Affirmative Action and Me

Affirmative Action: positive steps aimed at increasing the inclusion of historically excluded groups in employment, education and business. Such steps are not designed to offer preferential treatment to, or exclude from participation, any group. To the contrary, Affirmative Action policies are intended to promote access for the traditionally underrepresented through heightened outreach and efforts at inclusion.

Definition taken from the American Association for Affirmative Action


To be honest…I don’t know how I feel about Affirmative Action. It has had a really negative effect on me but, by the same token, I can see its purpose pretty clearly. Personally, it has clouded my perception of myself and my sense of self worth to a huge degree. Every step I take, every opportunity I get, I have to wonder if I’m only getting it because I am black and because I am a woman; the higher I go, the worse this gets. I know…I know! People have been fighting in this country for ages for leaps towards equality and here I am complaining that a major move towards it is ruining my life. But let me give you a peek into what I mean.

While I enjoyed my time immensely at Dartmouth and proved my worth by keeping an above B average (I had a rough first year…), I always felt that the white, more privileged students were often thinking that I had only gotten in because of affirmative action. Now, to be honest, I’m sure they weren’t even worried about me or what I was doing there, but I always felt that I had to represent black women (and black people) positively. I had to show them that the negative portrayals in movies and on t.v. were not correct! Again…I was probably imagining their thoughts of me but the pressure was so immense.

As I neared graduation and we began to look for jobs…I was told by several people that the fact that I’m a black person AND a woman would bode well for me in the professional marketplace. Someone referred to it as “killing two birds with one stone”; it would be better for the company to hire a black woman rather than a black man and a white woman… what the hell? Now, I have to be honest. In high school and college, I hated the notion that the color of my skin would take me further than someone who might be more qualified than I. I didn’t want anything handed to me on a platter; I just wanted to get in on my own merit. Now…now that I realize how hard it is to break into the professional world without strong background references…fuck it. At my current job, there are a lot of young blacks like me here trying to break into law school and, quite frankly, this will look good on our resumes. From what I can tell, we are all qualified young blacks who come from middle to lower-class backgrounds. No one has a parent that attended Harvard Law or who works as a lawyer or judge currently. Not having a background or a strong reference to break into this bloated field means that a lot of people will get overlooked (think: those questions on college/law school apps- Has anyone in your family attended ______ Law?). If being black will get my foot in the door and make them take a closer look at me…I’ll take it. I don’t want to be accepted just because of my color or sex…I just want to be considered!



So I guess affirmative action is a good and bad thing. Good because it forces companies to diversify and have people of all backgrounds and upbringings and levels the playing field for those who may not have even been considered for schooling or a job. Bad because it allows people that hold racist ideals to have more fuel against those that they view as lesser than them and lowers the self esteem and self worth of those who may feel that an opportunity has only arisen due to their skin color, sex, sexual preference or whatever.

Double-edged sword I guess. I know…I know…damn women/minorities are never satisfied!


Interesting article about affirmative action in the Supreme Court and why affirmative action is better as a race-based system.