FREE ESSAY ON AMERICAN BUSINESSES CREATE RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

AMERICAN BUSINESSES CREATE RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Quotas for American businesses Create Racial Discrimination
Politics is assuming command of the American economy in the form of pervasive 
equal opportunity enforcement. In today's society, everyone is supposed to be equal and 
have equal rights, but in employment, there is more discrimination than ever. American 
citizens need to do away with affirmative action so that America's job opportunities can

once again be based on merit, not skin color or ethnicity. Laws have been passed, quotas

have been established, and seemingly, everything has been done to prevent 
discrimination, but rather than ending discrimination, these new laws and quotas have 
begun to discriminate against a new group of people-the qualified white male. America 
is known as the land of opportunity. The general theory is that if you work hard enough 
and you are the most qualified person to receive a job, you get it, but that is no longer
the 
case. Now, in order to be employed, qualifications do not always matter as much as the 
color of a person's skin or his ethnicity.In dealing with this subject, the first
question that 
is always asked is, What is wrong with quotas? What is wrong with companies hiring a 
variety of blacks, Hispanics, women, and white males? The problem is not with hiring a 
variety of people from different ethnic groups. The problem begins when the person who 
is best qualified for a job, loses the position to someone less qualified. 
Many voices say that quotas are used to right the past wrongs when so many minority 
groups were discriminated against, but even immigrants, if they belong to one of the 
Maldonado2
protected classes are eligible for quota preferences. Leslie Spencer and Peter Brimelow,

sociological researchers who have thoroughly researched the quota system, said that since

immigrants can also receive quota preferences, it is a pretty clear indication that
quotas 
are not about righting past wrong, but about political power. (n. pag.) Just as socialism

has collapsed around the globe, the leading capitalist power has adapted a peculiarly 
American form of Neosocialism putting politics (and lawyers) in command of its 
workplace albeit on the pretext of equality rather than efficiency. This problem is only

becoming worse because America has the most far reaching equal employment laws 
found anywhere in the world. (Counting Costs)Many companies are afraid of these 
laws, and the fear of political punishment makes quotas very hard to research. A Kmart 
executive told a researcher, We're not letting you anywhere near our program. 
(Brimelow 77) Companies go beyond what is required just to avoid legal trouble. The 
manager of corporate employment status at Xerox, a company that uses quotas, states, 
We have a process that we call 'balanced work force'. In Xerox, everyone understands 
that, and it is measurable by its goals and relative numbers. That is the hard business,
that 
is what people do not like to deal with, but we do it all the time. (Brimelow and Spencer

n. pag.) Sears, Roebuck and Co. spent fifteen years and twenty million dollars to defeat

an EECO discrimination suit. Sears prevailed mainly because they were able to show 
proof of a voluntary quota program. Many companies cling to programs such as these as 
a future defense in court even if it means putting up with some unqualified or 
incompetent workers. (Brimelow 77)
Not only is affirmative action hurting white males, it is also causing problems 
Maldonado3
among the protected classes that it is supposed to be helping. Many of these people feel

that it is an insult that the government thinks they need special help to compete in the
job 
market. Yet others would be extremely offended if this help was taken away from them. 
Black Police Chief Clarence Harmon was once in favor of affirmative action until he 
realized the affect that it has on his race. He has said that when he was going through 
school, he enjoyed competing and keeping up with his white counterparts, but he now 
realizes that many times in the police academy black students use affirmative action as a

crutch. Black students have been found to score lower on tests than white students. 
Harmon believes that this is because they do not think that they have to work as hard 
which produces less qualified black officers. (Glastris 43)Karl Marx insisted that for
any 
sort of class consciousness to arise, there must be com-munication of a common sense of 
oppression, but no one can feel this sense of oppression. With the mass media rarely 
recognizing quotas, much less portraying white males sympathetically, Peter Lynch, a 
sociological researcher, states White males have been easily and silently victimized one

by one. (qtd. in Brimelow) With neither conservatives nor liberals making affirmative 
action a big deal, a classic spiral of silence has occurred whereby people assume that 
their doubts are not shared and suppress them, thus mutually intimidating each other. 
People are left feeling that nobody will help them. Another problem with this is the male

psychology that real men don't cry. Many men would rather put up with the hurt than to 
even tell their friends and relatives. (Brimelow 76)
Most people realize that quotas do hurt people, but what most people do not realize is
that 
quotas are illegal. The 1964 and 1991 Civil Rights Acts explicitly banned government 
Maldonado4
imposed quotas, but nevertheless, they immediately spread though the economy. Even 
though quotas are becoming more and more popular, there is incredible denial. Some say 
that affirmative action, while a regulatory burden, is not massive in scale. Supporters
of 
affirmative action insist that the 1991 Civil Rights Act did not impose quotas, although

its key point was to override a Supreme Court decision and make work force racial 
imbalance prima facie evidence of employer discrimination. (Spencer and Brimelow n. 
pag.)there and still harmful. (Brimelow 76)Another way that quotas and affirmative 
action are very harmful is that they are very expensive. In 1991, the direct and indirect

cost of quotas, of imposing them and complying with them, amounted to between 112 
and 115 billion dollars. The opportunity cost, which is what the economy might have 
achieved without the misallocative affect of quotas, amounted to at least 4% of the 1991

Gross National Product, an amount equal to the amount spent on public schools. (Spencer 
and Brimelow n. pag.) The revelation of these figures is needed to show the dangers of a

politically motivated employment policy.
Affirmative action hurts everyone-white males, their wives, their families, the 
protected classes, and every other American citizen- by hurting the economy. Affirmative

action needs to be done away with, so we can return America to the great country that she

once was. People once came to America to be free to work hard to become qualified for a 
job. Will people now come because their skin color will help them receive a job? Martin 
Luther King said that he would like to see the day when his children are not judged 
because of their color, but because of the content of their character. (Brimelow 76)
Every 
time affirmative action is put into use, our country is taking another step away from
that 
worthy goal.