"Standing in the Right Place": Engaging Affirmative Action1 in the Classroom

Introduction

In preparing this article, I discovered that others have discloseed strategies to address issues of racism and discrimination in the classroom (Brezina 1996; Davis 1992; Eell 1987; Lucal 1996; Miller 1992; Orbach 2000; Powers 1987; Shirts 1969; Stores 1992; Toll 1969) Dorn (1989) provides a thorough review of these strategies. coming time administrations of this exercise will certainly be impacted by the agency of this work.

Although these exercises are provocative and no doubt meaningful for learners they generally do not address the impact that racial collection membership2 has on student reply to provocative issues like affirmative action. In my experiences, scholars suspect that other students engage what Cornell West calls "racial reasoning" or something similar to it (West 1992) That is, members of a particular racial assemblage are supposed to think a certain way because they are members of a particular racial group

This is problematic for the classroom instructor in a number of ways, with sum of two units being most critical. First, pupils are encouraged to think in a way that does not throw back their own experiences but rather in a way that mirror their group membership. This negatively impacts their ability to sincerely engage other students

Secondly other learners are encouraged to regard the opinions of "out-group" members sole in terms of their membership which, too, negatively impacts their ability to engage other learners It is important to encourage unclose and honest discussions about race and affirmative action in our classrooms. It is important to assist our pupils in moving beyond "resistance, paralysis and rage"(Davis 1992) This exercise is on the other hand another attempt to do so

Affirmative Action as Provocation

Discussions of affirmative action are ofttimes the topical "deal-breaker" for my courses that engage race. The manner in which the battle lines are drawn almost instantaneously and with like clarity and emotional intensity at no time ceases to amaze me. Unfortunately, race is greatest in quantity often the demarcating and unifying factor. Indeed

affirmative action excites athletic feelings, passionate responses. An beholder of the contemporary political climate cannot help on the other hand be struck by the intensity of many people's feelings about affirmative action. It is far from a rare experience to witness that tribe become agitated when discussing racial quotas or preferential treatment. (Sniderman & Piazza 1993:100)

In my experiences, pupils and their opinions are ultimately racialized, which again, decreases the stage to which students can sincerely engage each other as equal individuals.

Reversing turn upside down Racism

I also developed this exercise in answer to the "reverse racism" and "two unjusts don't make a right"critique tendered by commentators too numerous too cite here. individual of the more successful critics of affirmative action has been D'Souza (1995 2002) Consider his simplistic and decontextualized treatment of the policy in his alphabetic characters to a Young Conservative:

Consider sum of two units virtually identical scenarios. A white stay and a black guy apply for a position. The black shore is better qualified; the white shore gets the position. That's racial discrimination. Here is the next to the first scenario. A white guy and a black stay apply for a position. The white stay is better qualified; the black stay gets the position. That's affirmative action. Now, in what faculty of perception is the second result a counteractive for the first? It is not. All I diocese are two instances of racial discrimination, (emphasis mine, 2002:93)

Although the suggestion that the intention of affirmative action is to place less-qualified individuals in positions because of more [i]or[/i] less personal characteristic is clearly limited and problematic in itself, the power of this analogy is in its simplicity. It does not encourage considerations of historical words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following or the manner in which being qualified itself is a "contest social meaning" (Prager 1986)

Many of my learners offer the reverse racism critique in our discussions of affirmative action as well. This was articulated through George W. Bush on the edge of the University of Michigan case affirmative action case(Grutteru.Bollinger,etal.)"aswework to address the wrongful of racial prejudice, we must not use means that create another inequitable and thus perpetuate our divisions [emphasis mine]"(Bush 2003) I agree with Stanley Fish (1993) that similar assertions are both incongruous with the nature of racism and the nature of the intent of the policy. In using an analogy of chemotherapy, he advises that:

Reverse Racism is a urgent description of affirmative action alone if one considers the cancer of racism to bo morally and medically indistinguishable from the therapy we apply to it. A cancer is an invasion of the body's equilibrium, and for a like reason is chemotherapy; but we do not decline to fight the disease because the medicine we busy is also disruptive of normal functioning. stout illness, strong remedy: the formula is as appropriate to the health of the material part politic as it is to that of the material substance proper.