If there are people who resent minorities for being disadvantaged, then they are idiots, plain and simple.
Agreed. So? Whether they are idiots or not is besides the point - of course they're idiots. The problem is still there tho.
Affirmative action doesn't create resentment, that resentment was already there in the first place...decent people don't resent.
It doesn't create it out of nowhere,no. But it increases it. Yes, they're clearly already at least slightly racist/homophobic/whatever to begin with, but if people start to think black people are getting jobs just becuase they're black, obviously that's just stirring it up even more.
And they don't "miss" opportunities. Minorities are not unfairly being given jobs,
No, but the PERCEPTION that they are is there
Anyways, affirmative action isn't removing opportunities from majorities...if they feel resentment, they are probably uneducated.
Again, besides the point.
I know no minority who would say affirmative action works against them.
Of course it doesnt work against individual people belonging to some minority. I said it can make the racism/homophpbia etc worse itself. In general. It clearly helps the individual people, but if it stirs up resentment from others, it's obviously not helping stamp out bigotry itself.
Ah, yes I can agree with that. My personal opinion: I'd rather bigotry be blatant and obvious, and not bandaged, or smoothed over. For the same reason you stated, smoothing it over doesn't get rid of it.
The general philosophy behind success of quick fixes, such as laws and incentives, is that once people of certain groups are allowed to succeed in certain roles, the public opinion of them and their capabilities will change. It is like changing segregation laws to allow people to mingle, to get to know one another, to build trust, and to breakdown barriers...
[WARNING: I seriously digress below....culture is one of my favourite topics...I like to squeeze a lot in...sorry...just a lot of rambling below]
But as we know, even desegregation has backfired in a nasty way (due to the problem being bandaged, not fixed). For instance, if there are 5 black people in a giant group of 30 people, and those people are being split into groups to participate in some workshop, a few of those black ppl will probably (due to commonalities in culture) sit together and get along, sharing the same jokes, etc... Well, due to the desegregation attitude, ppl expect that the minorities don't mingle with each other, but require them to separate and have one in each group of white people.
For some reason it's too intimidating for a non-black person to sit with the few black people and mingle, instead the black people are expected to separate and mingle with others. This is one instance in which the minority is used as a token.
It doesn't harbour any kind of cultural exchange, because the communities don't mingle, and don't breakdown barriers. They assume sticking a minority in a group of majority will breakdown barriers, but all it does is create an environment where the minority is pressured to conform and relate culturally with the larger group...never being able to fully share their own cultural background, unless they host some kind of cultural event...
So if a minority person acts upper class/white/straight/gender stereotyped enough, they will be readily accepted. No cultural exchange. Just assimilation.
Also...it depends on the minority with how well they will assimilate. For instance refugees who come here tend to not do so well, mostly because they don't come with the aim of the "american dream", they come to escape something, perhaps unwillingly, and with different sort of hopes. Perhaps they perform well with the aim of improving their homeland...or perhaps they remain in survival mode even when they live here for awhile.
Then there are groups of people to immigrate specifically for the american dream- they come with a goal, and those who trickle in from their origin community tend to be motivated, upper class in their own culture, and tend to help each other with certain job and opportunities, and may assimilate easier. For instance, in the US, a lot of people from India who come here for higher education or professional jobs, tend not to be from the lower castes, and tend to assimilate very well with upper class in America.
Also if they come specifically for education and a profession, or for work with the intention of keeping ties with home, than when they have kids, they will likely raise them with a similar expectation of achievement. So the cultural exchange we share on those levels tend to be a very narrow one. We don't hear much from lower Indian castes for instance. Or from upper class professional latinos...for instance, many white collar professionals, due to language barrier, take blue collar jobs.
Then there are minorities who grow up here, and their experience and life circumstance are very very different.
Because of differences in assimilation, opportunity, culture of origin, and stereotypes, then there are differences in the way minorities will benefit from such laws and bandages put into place. And there are differences in the ways they will "backfire".
