affirmative action

one place to start with this issue i think is to educate people on what affirmative action really is... but as we talked about in class, i think it is easier to talk about what it is NOT. like, for example, only a race related issue. i encountered many opinions about affirmative action while writing my paper over the weekend, and for the most part people really make it all about race. and the misconceptions that both tatum and kivel talk about reappear quite frequently, like that it gives unwarrented points to college applicants, it gives jobs that should be 'there's' to people that are less deserving, that it is based on an actual quota and that it is a means of oppressing white people by giving the advantage to minorities. what is most frustrating for me is that even my friends that are women, that are at a disadvantage in the business world, find affirmative action to be not a great idea because they feel like even their jobs are being given away to people of color.

white privilege ideology is this huge overwhelming paradigm that constructs peoples' perception of the world and when asked about solutions to the issue of inequality i am speechless.... where the hell do we start with something that is so big, so enforced, so prevelant in the Way that people think??? the easiest answer is in the education system, but that doesn't affect the other forces like that of the system that we abide by and the ideologies of parents, the general conception of the community, of our society.... it seems like its just such a big issue that the only way we can shift this paradigm is to gather the masses and start the marching. groups supporting anti-racism are unheard-of in my life, like i dont know any that stand out in my mind, which in turn perpetuates the idea that racism isnt an issue.

i cringed when dr. banks said in class "there are people that actually arent gonna change".... because to me, those are the people with the most power, those are the people that are benefitting from white privilege the most and are going to be the biggest obstacle, yet we cant change them??

i think workshops and like team-building things are a great idea, i recall doing tons of them on little retreats back in elementary, middle, and even high school, but still, they were done so within a 99% white community. so we can preach diversity and teach the inequalities, but i dont think anything can reallly be learned without the experience... so now, not only do we have an overarching system, general paradigmatic framework of belief, jacked up education system, but a lack of diversity within communities. how do we change that? build the projects in the middle of upper-class america?? wait, we cant do that.... they have gates...

so theres this color line that is drawn across the business world, the academic world, the communities, the churches, the schools, the cafeteria, its EveryWhere, where do we start??

this is the question that has been hanging in my head since the first time i heard my uncle bitch about them [insert racial slurs, curse words, racial slurs, some more curse words] and my dad telling me that racism is bad and to always block out everything like that and that everybody is equal.... except not everybody is equal. people dont have equal opportunities to education, so there children dont have equal opportunities to education... people dont have equal opp. to jobs, so they stay in the cycle of poverty.... people dont have equal opp. in life, so they live a different life, and nobody around me seems to give a damn, because that problem doesnt exist for them in their world...

im at a loss. i wish i had some more charisma. then i could change some people. start the trend. the trend of equality.... wow, i cant even come up with a trendy slogan about it, how am i going to come up with the rest of the details.