What is discrimination?
Usually, discrimination is when someone is rejected due to their race/gender/ religion/ sexual orientation / etc.
It will be employers refusing to hire members of certain races!
It would be swimming club kicking out a group of kids from a summer program because many of those kids are African-Americans. (This happened in Philadelphia recently http://www.philly.com/philly/news/50346612.html )
It would be people threatening Micronesians with knives, fireworks and gasoline in public housing projects ( as mentioned in Honolulu Weekly) http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2009/02/legal-aliens/
It would be refusing to allow homosexuals to join the US military
It would be refusing to hire qualified females to work in traditionally male work environments!
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However, some claim "if the US has 12% African-Americans, 13% Latinos", then every work environment, every college, etc has to have close to 12% African-American, 13% Latinos! Otherwise, it would be "racist".
But it's not that simple!
National Hockey League (NHL) is mostly Caucasians. National Basketball Association (NBA) is mostly African-Americans.
You'll hardly see that many Mexican-Americans.
So what to do?
Do we force hockey teams to take in lesser qualified Mexican-Americans in place of a better qualified European-Canadian ? Do we force basketball teams to take in lesser qualified Mexican-Americans in place of a better qualified African-American!
Or should Mexican-American athletes step up their game and earn their respect on the hockey rink or basketball court?
Look at Mark Sanchez, a Mexican-American football player! He was a quarterback for the Univesity of Southern California, and he has been drafted by the New York Jets earlier this year!
Sanchez wasn't drafted to fulfill a race quota! He was drafted because he was proven to succeed at the college level and has the potential to do the same in the pros!
So, in order to get more Mexican-Americans in the NBA, NHL or the NFL, we don't need quotas! We need more Mexican-Americans to step up their game!
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But what about colleges!
After the end of Affirmative Action in California, the number of Asians went up! Some are claiming "too many Asians in California colleges"
From Ward Connerly
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2009/06/by_ward_connerly_about_five.html
About five years ago, shortly before my term ended as a Regent of the University of California (UC), I was having a casual conversation with a very high-ranking UC administrator about a proposal that he was developing to increase "diversity" at UC in a manner that would comply with the dictates of California's Constitution and the prohibition against race, gender and ethnic preferences.
As I listened to his proposal, I asked him why he considered it important to tinker with admissions instead of just letting the chips fall where they may. In an unguarded moment, he told me that unless the university took steps to "guide" admissions decisions, UC would be dominated by Asians. When I asked, "What would be wrong with that?" I got an answer that speaks volumes about the underlying philosophy at many universities with regard to Asian enrollment.
The UC administrator told me that Asians are "too dull - they study, study, study." He then said, "If you ever say I said this, I will have to deny it." I won't betray the individual's anonymity because to do so would put him in a world of trouble - and he would, indeed, deny having said it. Yet, it is time to confront the not-so-subtle hand of discrimination against Asians that masquerades as "building diversity" at many elite college campuses.
It is a mistake to believe that all forms of discrimination flow from hate and inherently foul motives. Certainly, the desire to attract more black students to a campus that is lacking in blacks is not an evil aspiration; however, when it becomes necessary to reject those who "study, study, study" in order to admit those who study insufficiently, then the mission to include more blacks becomes a much more ominous one.
If you didn't know, Mr. Connerly is an African-American! But he wants African-American students to enter college by (gasp) reach the same standards as Asian-American students!
For this, Connerly has been slandered as an "Uncle Tom" , "race traitor" and "being with the KKK"
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As for the New Haven Fire Department case that got Judge Sotomayor controversy.
The fire department requires those who want a promotion to captain to pass a written test!
However, since the applicants who passed were mostly European-Americans and Latinos, and those who flunked were mostly African-Americans, the claim was that those tests were "racist"
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/mcwhorter/archive/2009/04/22/thinking-about-ricci-when-black-people-don-t-perform-as-well-on-standardized-tests-what-should-be-done.aspx
From John McWhorter (a lingustics expert of African-American ancestry)
People like Du Bois did not dedicate their lives to paving the way for black people to be exempt from tests. Sure, the tests may not correlate perfectly with firefighters' duties. But which falls more into the spirit of black uplift that you could explain to a foreigner in less than three minutes: teaching black candidates how to show what they are made of despite obstacles, or banning a test of mental agility as inappropriate to impose on black candidates?
So what to do? STEP YOUR GAME UP!
Failing a test doesn't make the test racist! Otherwise, the game of hockey or basketball would be "racist"!
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To those who scream "if it wasn't for Affirmative Action, you wouldn't be allowed to attend college"
EXCUSE ME?
My college (University of Hawaii) was admitting African-Americans (and other non-whites) before Affirmative Action came into place! In fact, Barack Obama Sr. (the president's dad) was attending that same college when the civil rights movement was going on in the South! While he was the 1st UH student straight out of Africa, they already had a few African-Americans way before that!
In fact, Alice Ball got a masters in chemistry @ UH in 1915! This was when many mainland colleges would've rejected her based only on race!
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~takara/alice_ball.htm
Also, when I entered UH, the college required it's applicants coming out of high school to have a 2.8 GPA, 510 SAT score on verbals, and a 510 SAT score on math!
I had a 3.3 GPA, 580 on verbal, 580 on math! I didn't need quotas or lowered standards to get into UH!
I'm not mentioning my GPA and SATs to brag. Other students had higher GPAs and SATs than me! I mentioned it as proof that I got into UH with the same standards as its European-American and Asian-American students!
Criticizing quotas doesn't mean "denying discrimination exists". How many of my critics spent time thinking how it's like to be the only Latino in a class full of Asians and Pacific Islanders? How's that for being an "outsider"?
That didn't stop me from meeting the same standards as everyone else to get into UH!
If Mark Sanchez, Alice Ball, Yao Ming, and other under-represented minorities could do it, why not you?
