A number of commentators (including yours truly) have been known to assert that affirmative action often stigmatizes its ostensible beneficiaries. Anyone doubting this assertion may want to take a look at this article in Middletown (Conn.) Press, starting with its title, “Six Officers Promoted; Affirmative Action Cited.”
Close readers will note that the article says nothing about stigma. Why, then, do I mention it so prominently here? See if you can imagine the promotees not feeling stigmatized by, among other things, the remarks of Mayor Domenique Thornton:
Mayor Domenique Thornton addressed the officers and those in attendance at the beginning of the ceremony, saying how proud she was to see such a diverse crowd being recognized.
“I personally am very excited to promote so many Affirmative Action candidates. Five out of the six candidates meet Affirmative Action guidelines,” said Thornton. “I
Do you think there is correlation between feminization of our culture/politics and the comments of Her Honor?
By the way, were the beneficiaries of affirmative action in this instance persons of the female persuasion or were they non-Caucasian, non-Asian, non-European Latin-derived language speakers, non-Windward Isles negroid males or African-American children of Michael Jordan or Bill Cosby?
Just checking.
That article you linked to is a laugh fest.
“They all earned it through the merit system, their actions, and the promotional exam”, but of course those who better earned the same promotions were excluded due to their skin color and gender.
” Amy Pear, who was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant, agreed with Brymer in that each officers qualifications and hard work truly outweighed whether they were black or female.” No, those factors did not outweigh skin color/gender. If so, the best qualified would have been promoted and not simply the best qualified black or female (or both).
“Just looking at whether someone is black, white, Hispanic, gay or straight is only a small part of it”. Oh really? Specifically excluding entire racial/gender categories from consideration is small? There was only ONE hard fast rule here, only the preferred racial/gender group need apply. It’s not supposed to be ANY part of it. Remember Dr. King’s dream?
I have not read a funnier “straight” (not parody) account of race based silliness. Affirmative Action hires assuring themselves that they were promoted based on ability, while administrators congratulate each other on having hired them based on their color/gender.
As a beneficiary of race preferences, I can assure you the stigma is real, even if it’s only in my own mind. This is one of the many reasons I speak out against “affirmative action.” I’ll never know what my life would have been like had I been allowed to achieve success or face failure on my own merit without regard to the color of my skin.
The only thing affirmative action affirms is the continuation of racial discrimination. Having been excluded from chances at promotions due to my skin color (white) and told to “try to understand” why I would not be considered, I found it hard not to resent those minorities who did get promotions based primarily on their skin color.
I cannot speak for how they felt about being “stigmatized”, but when their names were mentioned is was always tied to the “affirmative action” promotion. Everyone who could not call upon discrimination to help them in their careers certainly did resent those that did and often refused to work with them.
My own personal experience is that those so given an unfair advantage were not introspective enough to care about that leg up and how it would be perceived. For the most part they felt they deserved what they got – not because of merit, but because of events that happened nearly 200 years ago.
You wrote: “If you were one of the six promotees, would you rather be one of the five who met “affirmative action guidelines” or the one who didn’t?”
What I wouldn’t want to be was one of the five white males who got passed over because of gender and race. Working in the computer field I have some times felt discriminated against due to age etc. and I certainly resent such feelings.
Lockheed, Race, and Mississippi
The Washington Post has moved to a pretty invasive signup process to get their news. This one is worth reading by hook or by crook. A snippet: Lockheed Martin Corp., the Bethesda-based defense contracting giant, permitted a racially hostile work…
I think it’s worth noting, not that I’m taking much of the stigma argument seriously, that there are people who are just as likely to be embarrassed about the size of their ears as the color of their skin. Such individuals are likely to be stigmatized by the mere turning on of a radio. And equally there are those among us who, having been exposed as a tyrant in front of an entire planet, would hardly blush at their responsibility for the death of thousands.
My point is that stigma is as much in the mind of the putatively stigmatized as in the mouth of the accuser, and it is easily rendered monstrous or insignificant depending on one’s disposition to accept shame.
One might despair of the unshared feeling, but one man’s floor is another man’s ceiling.
I think Cobb makes a good point here: others can stigmatize you, but only you can feel/experience the stigma. Pushed too far, however (where, in fact it is usually pushed), the point slides down into an ironic reprise of the moronic observation of Justice Brown in his majority opinion in Plessy v. Fergusonthat if blacks felt stigmatized for segregation it was their own fault:
“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.”
I believe it is reasonable to conclude that the benefits of racial preferences justify the costs in stigma that many beneficiaries in fact do feel (though it will surprise no one here that I myself do not believe this). But I do not think it is reasonable to assert that the costs of widespread stigma do not exist.