Affirmative action required employers to hire regardless of race, the affirmative action of today has changed, and employers now hire minorities on the fact that they are Aguilar 2. minorities. This was not John F. Kennedy’s intent when he began the program in 1961. The main goal of affirmative action was to give minorities and women an equal opportunity at employment and in collegiate admissions, in present time, the program gives minorities and women an unfair advantage. The program was brought into effect ratios of employment and college admissions between whites and blacks were not corresponding with population. A second reason affirmative action was activated was to help disadvantaged minorities, those with insufficient financial funds, many could not afford a better education and therefore are at a disadvantaged for competition.
With racial tensions ever present in this country, one might question whether the problems can be solved by affirmative action. Some feel that affirmative action in universities is the answer to the end of racism and inequality. If more black students get into and graduate from good colleges, more of them will go on to even out the lopsided numbers in the work force. Prejudice secretly slips through everyone¹s thoughts. Or so Barbara Ehrenreich believes when she writes of a quiet, subliminal prejudice that is caused by statistics that prove the fewer numbers of blacks in high profile jobs.
The black codes suggested that the blacks were still the inferior race, and they also show the reluctance the south had to change their lifestyle after the Civil War. The black codes returned political, social, and economic power to the white southerners. Black codes also affect us today. If black codes were never enforced during reconstruction, black people would have been able to be a part of the government much sooner than they did. They would have been able to vote, marry interracially, work where they wanted, and get an education.
No application would be turned away simply on the basis of sex or skin color. Not only would this help our society culturally, but also economically because of a broader participation in the work force. Although affirmative action did include all minorities, it may have never become government policy if it were not for the civil rights movement that began 1950’s. The Civil War had ended slavery nearly a century before, but still many African Americans had never been granted full equality. Many states, particularly the South, passed laws “that were designed to segregate the white and black races and to keep African Americans in an inferior position in society.” (Hamner 21).
Such groups are characterized most commonly by race, gender, or ethnicity. Affirmative action seeks to increase the representation of these demographic groups in fields of study and work in which they have traditionally been underrepresented. What it the purpose of keeping a program that is designed to help out America's society when if fact it only cause discrimination problems? It is disguised as an equal opportunity program, Affirmative Action discriminates against non-minorities. Many groups protest the abolishment of affirmative action for sake of higher minority student admissions into prestigious universities; however protesters fail to view that minority dropout rates are nearly fifty-percent higher than whites.
Some may argue, that if it had not been for Affirmative Action, the minority unemployment rate would be much higher. Like any program, Affirmative Action has its flaws. One major downside occurs when employers over look one's credentials and hires people solely on the color of their skin. It can not be denied however, that Affirmative Action has aided in the struggle to bring about the social inclusion of minorities in the work place and schools. When society begins to misuse the Affirmative Action programs and begins using it as a form of reverse discrimination, then it becomes hard for sates to continue implementing it .
On the other hand, adopting affirmative action would force many employers to replace hard-working employees with those of less qualification simply due to their gender or ethnic background. Many people feel that affirmative action would be very beneficial to our society. They have many thought-inspiring arguments. Some claim that we owe blacks for what we took from them in the past. We gave them a setback in our economic system, and affirmative action would be our way of reimbursing them for time and opportunities they lost out on (Norman 50).
(p. 159) On the contrary to the above ideas, this quote, spoken by a black woman in Alabama, and seen in Leon F. Litwack’s essay opposing the idea that segregation improved the status of African Americans; shows how blacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were characterized by increased inequality because of their skin color. What is looked at as an improvement by Rabinowitz is seen as “an informal code of exclusion and discrimination” (p. 160) by Litwack. Although congress reconstructed the exclusion policy in 1867, many white Southerners still remained committed to the exclusion policy. As a result of this, the military and other forces, to grant new privileges and services to blacks, forced the whites. After all, segregation was the alternative to integration, and whites didn’t want integration.
From the time of slavery up to now, race has been the element that gets between better opportunities. America is said to show equal opportunity for all, yet there are still signs of inequality within society. African Americans, Hispanic/Latino descent usually works minimum-wage jobs. “The income of 2.1 million African-American families (26 percent) was below the poverty level” (Mujahid). This proves how African-Americans are not given the same opportunities of employment, which takes away their chances to be successful in life and stand where they vision to be.
They have been effective in promoting change in hiring practices because they have the weight of the federal government behind them. As a direct result, a broader range of opportunities have become available for blacks in government, the corporate world, and colleges and universities. In the beginning, the 1960’s, when President Johnson used the affirmative action policy it was necessary and effective. At that time there was racial discrimination towards people of all black races in the United States of America, so it was a necessity to have such a law to create equal opportunity, but this was also created to have a racially and gender blind solution. This has turned into a racially unequal program that now has a negative effect on society.