to have a diverse student body “race can be used as a factor among many in a ‘holistic’ evaluation.” So no, schools are not filling themselves up with hoards of unqualified minorities to fill a “quota.” Much less are they snubbing white applicants in favor the mystical “unqualified minority,” as college population and scholarship recipient data (which I’ll get into later) shows.
Affirmative Action is a program designed to increase diversity within organizations by considering their underrepresented status. A piece of legislation whose creation was imperative at a time when half of America was physically blocking the desegregation of schools, and other public organizations would not accept minorities no matter their qualifications. In President Kennedy’s words it “ensure[s] that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” This executive order’s intent was to create equal opportunities for all qualified people at a time when equal rights didn’t even exist. It was later amended by Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 which prevented discrimination based on race, color, religion, and national origin by organizations which received federal contracts and subcontracts.
Whites Are Not Discriminated, They Are Overrepresented in College Population and Scholarship Recipient Data
Not only are there no quotas, nor was it created with the idea of accepting unqualified minorities rather as a response to employers and admissions officers in a freshly desegregated time, but whites are not being discriminated nor are they at a disadvantage in the application process.
In admissions, whites are “overrepresented,” making up 62.3% of college students while 15-24-year-old Caucasians are only 59.7% of the population. For minorities the same age-group, it follows: Hispanic 12.5% and 18.3%, Black 14.3% and 15.6% other. Where is that systemic discrimination right-wing circles consistently and loudly decry?
The white victimhood narrative becomes even more facepalm-worthy upon a quick look at scholarship recipients. White students “make up three-quarters of all private external scholarship recipients in four-year bachelor’s programs, almost two-thirds of all institutional grants and scholarship recipients, and over three-quarters of all merit-based grants and scholarships.” Despite making up 62% of the college student population. There’s zero evidence of white students being snubbed by unqualified minorities, nor minorities at all. Just like there’s zero evidence Trump’s voter fraud conspiracy, JFK conspiracy, and inauguration crowd size.
What’s left after all the rhetoric crumbles is a foundation of vitriolic resentment built by rejected applicants – with subpar grades and numbers. It speaks to a culture of entitlement when numbers in the 25th percentile don’t get you in and you blame minorities. This victim complex was best exemplified by Farmer v. Ramsay where Farmer “held that his grades and test scores were higher than those grades and test scores of accepted black students.” The case was later dismissed by a federal judge who stated that Farmer’s rejection was not based on race, but on his academic ability.
This faux victimhood complex is further corroborated by the infamous Fisher v. UT case where an low-performing white applicant thought Affirmative Action was to blame. Her grades and test scores were mediocre compared to those of the incoming class. Moreover, there were 42 white students with poorer performance who were accepted.
There clearly is no institutional discrimination against white Americans in the college applications process yet “57 percent of all white people believe that discrimination against white people is as big a problem in America as discrimination against black people.” (Many citing Affirmative Action to support their grievances which I already debunked.) The mere fact that the belief in reverse racism began during the civil-rights movement truly proves that “when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” Trump is playing the race card to his base finely and they’re hearing the segregation-era-originating-dog-whistle loud and clear. The war on Affirmative Action is nothing more than a diversion away from the never-ending White House chaos; one based on nothing but politics of fear and more faux perceived threats no different than the $35 billion safety blanket or any other of his empty proposals.
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