Affirmative action. What was its purpose in the first place, and do we really need it now in the liberal super sensitive nineties? It began in an era when minorities were greatly under represented in universities and respectable professions. Unless one was racist, most agreed with the need of affirmative action in college admissions and in the workplace. Society needed an active law that enforced equality during a period when civil rights bills were only effective in ink. With so much of Americaÿs work force spawned from integrated schools now, some may question whether racism really is the problem anymore, and many college students might answer yes. They see it on college campuses today, and they are not sure why. Subconscious prejudices, self-segregation, political correctness, reverse discrimination, and ignorance all wade in the pool of opinions surrounding affirmative action and racial animosity. With racial tensions ever present in this country, one might quest!

ion whether the problems can be solved by affirmative action.

Some feel that affirmative action in universities is the answer to the end of racism and inequality. If more black students get into and g

Landes, Alison, et al. Minorities - A Changing Role in America. Wylie, Texas: Information Plus, 1994. 93-111.

Ehrenreich believes affirmative action should guarantee that the best person regardless of race gets the job or gets into the school until it is all so evened out that our subconscious doesnÿt put competence and color in the same boat(114). The subliminal prejudices she speaks of may also be stirred by newspaper headlines that feed our emotions and actions. Twenty-nine out of thirty UA students feel the media influences the subconscious(Martin). When blacks read sometimes false statistics about their failing race in periodicals, it builds anger and animosity towards whites(Irvine and Goulden 78). The media implies that they are still not going to overcome the white man at the rate they are going. They subliminally become prejudice of white people, and in effect take violent actions sometimes building emotions that lead to things like the L.A. riots. With our surroundings and media creating images of inequality, affirmative action seems a necessity. It will provide a m!

raduate from good colleges, more of them will go on to even out the lopsided numbers in the work force. Prejudice secretly slips through everyoneÿs thoughts. Or so Barbara Ehrenreich believes when she writes of a quiet, subliminal prejudice that is caused by statistics that prove the fewer numbers of blacks in high profile jobs. When we see ninety percent of leadership roles in the corporate world held by white men, we begin to doubt otherÿs competence in that field. With so many minorities in menial roles, people begin to believe the white man is best for the top jobs; he knows them well(114). But with positive affirmative action policies at work, people should begin to recognize that minorities are just as good or better in the typical white manÿs job.

ly swing back to where we started(ÿGoing, Going... 12). Some believe animosity will still breed until a happy medium is attained, and until the nationÿs goal is met, some advise affirmative action might effectively exist with a number of strict limitations.

Page, Clarence. ÿWe, the Indigestibles: The Campus Culture Wars.ÿ Showing my Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. 257-282.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. ÿPlanet of the White Guys.ÿ Time 13 March 1995:114.

There are also those who believe affirmative action has some of the most negative effects. Irvine and Goulden quote Booker T. Washington at the closing of their article as saying, ÿNo greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced regardless of his own merits or effortsÿ(81). These writers feel affirmative action is a ÿwell-meant follyÿ that can only encourage harmful outcomes because it does not te

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Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)