Race-Based Affirmative Action Promotes Bigotry And Failure

Admitting students to college campuses based on meritocracy is not promoting inequality. It is promoting the pursuit of accomplishment. Liberals and race-mongers would have us believe otherwise, but in the zeitgeist of the 21st century there remains no higher form of institutional racism than race-based affirmative action and no greater form of institutional bigotry than gender-based affirmative action.

There is no fair way to institute race-based affirmative action because ultimately it all comes down to color of skin which means those with the skin color du jour are preferred over others regardless of their qualifications. That is the highest form of institutional bias.

Even more egregious is that, as I have pointed out countless times heretofore, neither program nor country nor business entity can rise and sustain success by instituting policies of employing the least qualified. If that were the case, professional sports would still have no black players. Professional sports do not look for the best white, black, or brown players – they look for the best players period. And the success of that approach is undeniable.

I say without hesitation that every program, institution, and/or business that utilizes race-based affirmative action has short-changed itself by failing to obtain/retain the best available at said position because they opted to choose a color instead of the best available.

Colleges are quick to point out the need for diversity, but that is a canard for institutional preferential treatment. There is pride in success that comes form being the best or having earned something based upon personal effort. I also contend there is greater assimilation when true meritocracy is utilized.

As I have said many times, throughout my entire life as a student, both pre-college and college, I had only one teacher of color; and he was my professor in college who was from Pakistan. I defy anyone to challenge me pursuant to how I was shortchanged by not having instructors of color. I attended public schools, colleges, and seminary at nearly all-white schools; and I in no way feel I was deprived of race-based socio-enlightenment. My son has never had a teacher of color, and all he has done is excel at every level of academia and his chosen fields of pursuit.

When my son auditioned for the top youth orchestra as a nine-year-old clarinetist, he/we understood that there were age restrictions. His audition went extraordinarily well, but at the end of the day the instructors felt that albeit he was a superior clarinetist he would benefit by waiting a year. He did and he never looked back – going on to become one of the top clarinetists in the country. Race-based affirmative action would have given him a pass based on skin color, but would it have truly helped him? I think the results of his musical career speak for themselves.

Race-based affirmative action doesn’t enhance the work climate nor does it enhance the academic climate. The ability of a person to compete, participate, and/or do the work is not based on skin color. And in the long run race-based affirmative action doesn’t enhance the individual’s life either. Ultimately they are forced to either admit they are not qualified and unable to do the work assigned or they must blame the system as being stacked against them.

I believe in and advocate placing individuals in the best possible situation to succeed. Race-based affirmative action advocates denying the best in favor of the one with the right skin color.

A person’s self-worth and self-esteem should not allow them to accept the insult of being selected because of their skin color. The ability to perform in a particular environment should be based upon criteria conducive to same, not the color of one’s skin.

Jackie Robinson wasn’t selected because he was black. He was selected because Branch Rickey was forward-thinking enough to realize that Robinson would bring that which Rickey craved more than anything else; that was victories. Once he arrived, several of Robinson’s teammates and Robinson assimilated. The rest, as they say, is history.

Raising the bar of competition not only brought us great athletes but it brought us greatness in America. Lowering the bar so as to allow for inclusion of those not qualified and/or under-qualified has lowered the academic performance in public schools, and it has resulted in fewer persons of color graduating from the places of higher learning that they were unjustly thrust into.

It is no shame to graduate from a junior college or from a technical school, but it is a shame to drop out of the school a person was granted admittance to based upon color juxtaposed to ability. And how much more a shameful disgrace, the high number of students who flunk out of the institutions they were given racial-preference to gain entrance into.