The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: franksolich on June 17, 2008, 08:50:41 AM
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3465909
My fellow Nebraskan, a non-primitive inhabitant of Skins's island:
Omaha Steve Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jun-16-08 08:35 PM
Original message
Most of you don't know this about me, it's time you do
I'm taking a break from my studies tonight. It is time something about me becomes public. I've heard many people take a stand against affirmative action. Because my father was Cherokee / white, I may have been (but don't know) that affirmative action may have played a role in my being hired full time over 10 years ago. I had worked almost 10 years as a seasonal, part time, and provisional. Now there is a group trying to change the state constitution to bar affirmative action. I'm against this for many a reason. I hope most of my friends here are too.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
Oh my. Here we go again.
Omaha Steve is referring to a ballot initiative to ban "affirmative action" in Nebraska; if it gets on the ballot, it's likely to pass, despite the well-financed and well-personalitied opposition to the ban.
The only way my fellow Nebraskan could have "benefited" from "affirmative action" is if he alleged to be of Native American descent when he applied for jobs. Well, apparently he has some Native American blood coursing through his veins, but one hesitates to call him "Native American."
One out of eight drops of franksolich's blood is of Hebraic derivation (a Jewish great-grandmother, maternal side), but franksolich hesitates to describe himself as of Judiac derivation, because while he has a deep and abiding respect for the Jewish history, traditions, beliefs, and people, really, he isn't one of them.
One suspects it highly unlikely that Omaha Steve "benefited" from "affirmative action"--that in real life, it was he and his qualities that got him his jobs, not his ethnic derivation.
After all, Omaha Steve's not a member of the two specific groups "affirmative action" has "helped;" the only two groups "affirmative action" has helped.
"Affirmative action" hasn't done shit for males and females of Hispanic derivation, or for the blind, or for the deaf, or for the wheelchaired, or for males and females of Vietnamese derivation, or for the altitudinally-challenged, or for males and females of Hindu derivation, or for authentic Native Americans, or for the mute or the spastic, or for overweight middle-aged women, or for the hirsuite-deprived, or for just about anybody else excepting for two large constituencies of the Democrat party.
I know. I've lived "affirmative action" nearly all my life, and certainly all of my working life.
"Affirmative action" is a joke, a farce, and worse of all, it cruelly raises the hopes of those needing it, but denied it because they aren't one of those two Democrat constituencies.
Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jun-16-08 08:39 PM
Response to Original message
1. The main thing everybody needs to remember about affirmative action is that it only gets you through the door. If you want to stay there, you are going to have to work hard and apply your intelligence.
I had "men's" jobs before affirmative action was passed. Affirmative action just meant they had to start paying me the prevailing wage instead of reclassifying the position with a lesser name and paycheck. Because I was good at what I did, I stayed there until it was time to do something else.
It is no shame to have been helped by affirmative action. It is an honor.
For the record, the warped primitive is a member of one of those two privileged groups.
KT2000 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jun-16-08 08:47 PM
Response to Original message
2. Without affirmative action, access to jobs and education would be denied to minorities in the US.
I don't know where people get off pretending that everything is all OK now and everyone has equal access. What a fairy tale. Would anything have changed without affirmative action? No. Will things revert if if there is no affirmative action? Yes.
There were rewards for bigotry - the biggest slice of the pie - guaranteed. Affirmative action interrupted that.
Yeah, right.
annabanana Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jun-16-08 08:49 PM
Response to Original message
4. Absoluetly Steve.
A level playing field is essential. It will be quite awhile until the sat-upon catch up.
franksolich has seen the playing-field get more crooked, not more level.
tularetom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jun-16-08 09:34 PM
Response to Original message
5. My father was also white/native American but we never knew this until after his death. I mean you could tell by looking at him but he never told us anything about his parents. He grew up pre affirmative action so any benefits he could have realized were unavailable until he was in his 50's or 60's. Obviously I had no idea I could benefit from affirmative action so I never did. My feeling is that it is still necessary at least for the foreseeable future and I'd oppose any constitutional amendment to ban it.
It's likely the tullarootom primitive's paternal ancestor wouldn't have "benefited" squat from "affirmative action."
ThomCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jun-16-08 10:19 PM
Response to Original message
7. Racist, sexist bastards are against affirmative action because they think only they should benefit from anything.
Do they really think that things will be better if we go back to the all-whiteboy clubs we had before Affirmative Action?
You don't take down a helpful program, even if you think it's flawed, unless you have something better to replace it with.
The lilliputian tom thumb primitive should take out a union card with the AFL-CIO local of cinema projectors.
TBF Donating Member (952 posts) Mon Jun-16-08 11:40 PM
Response to Original message
12. Omaha Steve, congratulations on getting where you are. As a woman who worked in the legal profession I am well aware that without affirmative action we wouldn't even have professional jobs, not to mention the fact that on average women are STILL not paid as much as men in the same positions. I worked in large lawfirms in the 1990's and early 2000's before "retiring" last year to stay home with my small children. One old-school firm I worked at in a major city actually had a dress code for women and pantsuits were frowned upon (this is a very old established firm that was in the top 5 in terms of size and prestige in this country). There were a few token minority attorneys, but most people of color in the firm were working on staff or in the mail/duplicating departments. This was in the early 1990's - less than 20 years ago.
Anyone who thinks the time for Affirmative Action has passed is most likely an Anglo white male republican.
I dunno.
One time I came across a Lincoln city directory from 1940.
It listed two female architects.
The then-current city directory listed no female architects.
In the town in the Sandhills of Nebraska where I spent my adolescence, there were many buildings from the 1890s, 1900s, 1910s and 1920s, and on the frosted-glass doors of offices inside were still oftentimes painted the names and professions of the occupants of the time; it seems back then there were plenty of women physicians, pharmacists, attorneys, dentists.
By the time I was growing up under "affirmative action," all such practitioners in town were male.
LiberalAndProud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jun-16-08 11:43 PM
Response to Original message
13. Decline to sign.
The paid petition circulators are being dishonest when asking for signatures, claiming that the petition will end discrimination in Nebraska. The initiative is sponsored by out-of-state organizations, and one can only wonder why they are tampering with our constitution.
One suspects the primitive didn't object when the out-of-state gay lobby, well-financed and well-personalitied, invaded Nebraska in 2000, over that gay-marriage issue.
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It makes me sad that liberals think minorities can't possibly be smart enough or talented enough to succeed on their own merit. :(
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I hate affirmative action. Any halfway intelligent minority or woman should feel the same.
As for his claim, I call B.S. Anyone who is of Cherokee descent would have a CDIB card and can then apply for tribal membership. This is the only way for your race to be counted when applying for jobs. Checking that little box on the job application doesn't do anything. I say produce such facts Omaha Steve. I bet he can't.Of course he's a DUmmie and I think this is a stretchy to make a point about the ballot initiative.
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My famous last words as I slam the door behind those that claimed I was firing them because they were black, "I hired you because you were black. I'm firing you because you ain't worth a damn."