Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 10:30:37 -0800
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (rakesh bhandari)
Subject: M-TH: Affirmative Action


>The list's preoccupation with the campaign *against* affirmative action
>in the US surprises me. Anyone would think that there is some kind of
>massive backlash going on in the US. But my reading of the situation is
>rather different. I note that immigration to America under George Bush
>exceeded the the previous record immigrations of the turn of the century
>and the 1850s.


What does immigration policy have to do with affirmative action? The NYT
just wrote a massive front page story on Ward Connerly, Pete Wilson's
deeply troubled hatchet man of affirmative action (he recites the Pledge of
Allegiance nine or ten times a day and claims to be 37% black). Connerly
has already received the fanfare as he takes his pathetic show on the road.


As for immigration policy, there is now a campaign to repatriate criminals,
no matter   how small their offense. The US may dump toxic waste in the
third world, now it will dump the most violent felons as well--the export
of toxics having become the principal feature of the latest stage of
capitalism.

 So what is happening is control over the immigrant population and a
rationalization of immigration policy. For example, given the criminals
that the US is concentrating on (Central Americans), it would seem that
what is implied is that slots should not be allocated for political
refugees because they tend to be criminals. There is an  attempt to
eliminate the humanitarian aspects of US immigration policy, which had been
already  hijaked to accept refugees from Cold War opponents. With the end
of the Cold War, the US has little need for the cynical use of refugees and
those seeking asylum.

>No doubt there have been some reactions (like Gov Pete
>Wilson). But when one looks at the generation-long hysteria that
>surrounded the last great wave of immigration, culminating in the 1924
>quotas act, reaction to current imigration has been remarkably muted.

Prop 187, the denial of benefits to illegal immigrants, was backed by
Wilson on his way to a run for the Presidency (and the m-f got all choked
up). Again, fiscal problems were blamed on a racialized population of
illegal immigrants (though it is well known that they pay more in sales
taxes than taking back in benefits), Wilson fanning the flames of racism.
He was also making an attempt to get more money from the feds to manage the
illegal population which tends to end up in California.

 But as Leo Chavez has suggested (see Juan Perea, ed. Immigrants Out),
Wilson probably has exploitation on his mind. To the extent that the denial
of benefits will encourage workers to come alone and to keep jobs, no
matter the abuse, since they don't qualify for those services for which
they *must* pay cash, Prop 187 will enable a higher rate of exploitation.
Wilson has always been in the pocket of agro-business.

>There seems little recognition of the fact that affirmative action is
>official policy, and moves to remove it are in the minority. Is it the
>work of the left now to rally to defend the government?

It is important that we don't allow white workers to think that their
problems have been caused by  affirmative action or that problems can and
should be passed off first to minorities through the elimination of
affirmative action. One doesn't have to rally behind affirmative action
(though it is not difficult if we are to be honest about the virulence of
especially anti-black racism); one simply has to say it makes no sense to
cut back this privilige and this privilige alone.

>racial inequality. What then lays behind the current policy?

Why  affirmative action? Well, it was probably devised in order to create a
class which would have a stake in the system and thus help to quell urban
disorder--even as the conditions of inner-cities became worse.

>wage'.  And most of all affirmative action policies provide a rationale
>for the generational turnover that is taking place in the US workforce.
>They usefully tarnish the older generation with responsibility for
>racial segregation in work (a shifting of the blame for ruling class
>racial policies first effected by Karl Gunnar Myrdal in his book An
>American Dilemma, but readily taken on board by most subscribers to this
>list).

 No doubt, your thesis is provocative: that downsizing can be justified as
necessary to reshuffle the workforce in order to meet govt mandated gender
and racial diversity targets. If a firm wants to use more part-time
workers, it can claim that is hiring more women for the purpose of meeting
EEOC requirements.

But then why is business opposed to affirmative action? See the report
prepared the Business Counsel, Edward Potter and Judith Youngman, 1995.
Keeping American Competitive: Employment Policy for the 21st century. As I
noted, business opposition has two justifications: principled opposition to
the imposition of a social goal on hiring practice and practical opposition
to the costs involved in meeting EEOC requirements and filing EEOC
paperwork.

Rakesh




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