<p>I thought I would bring in some information to bring into context who "really" has benefitted from affirmative action.</p>
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So, for instance, whites hold over ninety percent of all the management level jobs in this country (1), receive about ninety-four percent of government contract dollars (2), and hold ninety percent of tenured faculty positions on college campuses (3). Contrary to popular belief, and in spite of affirmative action programs, whites are more likely than members of any other racial group to be admitted to their college of first choice (4). Furthermore, white men with only a high school diploma are more likely to have a job than black and Latino men with college degrees (5), and even when they have a criminal record, white men are more likely than black men without one to receive a call back for a job interview, even when all their credentials are the same (6). Despite comparable rates of school rule infractions, white students are only half to one-third as likely as blacks and Latino youth to be suspended or expelled (7); and despite higher rates of drug use, white youth are far less likely to be arrested, prosecuted or incarcerated for a drug offense than are youth of color (8).
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<p>Think that happens "naturally?"
Whites control, possess, and own an OBSCENE amount of resources in this country and yet vehemently deny others from sharing in those resources. Think it's about merit? Read on.</p>
<p>It doesn't suprise me when I have conversations with those about who is deserving of certain entitlements, the position that whites generally take. It is a position that has been indoctrinated for many generations. A very brief American History lesson:</p>
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But the notion of the white race found traction in the North American colonies, not because it described a clear scientific concept, or some true historical bond between persons of European descent, but rather, because the elites of the colonies (who were small in number but controlled the vast majority of colonial wealth) needed a way to secure their power. At the time, the wealthy landowners feared rebellions, in which poor European peasants might join with African slaves to overthrow aristocratic governance; after all, these poor Europeans were barely above the level of slaves themselves, especially if they worked as indentured servants (9). </p>
<p>In 1676, for example, Bacon's Rebellion prompted a new round of colonial laws to extend rights and privileges to despised poor Europeans, so as to divide them from those slaves with whom they had much in common, economically speaking. By allowing the lowest of Europeans to be placed legally above all Africans, and by encouraging (or even requiring) them to serve on slave patrols, the elite gave poor "whites" a stake in the system that had harmed them. Giving poor Europeans the right to own land, ending indentured servitude in the early 1700s, and in some cases allowing them to vote, were all measures implemented so as to convince lower-caste Europeans that their interests were closer to those of the rich than to those of blacks. It was within this context that the term "white" to describe Europeans en masse was born, as an umbrella term to capture the new pan-Euro unity needed to defend the system of African slavery and Indian genocide going on in the Americas (10). And the trick worked marvelously, dampening down the push for rebellion by poor whites on the basis of class interest, and encouraging them to cast their lot with the elite, if only in aspirational terms. </p>
<p>This divide-and-conquer tactic would be extended and refined in future generations as well. Indeed, the very first law passed by the newly established Congress of the United States was the Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended citizenship to all "free white persons," and only free white persons, including newly arrived immigrants, so long as the latter would make their homes in the U.S. for a year. Despite longstanding animosities between persons of European descent, all blood feuds were put aside for the purpose of extending pan-Euro or white hegemony over the United States (11). </p>
<p>During the Civil War, the process of using "whiteness" to further divide working people from one another continued. So, for example, Southern elites made it quite clear that their reason for secession from the Union was the desire to maintain and extend the institution of slavery and white supremacy, which institutions they felt were threatened by the rise of Lincoln and the Republican Party. One might think that seceding and going to war to defend slavery would hardly meet with the approval of poor white folks, who didn't own slaves. After all, if slaves can be made to work for free, any working class white person who must charge for their labor will be undercut by slave labor, and find it harder to make ends meet. Yet by convincing poor whites that their interests were racial, rather than economic, and that whites in the South had to band together to defend "their way of life," the elites in the South conned these same lower-caste Europeans into joining a destructive war effort that cost hundreds of thousands of lives (12): their lives, in fact.
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<p>Isn't this the same mindset that happens with poor and middle class whites today when we speak about issues pertaining to people of color?</p>
<p>This dynamic continues to perpetuate itself in the discussion of higher education and everything that is of any value to this day. Think about it. Learn YOUR history. Free your mind.</p>