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September 06, 2003

Affirmative Action Metastasized

I've recently found a rather interesting website that doesn't deserve traffic. Its host is a big fan of the Fourth Turning theories. I recall when 4T first came online. I got involved as boohab. From those archives (June 1997) , these comments on Affirmative Action:

the creation of affirmative action was a political compromise born a generation ago. the idea was fundamentally that economic concessions to blacks in the form of highly visible jobs within lilly white institutions would avert conflicts in the street. this was the cynical rationale behind nixon's executive order as well as the peace-minded rationale behind james farmer's demands representing the congress of racial equality (especially in the context & form of cashier's jobs in southern supermarkets). the direct alternative to this integrative, cherry picking, appeasement was the strategy of malcolm x. to paraphrase 'no sell out'. when america had thousands of negroes marching in the streets demanding economic justice and the possibility existed for martin luther king to strike up deals with labor unions and call for national black strikes, the ground was set for the integrative balm of affirmative action. i find it most curious that this history is ignored especially in light of recent conservatives professed admiration of louis farrakhan's (crude) echoes of malcolm x call for black power, independent of affirmative action concessions of the white power structure.

affirmative action has metasticized in several primary directions.


  1. into the mushpot of 'diversity',
  2. into the hardball realpolitik of set-asides and quotas,
  3. into the earnest strivings against the glass cieling
  4. into the deception of race-norming.
  5. into several practical management methodologies such as the army's manpower planning method, and those affirmed by the business roundtable under bob dole such as balanced workforce
  6. into marketing and outreach into minority labor and education pools.

the bottom line is, however, that affirmative action is a political compromise born out of a white political fear of black independence as exhibited at its inception by thinkers such as malcolm x who rejected the token integrationism of affirmative action on the grounds of black power and integrity. and the reality of affirmative action is to date, that white women have benefitted more than any other group.

so, there are a lot of excuses given based on narrow interpretations of the scope of affirmative action programs which assert that it is a cause for racial conflict. i would say that the nature of racial conflict remains the same - white people upset that they must share working or schooling environments with people they consider inferior - and affirmative action is just a scapegoat.

Posted by mbowen at September 6, 2003 06:37 PM

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Posted by: john s bolton at March 30, 2004 09:44 PM

Here is another explanation of the start and growth of the gov't's racial policies, especially recruitment, with some aspects similar to yours. Officials, and their cheerleaders outside gov't, want power. Not just ordinary power, but that which arises from overthrowing the laws that limit the discretion of officials. Racial conflict is the way to get this power, if policies can be set up to get the people into violent conflict on racial and ethnic grounds. If this hypothesis does not explain the racial policies of the last forty years, it is not clear what else could. The other occasions of conflict, such as class war, have been given up on, leaving race as the remaining possibility. Also race has definite advantages for this goal of starting, and maintaining civil war for power's sake; the races can't change their uniforms or switch sides or avoid being targeted by pretending to have other loyalties. Once the gov't sets the actual warfare into full gear, the minorities are of no further use to them; they have already got a national emergency regime established. Affirmative action is only a small part of the overall racial-conflict enhancement policies. In other countries such recruitment policies have occurred in the context of decolonization programs; they are part of the initial stages of partition of a polity.The page connected below through the name, gives greater detail on this process...

Posted by: john s bolton at March 30, 2004 10:06 PM