proposal 2
So, proposal 2, an amendment to the state constitution of Michigan which bans affirmative action in government agencies, public schools, universities, and many other organizations and businesses connected with the State of Michigan, passed yesterday.
I cannot tell you how sad I am about this.
Just about as sad as I am about the fact that all of the anti-gay marriage initiatives passed in other states yesterday, but I digress.
I know that a well-spoken, articulate conservative could beat the pants off of me in a debate about affirmative action. My reasons for supporting it are born from general ideas I hold about the evils of racism and sexism and classism. I cannot justify, for example, why it is that a working class white guy should not stand on equal ground when applying for school with an upper-middle class African-American woman, But I do feel like there are inequities in our society that just aren't fair and I don't believe that the circumstances of one's birth, whether situational or genetic, should put one on a track that is hard to break out of.
Echoing the cliche about the personal being political, here is my affirmative action story:
Tired of working for minimum wage at the phone company and relying on my near-autistic, drug-addicted father (whom I love, but the 80s were not his best moment) to bring in the rest of the family's income, my mother went to night school and studied accounting. It had been her father's trade -- he had owned a failing butcher shop before my mother was born and had gone to night school as well with a crop of GIs who had come home from WWII and also gone to school in their late 20s and 30s.
At her first job out of school she was hardly more than a secretary and was paid accordingly. She worked for a CPA firm and was being sexually harassed -- aware of her boss' affair with another coworker and threatened with termination if she didn't cover it up. Around the same time, she was in a horrible car accident, was disfigured, crippled, in the hospital for 6 weeks and in part-time PT for a long-time afterwards. Soon after the accident she was fired.
Our family was pretty devastated by this final blow after the trauma of the accident, but she started looking around and got a head's up about a job at the University of Michigan from one of her former professors. UofM had a pretty well-developed affirmative action program at the time. Despite the fact that accounting was a very male-dominated profession, she was hired for a position that paid twice what her former one had, with real responsibility, and was quickly promoted to another position as a financial manager. I believe that without affirmative action, she would have never been hired. She had good grades, but had limited experience and graduated from a commuter school after years of working low-wage, low-skill jobs. Without affirmative action she probably would have continued on a secretarial-type track. Certainly, a woman on crutches with a disfigured face (thanks to a lot of surgeries no one would know it now) would also face tough competition from, well, just about anybody else if there were not a policy in place to specifically recruit and accomodate the disabled (and women as well). She proved herself worthy of the position, rising to a point where she was one of the top people in her department. When she retires next June, she will probably be replaced by two people because no one person has the skill set that she does.
I feel like the earlier part of my childhood, with its poverty and violence and instability was a great contributor to my toughness and determination and overall scrappiness. But I am also very grateful that I spent the second half of my childhood in an environment of relative stability and plenty. That gave me gifts too, in the way of opportunities and experiences and role models. My father, hindered by his issues, was not going to get us there, but my mother did. I think that affirmative action was a big part of how she achieved what she did, at least helping her get started.
I cannot tell you how sad I am about this.
Just about as sad as I am about the fact that all of the anti-gay marriage initiatives passed in other states yesterday, but I digress.
I know that a well-spoken, articulate conservative could beat the pants off of me in a debate about affirmative action. My reasons for supporting it are born from general ideas I hold about the evils of racism and sexism and classism. I cannot justify, for example, why it is that a working class white guy should not stand on equal ground when applying for school with an upper-middle class African-American woman, But I do feel like there are inequities in our society that just aren't fair and I don't believe that the circumstances of one's birth, whether situational or genetic, should put one on a track that is hard to break out of.
Echoing the cliche about the personal being political, here is my affirmative action story:
Tired of working for minimum wage at the phone company and relying on my near-autistic, drug-addicted father (whom I love, but the 80s were not his best moment) to bring in the rest of the family's income, my mother went to night school and studied accounting. It had been her father's trade -- he had owned a failing butcher shop before my mother was born and had gone to night school as well with a crop of GIs who had come home from WWII and also gone to school in their late 20s and 30s.
At her first job out of school she was hardly more than a secretary and was paid accordingly. She worked for a CPA firm and was being sexually harassed -- aware of her boss' affair with another coworker and threatened with termination if she didn't cover it up. Around the same time, she was in a horrible car accident, was disfigured, crippled, in the hospital for 6 weeks and in part-time PT for a long-time afterwards. Soon after the accident she was fired.
Our family was pretty devastated by this final blow after the trauma of the accident, but she started looking around and got a head's up about a job at the University of Michigan from one of her former professors. UofM had a pretty well-developed affirmative action program at the time. Despite the fact that accounting was a very male-dominated profession, she was hired for a position that paid twice what her former one had, with real responsibility, and was quickly promoted to another position as a financial manager. I believe that without affirmative action, she would have never been hired. She had good grades, but had limited experience and graduated from a commuter school after years of working low-wage, low-skill jobs. Without affirmative action she probably would have continued on a secretarial-type track. Certainly, a woman on crutches with a disfigured face (thanks to a lot of surgeries no one would know it now) would also face tough competition from, well, just about anybody else if there were not a policy in place to specifically recruit and accomodate the disabled (and women as well). She proved herself worthy of the position, rising to a point where she was one of the top people in her department. When she retires next June, she will probably be replaced by two people because no one person has the skill set that she does.
I feel like the earlier part of my childhood, with its poverty and violence and instability was a great contributor to my toughness and determination and overall scrappiness. But I am also very grateful that I spent the second half of my childhood in an environment of relative stability and plenty. That gave me gifts too, in the way of opportunities and experiences and role models. My father, hindered by his issues, was not going to get us there, but my mother did. I think that affirmative action was a big part of how she achieved what she did, at least helping her get started.