(Todd A. Smith)
Affirmative action in college admission might soon suffer the same fate as VHS and eight track tapes, becoming relics of the past.
The conservative super majority in the United States Supreme Court seems skeptical about admission policies that factor race into the equation, signaling that America needs to become a truly colorblind society and affirmative action prevents that from happening.
The Associated Press reported, “The survival of affirmative action in higher education appeared to be in serious trouble Monday at a conservative-dominated Supreme Court after hours of debate over vexing questions of race.
“The most diverse court in the nation’s history—among the nine justices are four women, two Black people and a Latina—is weighing challenges to admissions programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard that use race among many factors in seeking a diverse student body.”
But if affirmative action that helps minorities goes away, make sure that affirmative action and reparations policies that benefit White Americans, simply because of the color of their skin, becomes a relic of the past too because in no way, form or fashion will getting rid of affirmative action get rid of racism in America.
I call home appraisals affirmative action and reparations for White Americans.
Many African-Americans have had their homes valued at tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars less when the appraiser realizes that an African-American family owns the home.
However, when many of those African-American families have their White friends pose as the owners, the homes, which are in the exact same condition and location, are mysteriously worth tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
That is generational wealth that is stolen from African-Americans because of the color of their skin.
Furthermore, that is generational wealth that is given to White Americans simply because of the color of their skin.
That extra wealth could be used to send children to the best private schools.
That extra wealth could be used to get children the best tutors to prepare them for standardized tests.
That extra wealth could be used to make donations to the best colleges so their children could get preferential treatment when it comes to college admission.
That money that is given to White Americans because of the color of their skin (and taken away from African-Americans) are handouts that people of color do not get to enjoy.
That is affirmative action for White Americans.
Additionally, that is reparations for White Americans.
Many seem to not have a problem with programs and discrimination that benefit White people.
However, when those same programs benefit African-Americans, all hell breaks loose.
We will not even get into the discrimination and racism that African-Americans face trying to climb the ladder in corporate America.
Many African-Americans who are talented enough to have the corner office or the executive suite never get the opportunity because they do not fit into the White boy clique in the office.
Many do not get invited to the private lunches and the golf outings.
Therefore, the cronyism that allows some White Americans with fewer qualifications to receive the promotion at work that an African-American colleague might have been more qualified for becomes something similar to affirmative action that benefits White Americans.
We are also not going to talk about the discrimination that occurs in city governments across this country.
Often, a majority White city council will bypass minority businesses to give the big government contracts to White business owners.
Even business contracts reserved for minority businesses often go to White men who put businesses in their wives’ names.
Oh yes, White women are minorities too.
Therefore, they often benefit from affirmative action even though many people seem not to have a problem with that.
We can only assume that many do not have a problem with White women benefitting from affirmative action because it seems many only have a problem with African-Americans getting the benefit of the doubt when it comes to success in the workforce or as an entrepreneur.
And as far as affirmative action goes at Ivy League schools like Harvard, that is the least that they can do for the African-American community because without African-American slave labor, those schools would never have existed in the first place.
Ivy League schools built their wealth by seeking endowments from the wealthiest White families in the country back in the day, which were those who owned African-Americans as slaves.
They enrolled the children of slave owners, then got those families to donate large sums of money to make those schools as prestigious as they are today.
Those Ivy League schools then used African-American slaves to construct the buildings on campus, obviously free of charge.
And when those African-American slaves went on to glory, the professors and students used those Black bodies for their scientific experiments.
So, if African-American students can use their diverse experience to get into those schools after those schools built their wealth on free African-American labor and White families received generational wealth just for being White, so be it.
We deserve things to favor us too.
Nothing in this world is free or colorblind.
African-Americans know that all too well.
Yes, sometimes being African-American might help when it comes to college admissions.
And that is not fair to other races.
But keep that same energy when being White helps White people and hurts African-Americans.
Getting rid of affirmative action will not make America colorblind because how will the Supreme Court stop the discrimination that takes wealth from African-Americans and gives it to White Americans?
The court will not.
The only thing that ending affirmative action will do is make sure that color only benefits the people it was supposed to benefit in the first place.
And that sure ain’t Black folks.
