Editor,
Wow! How deceivingly simple this issue really is! Thanks to the College Republicans for dumbing down this complex situation so I can understand it. It's a sin to think that a borderline white kid, struggling on the cusp of admission into a major university is denied admission because that spot is reserved for a minority of lesser quality! Could you say to that tearful white boy, "Johnny, you almost got in but the government says we have to let in some inferior Hispanics, Indians and Blacks who didn't do as well as you?"
For 30 years now there has been equality, which is generally a good thing. Ker-pow! We're all equal. Now Go! What are you complaining about? Look at the Asians! They've come over and they're doing it. Do you hear any of them complaining about not getting good jobs and into competitive universities?
Am I pushing buttons? I should be. Was this the discussion the College Republicans were trying to illicit? It's funny, I've lived in the South all my life until recently, spending the past six years 20 minutes away from the town of Rosewood of John Singleton fame. I've seen overt racism, having close relatives with memberships in the Ku Klux Klan and the National Association for the Advancement of White People. I'm not pretending this bestows any status as an authority on race relations, but I've been in situations that require taking sides and defending your position.
I'm shocked to say in the South, with its mythical reputation, people would be less appreciative of this insultingly simplified model, this cute little reductive cookie project with the handmade signs summing up peoples lives.
Maybe I don't understand the logic. By removing affirmative action are things supposed to all of the sudden become more equal? This is what is really being talked about isn't it? Are the benefits achieved by affirmative action no longer desirable? Blacks, Chicanos, and Native Americans, for the most part, still aren't starting in the same place as whites. One only has to drive from Nob Hill to the South Valley to see some pretty clear divisions along both racial and economic lines.
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It's one thing to say equality for everyone without providing a mechanism to tear down the residue of more than 300 years of discrimination, thievery, slavery and genocide. This is our nation's history.
Before talk of removing one of the only steps in the right direction, let's see something resembling real equality. Let's see true minority representation in Congress, and a president who isn't a white male. Let's see more minority CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. And let us please see university admission levels that reflect our nations racial makeup before the discussion turns to tearing down one of the only movements our nation has made toward correcting a pretty ugly past.
Jeff Beekman
First year graduate student in art
