Because You Never Asked

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION 

            (Author's note- As I add this essay to the web site, Affirmative Action, an issue that had laid dormant for awhile, is back in the news with a court challenge to the entrance practices at the University of Michigan's law school. This essay was written about five years ago.)

            Ah yes, "affirmative action" . what used to be nothing more than just two words in the English language, has now become a rallying cry for the white people of the United States in their undying quest for equality in a society that has always been rigged against them. Right from the beginning, black people have taken advantage of the system by freeloading rides to the New World without having to book passage. One only has to look at the football teams at such institutions as the University of Florida to see how affirmative action has just about eliminated white people from the gridirons of our land. Surely, there's a white guy somewhere being denied his right to run back a kickoff, and all because of affirmative action.

            We shall overcome .

            One might consider the above paragraph a joshingly sarcastic assessment of what has become one of our nation's most sensitive topics. But if one were to examine the Limbaughnian-Fox News rhetoric surrounding this subject, it hardly seems sarcastic at all. No matter what the bitch, be it high taxes, corporate downsizing, budget deficits, fags, crack heads, drought, pestilence, poor free throw shooting, or whatever cultural dementia is fashionable to attack, affirmative action and such sister issues as welfare deadbeats, are somehow brought into the loop.

            Blaming someone else for one's own shortcomings is nothing new. Adolph Hitler took such practices to its highest expression in order to motivate the Aryans of the Third Reich. There are elements of this kind of "scapegoating" alive and well in the United States today. For those who have traditionally held the financial-political power in this country, deflecting blame to the more defenseless elements of our society's social lamination has become a well-honed art form. Disenfranchised blacks and other assorted immigrant minorities are an easy to hit, stationary target. As a result, CEO's who have blundered away half of General Motor's market share are allowed to slither away into anonymous four star retirement in Palm Springs, hob knobbing with Bob Hope, while the more lowly blood lines amongst us, trying their darndest to find that elusive path to the American Dream by going to college or starting a construction business, are branded as shiftless exploiters of a rigged system who take advantage of the rest of us.

            What about my kid! What about my job!

            No matter that we spend jillions and jillions of dollars less on welfare or education than we do preparing for such recreational activities as the bombing of Panama, or our semi-traditional jousts with Saddam Hussein . No! . It's the niggers and spics that are ruining this country.

            Nowadays, the people who are really "suffering" are the members of that holy sect (drum roll please), the MIDDLE CLASS. Today's politician is in a stumbling, spitting, cold sweat lather trying to help these woe beset solid citizens so overwhelmed with misfortune. These are people struggling nobly to find enough money to buy their third car. These are people gallantly trying to find enough space to store all the Nike-Reebok junk they've bought in the last five months. These are people in desperate need of an undocumented Guatemalan to mow their lawns while they're off playing golf. These people have vacations to take, maids to hire, pre-schools to pay for. These are the same afflicted people who gaze wistfully down at Harlem as their commuter trains whisk them home to Scarsdale, and say to themselves, "Damn, if only I could collect a welfare check and live in one of those varmint ridden tenements ."

            Enough of this welfare crap. Enough of this coddling, affirmative action horseshit. We demand our rights! We need help! I'd like to see any of those black pogo sticks, lazing the day away on the basketball court, make ends meet on just one hundred thousand dollars a year.

            Blaming affirmative action for whatever you might perceive as this country's problems, is something like a team losing the World Series and deciding they lost not because they made some untimely errors, but because the clubhouse man laid their uniforms out wrong.

            I frequently find this kind of twisted thinking in America. Let's chew on this one:

            A number of years ago the National Football League instituted an "instant replay" format to correct errors in officiating. This created a heated debate as to whether this was appropriate. In stating my firm resolve against such techno-officiating, I premised my stance more on romantic factors than anything else, surmising that sport was not a search for perfection, but more a physical-mental exercise meant to test our skills and composure. Like a good poker player, a good athlete or team minimized the bad breaks (i.e.- an occasional bad call) and maximized whatever good fortune that might present itself.

            But I could also be pragmatic in defending my position by explaining that techno-officiating doesn't really accomplish all that much in light of the fact that sooner or later, as long as the officiating is an honest form of competence or blunder, the calls even out and the cream always rises to the top. Has a lousy team ever been Super Bowl champs? Have the Cubs not won a World Series since the invention of the curve ball because the umps always miscall their games? I even have a practical reason for opposing techno-officiating; it is a waste of resources and energy --- film, fuel, etc. --- in a society that is irresponsibly wasteful.

            When confronted with such arguments, my adversaries almost never disagree with me. Time and again, I have not had my own feelings rebuffed, but rather, many techno-ref advocates premise their positions on the fact that the athletes are playing for large sums of money. They feel that officiating errors could deprive someone of the money he is entitled to.

            I find something pathetically perverse in this attitude. Most frequently, the person postulating this opinion is a guy who pounds nails, or runs a fork lift, or cleans carburetors, and yet, instead of worrying about the salary of a nurse or teacher, or any number of hard working, under paid people trying to make ends meet (like himself), he is concerned for the fiscal well being of a pampered millionaire athlete.

            Is this position not somewhat akin to the attitude shown by people ranting and raving against welfare moms raising their kids on beef-a-roni and Kool Aid? The American mindset has been much more conditioned to idolize wealth, deserved or not, than to pity misfortune. Blaming the weak is much easier than confronting powerful forces that may be exploiting you. Such a stance might be easy and self-assuring, but it accomplishes nothing.  

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info