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[Rachel Cox <rachel AT hesketh.com>]

At 11:30 AM 12/10/2002 -0500, Chris Hedemark wrote:
>On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 07:07 PM, Diana Duncan wrote:
>
>> The thing about many Republicans is that
>> they hide behind statements such as yours to cloak their racism in
>> some sort
>> of respectability.
>
>That statement implies two incorrect notions:
>
>1) That I am a Republican
>2) That I am racist

Actually, I don't think it does. All it says is that many Republicans use 
similar statements to cloak their own racism. She didn't say that's what 
you were doing, nor, IMO, did she imply it. She was merely using your 
statement to make a remark about how some others use similar ones.

[snip]
>Hiring should be done strictly on merit.

That is a lovely idea, and a goal we should all strive to achieve. We're 
not even close yet, and that failing can't be just dumped at the doorstep 
of affirmative action.

>If color is still a problem
>for some backwards people

And here's the interesting thing. Color isn't just a problem for "some 
backwards people". I think what folks forget sometimes is that racism isn't 
limited to the obvious bigot. Most people, I think it's safe to say, are 
most comfortable with people who are like themselves - who look like they 
do, talk like they do, dress like they do, and come from the same culture. 
And the people who do the hiring, even if they're not horrible bigots, are 
also likely to feel more comfortable with an applicant who is more like 
they are. And most hiring managers are still white. However good their 
intentions, when confronted with ten - or fifty - similarly qualified 
candidates, absent some other incentive most are likely to hire the one 
they're most personally comfortable with.

And then there are things to contend with like pop culture, poverty, a 
woefully over-burdened school system which is populated by people who 
*also* tend to respond most warmly to the people who are most like 
themselves, and so on and so on and so on. It's not a simple problem, as 
simple as it may seem when presented in black-and-white terms like saying 
the problem could be solved if all hiring were done on merit. Sure, all 
hiring should be done on merit, just like all grades should be awarded on 
merit, and all encouragement and aid should be given equally regardless of 
color or socio-economic class or accent or religion or what have you, and 
so on. But we're not there yet, and we won't get there by pretending we are.

>(the most blatant examples of which can be
>found in the minority community by the way), then instead of the
>reverse discrimination of affirmative action maybe we should hold all
>initial interviews by phone,

I wish I could remember where I heard the study, but I did hear one (maybe 
on NPR? maybe on 60 Minutes?) in which they tried something like that. 
Well, the folks who "sounded black" got a much less positive response than 
the folks who "sounded white". So I don't have a lot of faith in the idea 
that this would work, as hopeful as it seems at first blush.

I understand people's frustration with affirmative action, and indeed I 
share some of it. But I've yet to hear an alternative that I thought was 
viable and fair. Until then, I'm unwilling to abandon it, flawed though it 
may be. I'm not ready to tear down the house, even if it's got holes in the 
roof, until we've got plans for building a new one, since some shelter is a 
whole lot better than none.

Cheers!
-Rachel


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