Affirmative Action

Michael Kadish
Journal Entry #9

5) Some of the articles do out and out say that affirmative action is wrong and should be quashed. Shelby Steele wants to make it a felony. However, Stephen L. Carter simply says that there should perhaps be affirmative action to begin with, but by the time the student graduates, the race should be immaterial, as the individual can either stand on their accomplishments or not. Nathan Glazer seems to be under the opinion that AA should remain, because the consequences would be too dangerous. Mandalit del Barco doesn't really say anything; she interviews the two extreme sides and doesn't try to reconcile them. The negative side that she interviews, Linda Chavez, feels it should be eliminated. The only piece that offers tangible suggestions is Johnathon Alter's piece.

8) The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln, said that any slaves that the Union army liberated from the Confederacy were free. It has come to represent the document that freed all the Blacks from slavery.

During, and after, Reconstruction, many states took advantage of the blacks freedoms, as they saw the state's population grow from the blacks' turning from 60% citizen to 100% citizen. However, wanting the numbers, but not the actual black vote, states would use various means to stop the blacks from voting, sometimes by a literacy test, sometimes by a poll tax, and sometimes by intimidation. The Voting Rights Bill banned all of these practices.

The Brown Decision, or the result of Brown vs. The Board of Education, overturned the longheld policy of separate but equal that had been a mainstay in American life until the supreme court ruling.

The point of the cartoon is to suggest that all of these steps that had to be taken to ensure equality for African-Americans, but the latest step, the reversal of affirmative action, will take away the equality that they have fought for.