Affirmative Action

Over the years I have heard a number or reasons from opponents as to why Affirmative Action should be eliminated. Among them; “I haven’t gained from slavery, why should I have to pay a price?” The “New World” first gained its prominence as an agricultural juggernaut. At that time about 20% of the population was of African origin and most of them slaves working on the plantations in the South and in the Caribbean. The land was lush and aching to be farmed but plantation owners could not hire enough laborers to work the fields. To remedy this, they bought slaves from Africa, not because this was “cheap labor” but because it was labor desperately needed. The cost of maintaining a slave was not much lower than the cost of paid labor, if they were only able to find enough people to hire. With the capital gained from agriculture, a firm foundation for a manufacturing economy was in place and we became the great country we are now and all benefit from our position in the global economy and democracy. So not only the descendants of the plantation owners, but all, whether their ancestors arrived in this country generations ago or just got off the boat, are benefiting from our early agriculture and the efforts of the African slaves for which they were never paid. Without their sweat and tears we would not be where we are today. So yes, we are all indebted to the slaves who were instrumental in making America great. Another argument; “Other immigrant groups have been discriminated against.” Yes, not only people of African origin but others; Native Americans, Japanese, the Irish, and Jews, just to mention a few have suffered at the hand of discrimination and more recently Muslims. Women were only allowed to vote about one hundred years ago and today many are still not paid the same wage for the same work as a man. Though various sexual preference groups are becoming more accepted, they are still shunned in many ways, particularly by religious groups. I agree that many groups have suffered from discrimination, but non as much as people of African origin. We cannot make up for all the pain and suffering caused by discrimination through affirmative action. Furthermore, individuals within each group have suffered different amounts and some, depending on their location and circumstances maybe even not have suffered at all. So what is the answer? I propose that we devise a system of retribution for wages not paid and suffering due to slavery. I believe currently, where affirmative action exists, is is based strictly on race. But if we examine the population whose origin is Africa, even during the earliest days not all were slaves. There were a number of “free men” and more recently there have been immigrants from Africa arriving as professionals (nurses have been recruited in Africa to make up for a shortage in some areas) while others like the Somalis as asylum seekers. These people, though suffering from discrimination, were not ancestors of slaves from whose labor we all benefited. In fact, they also benefited from the woes of the slaves. How do you identify and make payment to ancestors of slaves who have suffered not only the loss of benefits derived from paid labor, but the destruction of culture which could help them as they assimilated into the new society. Currently there are gambling casinos built on tribal Native American Land. I believe anyone able to show an eighth of a given tribe’s blood becomes a member of the tribe and shares in the profits of the casino. The same could be done with identifying offspring of slaves though this would be more complicated because it’s not strictly based on ethnicity. Certainly recent immigrants from Africa could easily be identified and excluded. The bigger problem would be identifying the “free men”. (I saw and ancestry program on TV a couple of years ago where the musician Quincy Jones had his ancestry analyzed and it was discovered that he was not a decendant of slaves but of “free men”. We could continue with the Affirmative Action Program as it exists but have it based on retribution to descendants of slaves. This, I believe would weaken most of the arguments against it. Certainly the two I brought up. Affirmative Action