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Quotas for American businesses Create Racial Discrimination
Politics is assuming command of the American economy in the form of pervasive
equal opportunity enforcement. In today's society, everyone is supposed to be equal and
have equal rights, but in employment, there is more discrimination than ever. American
citizens need to do away with affirmative action so that America's job opportunities can
once again be based on merit, not skin color or ethnicity. Laws have been passed, quotas
have been established, and seemingly, everything has been done to prevent
discrimination, but rather than ending discrimination, these new laws and quotas have
begun to discriminate against a new group of people—the qualified white male. America
is known as the land of opportunity. The general theory is that if you work hard enough
and you are the most qualified person to receive a job, you get it, but that is no longer the
case. Now, in order to be employed, qualifications do not always matter as much as the
color of a person's skin or his ethnicity.In dealing with this subject, the first question that
is always asked is, What is wrong with quotas? What is wrong with companies hiring a
variety of blacks, Hispanics, women, and white males? The problem is not with hiring a
variety of people from different ethnic groups. The problem begins when the person who
is best qualified for a job, loses the position to someone less qualified.
Many voices say that quotas are used to right the past wrongs when so many minority
groups were discriminated against, but even immigrants, if they belong to one of the
Maldonado2
protected classes are eligible for quota preferences. Leslie Spencer and Peter Brimelow,
sociological researchers who have thoroughly researched the quota system, said that since
immigrants can also receive quota preferences, it is a pretty clear indication that quotas
are not about righting past wrong, but about political power. (n. pag.) Just as socialism
has collapsed around the globe, the leading capitalist power has adapted a peculiarly
American form of Neosocialism putting politics (and lawyers) in command of its
workplace albeit on the pretext of equality rather than efficiency. This problem is only
becoming worse because America has the most far reaching equal employment laws
found anywhere in the world. (Counting Costs)Many companies are afraid of these
laws, and the fear of political punishment makes quotas very hard to research. A Kmart
executive told a researcher, We're not letting you anywhere near our program.
(Brimelow 77) Companies go beyond what is required just to avoid legal trouble. The
manager of corporate employment status at Xerox, a company that uses quotas, states,
We have a process that we call 'balanced work force'. In Xerox, everyone understands
that, and it is measurable by its goals and relative numbers. That is the hard business, that
is what people do not like to deal with, but we do it all the time. (Brimelow and Spencer
n. pag.) Sears, Roebuck and Co. spent fifteen years and twenty million dollars to defeat
an EECO discrimination suit. Sears prevailed mainly because they were able to show
proof of a voluntary quota program. Many companies cling to programs such as these as
a future defense in court even if it means putting up with some unqualified or
incompetent workers. (Brimelow 77)
Not only is affirmative action hurting white males, it is also causing problems
Maldonado3
among the protected classes that it is supposed to be helping. Many of these people feel
that it is an insult that the government thinks they need special help to compete in the job
market. Yet others would be extremely offended if this help was taken away from them.
Black Police Chief Clarence Harmon was once in favor of affirmative action until he
realized the affect that it has on his race. He has said that when he was going through
school, he enjoyed competing and keeping up with his white counterparts, but he now
realizes that many times in the police academy black students use affirmative action as a
crutch. Black students have been found to score lower on tests than white students.
Harmon believes that this is because they do not think that they have to work as hard
which produces less qualified black officers. (Glastris 43)Karl Marx insisted that for any
sort of class consciousness to arise, there must be com-munication of a common sense of
oppression, but no one can feel this sense of oppression. With the mass media rarely
recognizing quotas, much less portraying white males sympathetically, Peter Lynch, a
sociological researcher, states White males have been easily and silently victimized one
by one. (qtd. in Brimelow) With neither conservatives nor liberals making affirmative
action a big deal, a classic spiral of silence has occurred whereby people assume that
their doubts are not shared and suppress them, thus mutually intimidating each other.
People are left feeling that nobody will help them. Another problem with this is the male
psychology that real men don't cry. Many men would rather put up with the hurt than to
even tell their friends and relatives. (Brimelow 76)
Most people realize that quotas do hurt people, but what most people do not realize is that
quotas are illegal. The 1964 and 1991 Civil Rights Acts explicitly banned government
Maldonado4
imposed quotas, but nevertheless, they immediately spread though the economy. Even
though quotas are becoming more and more popular, there is incredible denial. Some say
that affirmative action, while a regulatory burden, is not massive in scale. Supporters of
affirmative action insist that the 1991 Civil Rights Act did not impose quotas, although
its key point was to override a Supreme Court decision and make work force racial
imbalance prima facie evidence of employer discrimination. (Spencer and Brimelow n.
pag.)there and still harmful. (Brimelow 76)Another way that quotas and affirmative
action are very harmful is that they are very expensive. In 1991, the direct and indirect
cost of quotas, of imposing them and complying with them, amounted to between 112
and 115 billion dollars. The opportunity cost, which is what the economy might have
achieved without the misallocative affect of quotas, amounted to at least 4% of the 1991
Gross National Product, an amount equal to the amount spent on public schools. (Spencer
and Brimelow n. pag.) The revelation of these figures is needed to show the dangers of a
politically motivated employment policy.
Affirmative action hurts everyone—white males, their wives, their families, the
protected classes, and every other American citizen by hurting the economy. Affirmative
action needs to be done away with, so we can return America to the great country that she
once was. People once came to America to be free to work hard to become qualified for a
job. Will people now come because their skin color will help them receive a job? Martin
Luther King said that he would like to see the day when his children are not judged
because of their color, but because of the content of their character. (Brimelow 76) Every
time affirmative action is put into use, our country is taking another step away from that
worthy goal.
Word Count: 1194
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