Affirmative Action: The Racists' Tool by Ian Lawrence Campbell

Back

Affirmative Action: The Racists' Tool
by Ian Lawrence Campbell

The human quest for individuality has been the motivating force behind mankind's rise to new heights; furthermore, the struggle to differentiate oneself from others, in the pursuit of greatness, has led to racism: the discrimination against a person or group based on race, religion, or creed to limit their advancement. This act of tearing down a group of people based on insecurities is as fundamentally flawed as using affirmative action to redress those wrongs.

Those with racist beliefs might hate certain groups according to their religion, spoken language, or place of birth. As in the case of one soldier for the United States Army who used the Qur'an, Islam's holy book, for target practice in Iraq during May of 2008. This offense, called an oversight by the shooter was meant to be harmless, even though, the bullet-riddled Qur'an was marked with a target and had an expletive strew across one of its pages. This form of racism, although passive by nature, is no less harmful than that of institutional racism, which suppresses certain groups through propaganda, denying benefits based on a belief system or racial differences.

What may seem to be a significant racial difference, such as, the coarseness of hair, facial structure, or the color of skin is not an overly distinguishing factor according to the scientific community. In fact, the genetic differences that make our appearance unique are less significant than those that make us similar. In the Book, In My Father's House: Africa in the philosophy of Culture by Kwame Anthony Appiah the author writes,

Author's Biography:

Ian Lawrence Campbell is a college student in the Miami area. He is currently pursuing a degree in psychology. In his free time he operates a romance based website at http://www.tethered-passion.com.

Posted on: July 9,2008

Email: ian.lawrence.campbell@gmail.com
Website: http://www.tethered-passion.com