I don’t think that the relationship between affirmative
action and reverse racism can be reduced to a complete cause-and-effect
situation. If equity is to be strived toward, then affirmative action is
necessary. On the other hand, if we only employ equality when dealing with
education, then the standards of all students will be raised, but some will
still remain lower relative to others. If reverse racism is defined as the
favoring of a race over another unfairly, then affirmative action does not
induce reverse racism. Because American society has treated its racial groups
unfairly, then the fair thing to do is to help those who we have pushed to the
bottom, those who need more help. If helping those who need more help, the
essence of equity, is wrong, then so is the goal of equality.
When I first met the GO students, I was surprised to see
that not one racial group was overwhelmingly represented among them. And
although I’m all for integration, I couldn’t help but wonder how much diversity
amongst the applicants as a whole was considered. All this time I’ve been told
that in terms of educational equity, the racial groups are not given the same
opportunities. In one take on a perfect system, the students who needed the
most guidance would be equally distributed across characteristics. In another
version, need could be accurately measured and compared. But how do we weigh a
social vs. an academic struggle? If African Americans and Hispanics make up the
majority of those who most need help, then the equitable thing to do would be
to help them first. But if we place these students in different classrooms,
better, and more supportive classrooms, isn’t that segregation? And segregation
is inherently racist. All in all, this prompt has so many controversial
dimensions to it that scenarios need to be considered one by one.
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