Benefits and Losses (Vera Speaking)
				Source		MAIN PATH: Dee
		Ann					Dee

If you listen to what everyone has said, and if you put it all together, it seems that strong affirmative action has been somewhat successful for the more educated blacks in the middle and upper middle income groups. The public sector and the private corporations that want to do business with the government have hired more blacks in better jobs.

On the other hand, there is a large group of blacks who have not been helped at all. I'm thinking of the poor, poorly educated, chronically unemployed or underemployed people in the urban ghettos. Many of the young men are involved with crime and drugs. Many of the young women become mothers without husbands and end up on welfare.

There is something else that comes out if you listen to what everyone has been saying. Ann says there is bitterness in the ghettos. John says that many whites identified with Bakke and feel that blacks are getting something for nothing. Fred says we have created a situation in which a large number of black people AND a large number of whites feel that they are being unfairly treated. An enormous number of people feel that someone else is getting all the breaks and people like them are being hurt. Furthermore, there is the possibility that strong affirmative action AS WE KNOW IT will backfire and hurt black people.

I think this is an explosive situation that we should change, but I disagree with the way Fred and Dee would solve the problem. It seems to me that we've got two choices: Either refocus affirmative action so that it is aimed mainly at employing poor urban blacks OR develop a social democratic program of jobs and training and other benefits that is aimed at the poor and the low-skilled, regardless of color. I personally think, as I've said before, that it is morally and politically better to concentrate on the poor and working people in general rather than blacks in particular. (But I think blacks would benefit enormously if we did so.)

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