Ask any two people to define affirmative action and you will likely receive different definitions. Some will define (and even justify) it as reverse discrimination and/or quota system to move one less qualified minority person to a school, job, or promotion over more qualified non-minority people. The leader of the Civil Rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, rightly urged America to eliminate all discrimination. He never supported reverse discrimination. To do so would have been to accept discrimination – a direct contradiction of what he sought. I think that most Americans have accepted his vision in regards to discrimination. A society cannot get rid of discrimination by promoting discrimination.
So what is or should be the definition of affirmative action? All individuals have their strengths and weaknesses. An affirmative action program should neutrally addresses a person’s weaknesses (through training, classes, etc) whether that person is a minority or not. That helps the person qualify for educational advancment and/or gain the skills needed for job advancement. It helps the person, the school, the business, and society and discriminates against no one.
Diversity has become a popular goal, especially for large corporations and government agencies. At its heart, the corporation or government agency wishes to reflect the racial, ethnic, and religious mix of society within its employees in total and also in different hierarchal job positions. As a directional goal, it is a good goal. However, to measure diversity success only by statistically matching the number of minority and non-minority employees of a company or career field to actual population goals is impossible and invites the usage of reverse discrimination and/or quotas. Statistically impossible, because no career field, be it teachers, civil engineers, factory workers, airline pilots, firemen, etc. have a total population of qualified and/or interested people that reflect exactly the national or local proportions of every minority and non-minority group. For instance if only 5% of the Afro-American population are civil engineers, it is impossible to attain the roughly 11% employment of Afro-Americans as civil engineers needed to match Afro-American’s make up of the total population. Likewise, if Afro Americans make up 20% of the total qualified pool of teachers, it is impossible and undesireable to force teacher employment to only reflect 11% of the teacher population.
Often forgotten in the diversity debate is individuality. People, even people within the same ‘group’ are individuals first. One person may be analytically gifted, while another person may be more gifted in interpersonal communications, or certain technical skills, or creative/innovative skills, etc.. Now that we have become a nation of too many lawsuits, most Human Resource departments of large corporations are headed by lawyers. Interpersonal communication skills have become more highly valued than ever by human resource departments in the hiring and promotional processes because those skills are not only valuable in business generally, but also good in reducing the incidence of lawsuits. Some people are easily offended by just a word or two phrased differently than they like. A tell it like it is analytical person can unknowingly or unwittingly offend others too sensitive to learn/appreciate what that person has to offer to them and to the company. Diversity of personality is less and less tolerated and/or rewarded in the corporate world. So even if they achieve the ‘minority’ diversity they seek, what often occurs is that there is a preponderance of people with interpersonal skills and less of others without the same degree of that skill. Frequently, these skilled communication types lack the technical skills needed to execute optimum performance. The ones with the technical skills have much to contribute and belong at every level of the organization, but are often excluded due to weaker communication skills. The lack of badly needed skills by many of the good communication type people can and does ultimately hurt corporate performance. It is also highly discriminatory.
Getting it Right - Welcome
The goal of this blog is to publish my thoughts on a variety of economic and political topics in the hopes that people who find them educational or beneficial will utilize them and/or forward to others who might find them interesting and/or worthwhile to promote to others, possibly including politicians who can push some of these ideas to fruition. The topics in my blog are meant to be of value on a long term basis, not a daily diary or political issue of the day log. If the information posted is useful to you, by all means utilize it and/or forward it as you see fit. If not useful, then merely ignore it. There are no universally agreed upon truisms and too little tolerance between some of those with opposing viewpoints to successfully convince the people with hardened opinions to move away from them. I am an analytical type person who will try to be as factual as I am able.
I disdain the current popularity of name calling and condemnation of viewpoints with no factual alternatives or logical solutions given that I see so often. If you don't have a solution based on fact and logic, then opt out of the discussion because you have nothing to contribute. My background is a degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and 39 years working in middle management jobs for a major retailer. My opinions are forged on the personal experence of life, family, friends, and work as well as triumphs and mistakes that I have made and hopefully learned from. My hope is that this blog helps you.
My first topic will be about personal finance. I chose that one first because most of us work long and hard just to survive but not all of us realize our dreams of becoming financially independent from the labors of our work. Much of our political votes/thinking also focus on the economy and in particular how well we are personally doing financially.
It is relatively simple, without sacrificing the enjoyment of living for 'today' and even at moderate incomes, to retire as a millionaire or multi-millionaire, if you focus on that goal consistently from a young age. It is also simple to ensure that your child or grandchild retires rich. It merely requires a one time gift of just $2,000 invested wisely and the passage of time. Please read my first post on this blog to learn more.
An index/schedule of past and future posts and their dates will always be updated so that it becomes the first post that you see below. If the date of a post that you wish to read is preceded by the word "Posted", then find it below or click on the title in the Blog archive to review.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
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