The Goals of Affirmative Action

“There will be affirmative action here today. There will be affirmative action here tomorrow and there will be affirmative action in our state forever” — Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

I’m not a fan of affirmative action. And I actually believed that nobody was. I had always thought that everybody disliked affirmative action, and that the spectrum of opinions ran from “it’s an unfortunate necessity” to “it does more harm than good” (with a few crazies on either end pushing for the supremacy of a particular group).

But regardless of where people stood in that spectrum, I’d always assumed that the ultimate goal was to get rid of affirmative action, even for the folks who currently support it. The idea being that we all want to live in a world where affirmative action is not necessary–we may have a band-aid over the wound right now, but at some future point we’d like that wound to be healed, and be able to take the band-aid off. So, some people think the wound won’t heal without a band-aid, and some think it will, but all of us would rather not need the band-aid.

But apparently that is not the case. As the above quote illustrates, there are some people who apparently like the band-aid. This baffles me. I suppose this is a person who believes that it is impossible to ever resolve racial inequality in this country, and therefore can not imagine a world without the band-aid. How terribly pessimistic–and maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a person does not believe racial equality is possible, then a person will not seek to achieve it. And that would be a real shame.

So while I doubt the mayor of Detroit reads leftfielder, I’ll still offer him a word of advice. The goal should not be affirmative action. The goal should be not to need affirmative action. And if you work towards that, (which may include affirmative action today, and affirmative action tomorrow, but surely not forever) then we’ll both have a better future, and a less contentious present.