Affirmative Action :: essays research papers

Affirmative Action has been frivolously debated throughout the past 135years. Citizens of the United States question whether the regime should yield certain advantages to races that have endured bigotry in the past. This plan goes by the name of Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is afederally subsidized program that encourages universities and former(a)educational institutions, to accept a greater number of minority students.Throughout the years, Affirmative Action and the different advocates havechanged, but racial inequality form stagnant. Affirmative action has various proponents and opponents, both of whom seekthe eventual goal of an integrated, educated middle class society. Theopponents of Affirmative Action argue that it is not the business ofthe current majority to make up for prior actions and imposing thesetypes of programs would be a form of so- skirted, reverse discrimination. Theproponents argue that it is everybodys responsibility to create a society,which gives everybody an equal opportunity regardless of race, and the onlyway to ascertain this goal is through Affirmative-Action programs. How canthis nation come together and disregard the color of a persons skin? Will wereach this goal by subsidizing programs that assist minorities, or shall wesit and wait for time to establish equal opportunity for all?The recital of Affirmative Action dates back to the days when the nationattempted to rebuild its society after the civil war. Reconstructionattempted to establish virtuous transaction between the white Europeans andblack Africans that made up a large part of the American society. The nationwas torn on how to establish these relations.Many call Reconstruction the low point of race relations in the UnitedStates. This era included the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment,defining national citizenship so as to include blacks. This Amendment passedCongress in June 1866 and was ratified, despite rejection by most Southernstates (July 28, 1 868). In response to the newfound freedom of AfricanAmericans, whites incited numerous accounts of violence. White detestation of theblack race created an era that experienced the most lynchings in the historyof the United States. Whites also began using contemporary forms of laborexploitation to maintain manoeuver of their socio-economic advantage. Something needed to be done so that the nation would not split at its seams. One side argued that time was the only solution to racial problems. Creatinggovernment programs would make Africans dependent and give them an unfairadvantage. They were said to be fat state subsidies that unfairly penalizedinnocent whites and taught blacks self-destructive habits of indolence andindependence. This blood line was sustained by the Democratic Party who