Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
For example, some employers say they can't afford to hire women who might go off on maternity leave. So they look for the distinguishing characteristics of their applications, and apply the appropriate assessments to justify turning them down for other reasons.
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That's happened to my wife in the past, here in the U.S., so I know whereof you speak. No, things are certainly not perfect yet, and we all have a ways to go before we achieve that.
Many of the arguments against AA are essentially claims that the law is "intentionally unfair" to those whom it is not designed to benefit (namely, in most cases, European males). Although AA has never been perfect, it's intention was
never to give people jobs who did not deserve them, regardless of how the laws were written or their results interpreted. They were designed to give those whom the system
openly or silently refused to serve on unfair grounds, the chance to get ahead on fair merits.
However "fair" the AA laws have been, there is no denying that they have had the profound effect of integrating our workforce, something that America needed on a psychological basis: What better way to prove that we are all the same, than to demonstrate how well we can all work together? This very fact has served to transform America on a basic level, to the extent that we can now sensibly debate whether AA laws need to be changed or abolished. What kind of a country would we be if those laws needed to stay the same as they'd always been?
But there are still people in America who look down on other people for purely superficial and specious reasons, and who deny those people things they should otherwise have access to. America is still not 100% "fair"... and probably never will be. That's why laws, like the AA laws, are needed: Because, if you live in this country, everyone is supposed to have an equal chance at Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
(FYI: As I often do this time of year, I watched
1776 at home. It helps to clarify the point of this country to me, and why we do the things we do (or should do the things we should do).