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Comment by tekla | Hacker News Reader

Affirmative action is racist by literal definition. In the US and most western countries, racism is seen as undesirable. That is why affirmative action should be illegal.

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Why is this flagged? It's a position held by the majority of Americans and has been affirmed by public vote in places like California and San Francisco.

Who has their head so far in the sand that they are offended to see such a commonly held position stated

Folks flag anything here that has even a hint of a not-left-wing sensibility. I consider being flagged to be a badge of honor, because it means the OP ruffled the feathers of birds who really need their feathers ruffled.

A commonly held position is that your existence is meaningless and no one else owes putting some “greater good” on themselves to validate your sensibilities or shield you from growing your own potatoes.

“Commonly held position” is a terrible metric. Look what the primates are doing to their environment due to commonly held positions.

It was once a commonly held position humans serve god kings. Where do these commonly held social norms come from I wonder? Feels very top down and intentional.

Who cares Harvard even exists is a commonly held belief. People just don’t speak such things because of the abuse they take to maintain society.

Please, primates who are destroying themselves; bleat and bray at me more about your moral high ground.

Sure, commonly held positions can be wrong.

What doesn't follow is denying they dont exist, hiding them, or censoring them.

This is sticking your head in the ground and pretending to live in an alternate reality.

Not that I agree with how affirmative action is implemented but context is everything. I can also say killing is wrong so we shouldn't have wars or capitol punishment.

I think affirmative action is ok only when the time and place a person attended school or looked for jobs has a provable history and policy that negatively affected people of their ethnicity. For example, if a white person grew up in an area where white kids are discriminated against historically and didn't get the same opportunities as others then that person should get an advantage later on to compensate for that.

But blindly using race as a factor to give someome an advantage is something I disagree with.

It is the lazy application of AA that is a problem, not the idea itself.

This is why you need context when discussing things. Imagine discussing the politics of the penal system and someone butts in, "imprisoning people is bad by definition"... Ok man

At least it would be a foundation for discussion that everyone could hopefully agree on.

Change your framing from butting in to sitting down with someone and trying to agree on the penal policy. "do we all agree that incarceration is bad, and should only be used when the alternative is far worse."

Do most people agree that affirmative action is racist? Should we ever allow racist government policy? If so, what are the limits for when the ends justify the means?

One question I've always wondered is - what is the appropriate racial makeup of an Ivy League student body? Imagine that after the latest ruling from the Supreme Court regarding affirmative action that the racial makeup of Harvard's next class is unchanged - would you think that Harvard had already achieved the "appropriate" balance prior to the ruling or that they were up to something fishy?

You can take another step back and ask if there is an appropriate racial makeup at all, and if so, is this something that we want the government to work towards achieving?

That's exactly what I asked, though I didn't ask if it was something the government should enforce, I asked if it was something the Ivy Leagues might do since they seem to be the gravitational heavyweight to which all arguments orbit.

>Imagine discussing the politics of the penal system and someone butts in, "imprisoning people is bad by definition"... Ok man

And that someone would be right and that's why it should be avoided as much as possible. Because people refuse to have this discussion, imprisonment is applied at a far larger scale than necessary.

That's what the ACAB crowd unironically believes.

It should be illegal because it is seen as undesirable? I can think of a few more things, related even, which are seen as undesirable yet are perfectly legal.

Legacy admissions, allowing dangerous additives in our food & drink, being a ruthless, tax-avoiding capitalist...the list goes on.

There is a whole spectrum for undesirability, from bad diets to genocide.

I'll never get tired of seeing this oversimplification whenever affirmative action is discussed

How is it an oversimplification? Affirmative action states that your requirements for getting into college change depending on your race.

You feel complex layers need to be added that will justify your support of judging people by skincolor? Are we letting Asians in or are they too light or doing too well in your worldview? Who decides what colors of people are acceptable for education? Does this get reviewed often? If Blacks start doing well do you kick them out of the program and move to the next group? Will one group always be part of this program regardless of outcomes?

Affirmative action is a cover for acting with a racial bias

Glad to be of service.

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