The Affirmative Action. Time to Say Good Bye.

It was a beautiful idea when it was hatched. The year was 1961. It was to right the wrong. To do what was morally proper and long overdue. Give the colored population of the United States of America every chance to advance after being denied opportunities for the longest time. To make sure our black citizens are not discriminated upon by the government and eventually, by the businesses, where they would find gainful employment. Give them a foothold in finding housing, getting education and daily American life. It was to lower and expunge the existing barriers that prevented them from entering the society as first-class citizens. Not staying as sub-society that for a longest time was relegated to the ghettos and despair.

It was not a matter of several presidents’ decrees that changed everything quickly. But it was a path, leading to eventual big changes in the American society. The path that took many years to complete, but it did what it was supposed to.

Thanks to the Affirmative Action (AA), many black people are now fully a part this society, in every imaginable walk of life and occupation. It doesn’t occur to most of us to separate our citizens by the color of their skin. We visit doctors, love sports figures, enjoy the performances of the Hollywood entertainers and listen to the politicians. Many of them are black, but it doesn’t matter a smallest bit to us. Many generations of our black citizens had no personal experience about being slaves, the segregation, or being oppressed. What it was like to be denied a seat in the front of the bus and education in an all-white school. What it was like to drink from a separate water fountain. Ditto for an open hate of the block people when blacks tried to move into an all-white neighborhood.

All that time is left for the history books and the movies. Those days are gone for good.

Without going into much detail, the Affirmative Action set up quotas (nowadays called ‘targeted goals’) that were to be filled by the members of the qualified minorities, subjected to past discrimination. For the purpose of this brief article, I omit anything AA-related to women and population groups other than black citizens of this country.

AA has done a lot of good, but it’s time has ran out, it seems. Several states have decided not to offer or enforce any AA guidelines. And if you take a close look, AA is no longer a positive element in our society. Why do we offer assistance to people ‘going places’ when no resistance awaits them at the entry way? All the doors are open, to everywhere. Try to name a place where our black citizens are not welcome. I cannot name one. The country has left that past behind. 

AA has become a crutch to a healthy person. An impediment. A permanent cast on a hand that had long healed its broken bone. How would you like to be known among your peers as the person who became a lawyer, an officer, a top-level manager, an academic only because of AA. What a handicap. The doors that open up to all of us when we meet the requirements and pass the entry tests with our skills and life’s experiences, would instead open to someone mediocre, only because of skin color. What incentives does a young man or woman have in life when they don’t have to make the grade to be somebody? They don’t have to study, be upstanding citizens, to better themselves, to build relationships within the corporate world? They just don’t. Corporate or government HR departments will take care of everything. Who needs to be a better student or a scholar, if all you have to possess is the color of you skin – and that alone opens up most doors. Mediocre students become mediocre graduates, become poor professionals. At the end it comes to bite all of us when we receive less that excellent level of service we are so used to. This is what this country is built on – excellence, and nothing less should be acceptable. AA has become another ghetto.

I firmly believe our black citizens are NOT handicapped, physically or mentally. They are just as intelligent and capable when it comes to being the members of American society. Those who wanted to move up and made it their goal have advanced nicely in this world. Just look around. They don’t need a crutch to go places.

Those who stayed behind are marching with BLM & Co.

These days, with crazy lefties squealing about racism in American society, AA supports the notion that our black citizens somehow don’t have equal rights. Well, if you use AA as a measuring stick, they do not. It becomes an interesting political twist. Offer everything on a silver platter and watch black people make little effort to work their way up. Take it away – and hear how racist this country really is. AA offerings confirm the notion that we still have government and corporate level racism that needs to be fought against. Think about it. We no longer have racism in this country, yet our government tells us that we do. Quotas that once opened doors, now invite mediocrity, deny many black citizens opportunity to prove themselves worthy.

The flip side of the AA is that many non-black professionals are being cast aside when opportunities open up. You can be a better candidate to an open position within the corporation, but you cannot get in. The HR department must adhere to existing AA guidelines, by hiring a person of color, to meet the quotas. Is this fair? Hell, no. Is anyone doing anything about it? Hell, no. The white population is clearly being discriminated against. Thanks to the very stale AA regulations and government enforcement (costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year). The tool that was developed to fight racism is surely not working as conceived. We must not close our collective eyes to this fact. AA protects existing racial disparities and creates new ones. This is just what we need.

I think it is time for AA policies to go for good. Yea, at this day and age when most conservatives are censored and silenced, this isn’t going to be a popular subject. Everyone is afraid to talk. But it must become a matter of public discourse. It creates discontent and must be dismantled. Like a puddle of water left of the drained swamp, it remains a proverbial breeding ground for disease-bearing mosquitoes.

Plenty of those buzzing around.