When Edden presented the class with a case about affirmative action in class on Tuesday, I immediately felt a shock come over me. In the class prior to this one, the discussion was on how racism is alive and thriving today. This article in the Daily Texan added to this idea. After reading the article, it appears to me why people would feel as though it is racist to have affirmative action and call it "unfair". I really took the time to try and figure out where this guy was coming from in his argument to abolish affirmative action all-together. He mentioned poor Whites needing more assistance over well-off Black applicants; which is not taken into consideration. One thing about this argument is that even for poor Whites, they have a higher value than that of some wealthy Blacks. In the Tim Wise video that was viewed in class, this was discussed. I feel as though oftentimes, especially in this day, many people like to overlook racism or brush it to the side as if it doesn't exist. This backlash against affirmative action in the name of "reverse racism", in my opinion, perpetuates even more racism upon minority communities.
From the responses to this article, I was disgusted. The very first response that I viewed was from a Black male student (supposedly), who argued heavily against affirmative action. His views were extremely racist and conjugated even more of the stereotypes that have been adopted by society about Black people. I feel as though his argument was out of complete and utter ignorance due to the fact that he claimed Black students on campus as "dumb", while he himself is a Black student. This was very strange to me and could possibly be from complete denial of self and adoption of the majority culture.
Reading about the history on affirmative action and President Power's statement about the continuation of affirmative action was surprising. I did not expect, for some reason, that the president would argue to keep this rule in play due to the fact that AFR and other Ethnic Studies programs are often the first to receive budget cuts when it's time to make those decisions. Also, lowering the top 10% rule to admission of the top 8% lowers the chance of more diverse students onto the campus. I'm supposing that somehow keeping affirmative action will uphold the school's stature for having diversity, which I use in much of a sarcastic tone.
As for programs that are combating these issues - the Longhorn Scholars Program seems to be one of them that is beneficial in bridging the gap between minorities on campus and providing a positive sense-of-self in a mostly White institution. I believe that many of the minority groups on campus have created organizations for themselves to rise up from being a minority on this campus. Programs such as Black Students Alliance and other multicultural organizations are positive spaces where minorities can join together and build more of a sense of belonging.
I also read the comment from the black student and I was in shock. I felt that it was a prime example of what we have learned in class about horizontal oppression. He was downing African Americans as though he wasn't which was very disturbing! I like how you said supposedly because they way he wrote racist statements it was almost hard to believe he could be black! nice blog :)
ReplyDeleteI had not read the comment from the black student till I saw this on your blog, so I went back and read it and was appalled by what the black student said about his own race. I do not understand how someone who is black can be against something, affirmative action, which helps his own race. I also was shocked about President Power's opinion on this issue.
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