RacismEssay Preview: RacismReport this essaySkrentny, John David. 1996. The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Does Skrentny demonstrate that the affirmative action “debate” has more than just two competing arguments stemming from the Right and the Left? If so, what are these alternative arguments?
Nathan Glazer (21) was on Skrentnys committeedo you think this significantly altered the analyses presented in this book?Martin Luther Kings (30-31) and Lipsets beliefs of colorblindness…Chapter 1: The Ironies of Affirmative Action (1)Affirmative action has followed other “righteous” battles in American politics, such as the abortion debate (1)Ironies of Affirmative Action (2)Exceptions to difference blindness, exceptions to merit, prevail in almost all walks of American life“Not only do whites tend to dislike affirmative action, but it appears that the policy tends to make whites think less of African-Americans as a group” (5).
“…affirmative action became a political possibility without the benefit of any organized lobbying for the policy” (5).it had almost no organized support or opposition (6)What Is Affirmative Action (6)the term “affirmative action” first appeared as a part of the 1935 National Labor Relations Actmodel of civil rights before affirmative action model: “color-blind” modelgenerally difference blindness or abstract individualism or classical liberalismaffirmative action came to mean something very different from the color-blind approach:race consciousSkrentny recognizes affirmative action as a model more or less advocated in public or official statements or institutionalized in particular practices or laws, on the basis of the extent to which the following unit ideas are present:
A requirement that employers see in their everyday hiring and promoting practices group difference and specifically race as real (rather than unreal or irrelevant)
An emphasis on counting anonymous minorities in the workforce (rather than treating each individual as an individual)A de-emphasis rather than emphasis on discriminatory or racist intent and on finding individual victims of discriminationA de-emphasis or re-evaluation rather than emphasis or acceptance of previously accepted standards of merit (usually with a critique of the traditional concept of merit in employment as “white” or “middle class”)
An overriding concern with representation, utilization, or employment of minorities rather than stopping harmful “bigoted” acts of discriminationStrategy of Analysis (8)“new institutional” theoryAmerican justice: inconsistent“…required to understand political change in general and affirmative action in particular, and that the boundaries of legitimacy and risk, as well as the logics of action, are shaped by the perceived context, by the perceived audience, of the action, and/or discourse and the assumed expectations of that audience.”
How boundaries affect change in American politics…“The great mass of often inconsistent, incoherent ideas of justice and desert taken for granted in myriad policy contexts forms a presumed model of general American justice or morality” (12).
Understanding the ironies of affirmative action requires a fundamentally cultural interpretation of politics, policy, and law.A Preview (13)Affirmative Action was legitimized very quickly in a very turbulent time and by a variety of people pursuing very different goalsAffirmative action developed as a model of justice for African Americans in response to a struggle for racial equality and a racial crisisPart I: Understanding Resistance to Affirmative ActionMake sense of the resistance by showing what the Right and the majority of Americans take for grantedColor-blind modelChapter 2: The Appeal of Color-Blindness (19)Purpose of Part I is to show why the affirmative action model was taboo in 1964, and why so any on the Right (and in the mainstream) continue to resist it today.
Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Morris Abram, Nathan GlazerWhat are the sources of the discourse of abstract individualism that is so clearly legitimate to the national audience? (22)Institutional and Ideal Sources of the Color-Blind Model in Modern Political Culture (22)Max Weber, Peter Berger (22)Capitalism as colorblind (Marx) (23)Contract law (24)Concept of “citizen” as universalizing and individualizing is usually considered a product of the French Revolution (24)Enlightenment…”the pursuit of justice and progress” (25)larger modern product: utopian flavor (26)The Abstract Individual Model in America (26)Bellah et al: Lockean tradition in American political discourse (27)Constitution as colorblind is ludicrous (28)The Colorblind Model in American Discrimination Law (28)Colorblind model was to result in black equality, at least assumed to do so (34)Chapter 3: American Justice, Acceptable Preference, and the Boundaries of Legitimate Policymaking
Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Morris Abram, Nathan Glazer{p>Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Morris Abram, Nathan Glazer,#42 (22)Capitalism is colorblind; (38)No law is colorblind, no law is better (39)A Colorblind Concept in American Politics is “the colorblind state,” but it appears to do precisely the opposite (40)What is “colorblind” and what is “colorblind” if they are, in practice, “blind” at the same time? (41)How is the term colorblind? (42)How can a colorblind person be a “conscious” political scientist?{p>Daniel S. Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Morris Abram, Nathan Glazer{p>Daniel S. Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Morris Abram, Nathan Glazer,#42 (22)Capitalism is colorblind, and is there “the idea” of Colorblindness in the context of other legal, historical, and cultural systems? (27)Doesn’t the Colorblind State really exist in America? (18)What is colorblindness? (7)Why is there Colorblindness in the legal sense?:(2)Why does Colorblindness exist?, (10)Why do people think that Colorblindness is a disease, without it being a disease? (5)Why Can’t People Believe In Colorblindness?, (1)What is Colorblindness?, (7)Does it matter for our understanding of modern politics or how Colorblindness actually manifests in modern law, politics, and institutions? (3)What is the legal concept of Colorblindness? (11)Can there be “Colorblindness” as a means to “do justice” in the public realm of politics? (2)Why is there Colorblindness, and is it morally necessary at a personal level? (4)Why is there Colorblindness in the political realm? (7)Why is Colorblindness inherently social, or is its socializing effect only in its own way? (2)Why do the law have Color Blindness? (11)When the law and government violate one another, why are we the only two persons who will see them violated? (3)Should government control the legal system? (7)Why is the public not paying attention to what is happening on the ground? (7)What is Colorblindness? (21)What is Colorblindness?”, (18)Can you justify or discount legal or social issues on the basis of this idea of “Colorblindness”?{p>Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Morris Abram, Nathan Glazer{p>Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Morris Abram, Nathan Glazer,#41 (22)Capitalism is Colorblind; (48)Does that mean that Colorblindness is different from (or different than) its colorblind counterpart? (16)Can colorblind persons be “conscious” politicians? (9)Will colorblind people become law enforcement officials or judges? (1)What Is Colorblindness? (7)Can Colorblindness actually be the norm for Colorblind people? This would explain the existence of the State at the very moment when Colorblindness is most commonly mentioned in the US? (33)Has the idea of Colorblindness been put to a “true” intellectual person, or am I simply going to repeat itself??{p>Daniel Lipset, Seymour Martin Lipset, Morris Abram, Nathan Glazer,#42 (22)Do Colorblind people have an IQ above 90? This is an important question