Affirmative action, you in danger girl! A policy born under the Civil Rights Act to give equal opportunity to minorities via education and employment is now in peril, and its future rests under the gavel of the most conservative Supreme Court many of us have witnessed in our lifetimes.
White people are tired of not winning everything, and any perceived advantage going to society’s marginalized is going to be highlighted, while the many disadvantages will continue to be ignored. One of the biggest issues facing affirmative action is that its greatest benefactor is also one of its loudest opponents: white women.
In 2008, Abigail Fisher did not get her way and took it to the streets, and the Supreme Court, where she argued that she was denied admission to the University of Texas-Austin, based on her race. Her case rested on the fact that if she were not white, she would have been admitted. Even though 168 African American students with better scores than Abigail were not admitted, she still swore race was the deciding factor. But are white people, more specifically white women, being edged out of higher education and employment opportunities because of affirmative action?
No. Quite literally the opposite.
In a world where 33% of Black college students with a GPA of 3.5 or higher still attend community colleges or less competitive four-year institutions, versus 22% of whites with the same achievements, and where 45% of white women between the ages of 18-24 were enrolled in secondary education, making up the largest group of students in 2018, that argument can’t possibly hold water, but the facts are what seems to get drowned out by the hysteria. And why is this argument only concentrated where minorities might receive an edge? A researcher at Harvard found that legacy applicants were more than 23.3% likely to be admitted.
Where is the outrage against nepotism? Where are those protests when veterans are given preferential treatment in admissions?
Sure, they absolutely did risk their lives for our country, yet Black people built the country and still can’t get an employee discount. And speaking of the armed forces, why are these conservative groups, like those that provided legal aid to Abigail Fisher, so silent when military recruiters target poor and minority neighborhoods? Where is the clamor for equality there?
Black unemployment is nearly double that of white unemployment. According to the Social Science Journal, “white men dominate higher-level professional and managerial positions (49%), with white women holding 35% of these jobs. Blacks are a distant third, with only 14% employed at this high level despite blacks making up 38% of the labor force.” However, according to a 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, 67% of white women oppose affirmative action policies. It is almost as if they think that white women deserve the opportunity and are only overlooked because of gender, but somehow people of color are granted opportunities based on a diversity quota and not their merits… a Black-ass name on an unconsidered application has entered the chat.
Racism hasn’t dissolved and neither has sexism, but it does sometimes feel as if when white women get ahead, they forget the marginalized groups whose shoulders they rested upon for support, or whose labial colors they forgot to include when they were making p-ssy hats. One cannot claim the playing field is somehow leaning toward poor minorities when the numbers don’t support that. Somehow, it’s only a loss when those who were always winning are no longer given a clear advantage, even when they still are. You cannot claim that the thing put in place to eliminate discrimination is the thing that is causing it, especially when the statistics don’t agree.
When it comes to affirmative action, white women are winning, even if they refuse to look at the scoreboard.
