Affirmative Action vs Racial Profiling

Affirmative Action is inherently racist
Racial Profiling is inherently racist (ie, homeland security, terrorism, et al, you know what I'm talking about)

I'm generalizing here so don't bite my head off.

Typically, dems support Affirmative Action but decry Racial Profiling as "racism". And conservatives seem to have little problem with profiling to protect us from terrorism yet scream about affirmative action?

Are you one of the two? How do you reconcile those to poles of thought?


Personally, I think those that simply decry "Racism!! We Can't Do THAT!!" but are fine with the other are often being disingenuous.

The fact is both are racism. Racism is deeply offensive to most Americans. Nevertheless, I think a case can be made as a matter of policy to do "deeply offensive" things. We do it all the time.

Most people would agree that sanctions against Iraq after the first Gulf War was a "correct" policy position. There's also little denying that sanctions were extraordinarily harmful to 99.9% of the Iraqi citizens that were completely innocent of Saddam's crimes. That's deeply offensive but despite the HUGE negative, there was more than enough positive to make up for it.

Affirmative Action, I believe, had its time, certainly after the Civil War and up through the modern civil rights era (MLK days). I do think it's hard, probably impossible, to justify today. I do, of course, support non-discrimination laws.

Racial Profiling, I think this is also difficult to justify. Most folks that support this, IMO, seem to neglect that there are other effective ways to protect us. I haven't heard anyone make the case yet that those other ways are deficient enough or too extraordinarily expensive to justify the deeply offensive stain of racism. I'm not saying it's impossible to make that argument, but I think it would be awfully tough.


Oh, and as Employment applications asking you about race.. If I'm not mistaken, isn't this data anonymized and sent to the DoL and Census Bureau for them to run statistics? ie., these are not used (or should not anyway) be used for your hiring decision.

Originally posted by Sickboy
Affirmative Action is inherently racist
Racial Profiling is inherently racist (ie, homeland security, terrorism, et al, you know what I'm talking about)

I'm generalizing here so don't bite my head off.

Typically, dems support Affirmative Action but decry Racial Profiling as "racism". And conservatives seem to have little problem with profiling to pro ...[text shortened]... these are not used (or should not anyway) be used for your hiring decision.

Our ban on racial profiling has led to some absurd things happening. A few years back there was a local college professor who was walking downtown at 1 AM and put up a helluva noise when PD officers stopped him for questioning, professor began complaining that he was being profiled because he was black, it was a violation of his rights, yadayadayada. Next day big protest on campus from sympathetic students because his civil rights were clearly violated and the big bad policemen were obviously racist.

The police were responding to a hold up that had taken place nearby, suspect was a black male about same age as the prof. No matter how patiently it was explained to the professor and his student demonstrators, they wouldn't accept it, and kept screaming about racism on the force, etc.

Idiots.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
i don't agree with either.
since affirmative action was already done and i expressed my dislike of it, i will express my dislike of racial profiling. it perpetuates hate and fear. after 9/11 how many of you could sit next to a guy wearing a turban on a plane and feel comfortable about it? racial profiling is idiotic, just another from along line of bush d ...[text shortened]... ations there shouldn't be a "race" box. if a gov want statistics, they should run their own.

Originally posted by Sam The Sham
Our ban on racial profiling has led to some absurd things happening. A few years back there was a local college professor who was walking downtown at 1 AM and put up a helluva noise when PD officers stopped him for questioning, professor began complaining that he was being profiled because he was black, it was a violation of his rights, yadayadayada. ...[text shortened]... rators, they wouldn't accept it, and kept screaming about racism on the force, etc.

Idiots.

I think that the way people dress and carry themselves is often correlated with race as well as crime. This is what police should be looking at. Eminem style guys are suspicious, Will Smith type guys, not so much.

Originally posted by Sickboy
So what are you saying? You are for racial profiling even though you are saying none (in this example) occurred? What is the relevance of the story, then?

Are you for affirmative action or is that racism in a fashion that you don't support? If not, why not? How do you draw that distinction?

Originally posted by Sam The Sham
... it ain't profiling to stop and question just black males that fit the description. ... Thought that was obvious.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I think that the way people dress and carry themselves is often correlated with race as well as crime. This is what police should be looking at. Eminem style guys are suspicious, Will Smith type guys, not so much.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
how many of you could sit next to a guy wearing a turban on a plane and feel comfortable about it?

Originally posted by Sickboy
It was obvious. I didn't dispute that no profiling had occurred. You missed the part where I said: " You are for racial profiling even though ... [b]none (in this example) occurred?"

So my question still stands: Are you FOR racial profiling? Are you FOR affirmative action? Both? Neither?[/b]

Originally posted by Sam The Sham
I'll wager there are a lot of people out there that agree with me but are too timid to admit it.

Happy now?

Originally posted by Sickboy
Not particularly.

I asked a question because I wanted to know how folks weigh in on the apparent contradictions of support for RP opposition for AA (in your case), and the opposite.

Frankly, I'm not sure you why posted in the thread if you don't care to discuss it..

Originally posted by Sickboy
Affirmative Action, I believe, had its time, certainly after the Civil War and up through the modern civil rights era (MLK days).

Originally posted by Wulebgr
or to find a poll that shows most people supporting it. The vast majority of Americans haven't the foggiest idea what they're talking about when they start discussing affirmative action.