That's right: It's about to get political up in this bish...
I realize I am going to get zero support for my view here, but this needs1 to be said. I am not racist (although I don't know how one can prove such a statement these days. "I have black friends" isn't acceptable.), but I'm likely to be accused as such, and I'm willing to accept that (despite the fact that my very writing below proves otherwise). I do realize that I am a white male aged 18 to 32, so as the majority my words mean absolutely nothing.
Let us first take a look at a definition of racism: making decisions, or otherwise acting in a different manner based on the race of another individual. Fairly reasonable definition. All men (and women) were created equal and each is equal in the eyes of God, so to act any differently because one man has darker skin than another is despicable.
You probably already know where I'm going with this, but I'll spell the entire thing out for the sake of completeness. Let me use a concrete illustration so that everyone can mentally visualize the situation: there are one thousand available openings on a college campus (Let's call it Baltic State University). One thousand and one people apply: Seven hundred fifty one from a group of people that randomly have genetic attribute A. The other two hundred fifty have genetic attribute B. These genetic attributes have no affect on the person in a learning capacity. Affirmative action laws dictate that at least one quarter of all invitations to attend BSU must go to those with genetic attribute B (for some strange reason). Let us also assume person #751 from group with genetic attribute A earned an entrance exam score of 88% (or got 1810 on his/her SAT or graduated in the top 12% of his/her class in high school). As the final point of set up, person #250 of the group with genetic attribute B earned a score of 87% on the same entrance exam (or got 1800 on his/her SAT or graduated with a class rank just after person A-751 and they went to the same high school and took the exact same class with the exact same instructors2). Mull over this problem and write down your answer as to who should receive an extension of invitation to attend BSU in the last open position: A-751 or B-250 (Assume all other attributes not mentioned in the scenario are equal to both people).
Do you have your answer? Well the correct answer is: B-250. "Wait, Will, how is that so?" I'll answer that by pointing out that I slyly added a key detail in the middle of the scenario, you may have missed it: "Affirmative action laws dictate that at least one quarter of all invitations to attend BSU must go to those with genetic attribute B (for some strange reason)." Had it not been for this illogical statement, we would all surely have put A-751 and been correct.
Now, let's take a look into the reasons affirmative action laws exist (at least in our good ol' United States3): historical society of this country said it was OK for certain men with certain genetic traits to own certain men with different genetic traits (yes, this is a horrible thing to have happened, thankfully we've done a fairly decent job of eradicating it from our own country). Following that, the society of this country thought it was still OK for a the former group to remain superior in public over the latter group (again, horrible, but so far as government has the power, it has eliminated this). There are, most assuredly, more reasons, but these are the biggies.
Today, people receive unequal benefit because of this (I guess to even the score). So, let me get this straight: people with genetic attribute B should be more apt to receive invitation to attend some school because their great-great-great grandfather may have been one of the people that was owned by a person with genetic attribute A at or more than 150 years ago. Or possibly their grandmother was told to sit in a separate, albeit worse, part of a restaurant fifty years ago.
Not only this, but the government, who feels the need to give them this benefit, wasn't the one inflicting the unequal treatment (in fairness, they may have contributed some, but I contend that the vast majority was inflicted by Joe Farmer of South Carolina), they simply did not stop such actions. Should all victims (and their ancestors) of internet identity theft receive unequal benefits from post-secondary schools or places of employment, if the damage was inflicted before the government enacted a law forbidding it?
In all of this, I've almost forgotten my biggest point: these laws are set in place because people were racist. Now we've enacted laws that counter this previous racism by giving unequal benefits to people simply because they are of a certain race (racism). Seems illogical (but I guess it's government, so I shouldn't be surprised that something is illogical.)
I really just put this section here for completeness. Also, the (unfunny) joke of using a section called "Logue" wouldn't be as obvious without an epilogue.
Notes
1 "Need" is such a strong word. Of course this doesn't need to be said, but rather I feel strongly about it and greatly want to express that.
2 Obviously, in real world scenarios, nothing is this equal, opening up the possibility for even more disparity, so the very fact that this situation could happen is egregious.
3 "Good", in this context, is being used sarcastically, in case the inflection didn't come out and punch you in the face hard enough.
