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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 18734
[Society]
Date Posted:
10/24/2007
9:08:46 am EDT
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Views: 8,426
RSS: 14,108
Comments: 19
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How Much Special Treatment Do Minorities Deserve?
Author: Jaime Jensen Source: The Spectrum (NDSU)
Title: HOW MUCH SPECIAL TREATMENT DO MINORITIES DESERVE?
America has seen some interesting developments in the areas of equality, social justice, gender roles and recognition and affirmative action in recent years. Minorities, or groups who claim such a status, are constantly in demand for more rights, responsibilities and wiggle room to propose new solutions to old problems, to make their messages heard or simply to force their beliefs and opinions upon others.
In the past fifty years alone, American citizens have redefined gender roles almost entirely, empowered various ethnic groups and have attempted to remove the stipulations that may be associated with both. With the emphasis put on equality in terms of sexual orientation in the past few years, especially, it is no wonder that confusion, misguided ideas and general misunderstanding are still prominent themes in the news, not to mention our daily lives.
Equality is a rocky issue, to be sure.
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Community Thoughts: There are 19 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| The Minority Voice | Oct 26th. at 12:36:05 am EDT
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Greenman (Columbus, Indiana) - Email Me - Web
It seems I must be the minorty voice in commenting on this article. Because the article is presenting the view of the majority who have NO CLUE what it means to be a minority. They would like the majority to always have their way, even at the expense of individual rights.
The reason there are Women's Studies isn't because the college is giving preferential treatment to women. Women's Studies exist because for many years women had no voice in public issues. Their history was swept under the rug. Women's Studies exists because women started expressing their views of history, rights, law, and on many other subjects which were always dominated by men. It is the study of the rise of an oppressed portion of our society.
The same goes for other studies in minority voices. The author of this article would like to silence them all.
I am always amazed at Pagans and Witches who feel the majority should prevail in all things, since the vast majority of Americans would like to either drive all witches back into the broom closet or stone us all to death.
Wake up, people. Smell the reality of being a minority in a world where the majority wants to take away your voice, your rights, and your religion.
bb,
Cernowain Greenman
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| Women's Studies Are Part Of The Problem | Oct 25th. at 1:41:45 pm EDT
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Vema (Riverside, Missouri) - Email Me
The fact that we still feel the need to have a program called "Women's Studies" shows that we still feel like we need to be separated from the men. Instead of doing that, they should add the relevant curriculum in to the existing programs, i.e. history, philosophy, etc.
Other than that, the sad fact of the matter is that up until now, women have been the underdogs. We're all upset that women don't get studied as much in historical classes, but don't bother to look at why. From now on, there will be more famous and important women in the history books, but that's because now-a-days women are starting to make themselves heard, not because the "man-o-centric male-ocracy" is giving in to our pressure to admit that we've been oh-so-important. We have been important, but we've also been willing to take the back seat and let them drive.
As for the other points, I do think it's silly to admit one Native American student because they have a quota to meet if the person isn't qualified. If we could just make sure everyone was receiving an equally good education from the get go, there would be just as large a percentage of qualified minorities for the schools as there are Caucasions. The problem is not going to be solved by admitting students to programs who are going to struggle and possibly fail. It's going to be solved by giving decent funding to inner city schools and reservations and such and giving those kids a chance to be educated the way suburbian white kids are. I don't think it's completely out there to collect all the education taxes for a state, add them to a lump sum, then divvy them out where they're most needed instead of by district.
Sadly, people don't want to help pay for the education of children who aren't theirs, so it probably won't ever happen.
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| UGH! | Oct 25th. at 11:16:53 am EDT
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Lady GoldenRaven (New Castle, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
Ok, women, the minority? Excuse me???
Women outnumber men in population in most countries.
I also was in the Navy--there was no discrimination there. I was expected to do the same jobs as the men. I was a jet mechanic while I served--not a secretary! I stood guard duty, worked with the SAR. Being part of SAR (Search and Rescue) , we had to hang by the lifelines as we were lowered to the ocean or rescueing someone from a high cliff who fell rock climbing. In the service women have to jump out of planes right along side the men.
At the time I served, unlike the previous poster who said they changed up PT a bit,they did not do this for us back then. We had to do the same number of pushups (and not the women's style) , same number of mountain climbers, same amount of running and marching as the men. We all trained on the same grinder.
In civilian life--I have never been denied anything because of being a woman.
Now, for the OTHER minorites--we have come a long way with more distance to travel.
However, that being said--these same minorities must stop using this as an excuse to get away with being lazy, trying to get out of punishment for crimes commited, etc.
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| Pardon Me For Saying This... | Oct 25th. at 9:35:20 am EDT
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Moonlight Wolf (Bradford, England) - Email Me
...but women are not exactly a minority by number considering they make up about half the human race.
So why is this author addressing women's rights if the headline is about minorities. I would have expected an article like this to focus more on race and religion rather than gender.
For race, the colour of the person's skin should be irrelevant when considering crime, jobs and higher education.
However I know that this quite a tricky area for the simple reason is that there is a lot more to this issue than meets the eye. It's not just a case of a few bills through the House.
This article looks very much at the hows but I think the real questions are the ones that start with why.
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| Partially Agree... | Oct 25th. at 6:34:27 am EDT
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Lady Aramis (Glendale, Arizona) - Email Me
As a former member of the Army, I can say that the APFT is divided because of the PHYSICAL differences between a man and a woman. We are built differently, so it would be unfair to grade us the same. Yes, men have to do more push-ups and run faster, but WOMEN have to do more sit-ups. In this case the difference is designed to help instill equality. It does not mean that women are inferior soldiers, just built differently.
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| No Title | Oct 25th. at 5:30:34 am EDT
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nasionnaich (Stanchfield, Minnesota) - Email Me
No one group of people deserves "special treatment" over any other group (s) . What has ALWAYS been asked for - sometimes demanded - and should ALWAYS be given, is EQUAL treatment.
If John, a "black man", robs a store - he should be treated the same as Bill - who happens to be "white", who also robbed a store. Treated the same, that is, so long as they BOTH used the same methods and the same language in the act of committing the same type of crime. Unfortunately, John, being the "black man", is more likely to receive the stiffer prison/jail sentence.....
If the Law states that so long as a person is able to meet the requirements, they are fully eligible for what they are applying for. A land-lord does NOT have the right to deny an applicant because they are of a different skin color/ethnicity - nor does an employer have the right to deny employment for such a "reason". If the applicant is fully qualified, they must be given the same consideration as all other fully-qualified applicants.
Yet, far too many fully-qualified applicants are stilled denied because they are the "wrong" kind of person..... And it really doesn't mater whether the person is a man or a woman, male or female - if they are fully qualified to do the job/pay the rent, their "sex" has nothing to do with it.
Which brings me to the "question" of women in the military... So a woman "makes sacrifices", regarding child-bearing, to become strong enough to do specific things, so what? A lot of men do it as well, so what is the real difference between a man using steroids and a woman using steroids? If the woman can out-run, out-shoot and out-everything-else a man - I want her to be allowed to be in combat.
As it is now, a woman in a combat position is more rare than a talking fish.
----nasionnaich
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| And Personaly | Oct 25th. at 1:06:31 am EDT
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Orion 6Xray (Park City, Kentucky) - Email Me - Web
There are no excuses for inequality in society for race, creed, or sexual orientation. Gender on the other hand is a totally different animal.
The difference in body build, not intelligence (because I would bet women have more smarts then men do) , has everything to do with it. Just as men are not built to bare children, women are not built for long, enduring physical labor. Those women who are capable of these tasks have given up something for it.
Time spent meeting physical standards of men and sacrificing the body and personal life are much higher then a man in the same environment. This can be seen even with the average woman, how much she sacrifices her body and time trying to please the other or same gender.
In some sever cases the ability to procreate has been lost or altered, because of training and some of the side effects it has, including the side effects of some of the performance enhancing drugs.
That is the only separation between the genders, natural physical ability. And of course there are exceptions in both cases, but the average and thus the majority are set very clear.
Find More info -- HERE
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| What!!!! | Oct 25th. at 12:44:56 am EDT
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Orion 6Xray (Park City, Kentucky) - Email Me - Web
A hot social issue and no troll? Well I'll be.
The military forces a gender separation! And you will never see a woman fight to bring it down. That separation is in the physical fitness test. The Army PFT has two distinct categories one for males one for females. The males are required to produce as much as 30% more on the different categories, push ups, sit ups, and a 2-mile run, than women are. And to this date I have never heard a single woman raise a voice in protest.
So I guess equality only counts when it is good of the individual receiving it. To hell with the hardships the so called "equality" would bring. May be if women would own up and fight to be allowed to perform as good as the men, in all aspects, and then may be society will level the playing field.
Find More info -- HERE
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| *sigh* Apologies And Insight | Oct 24th. at 10:36:49 pm EDT
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Eir's Initiate (Fargo, North Dakota) - Email Me - Web
I knew when I read the headline exactly what this article was going to say. And I apologize for it.
NDSU is in Fargo, ND, my hometown. And I can safely say that it is a pretty damn white (and overwhelmingly Protestant) city. In fact, in most of ND, it is hard to find "minorities" of any kind. It's just really freaking homogenous.
Unfortunately, the opinion of this author is likely shared by many people in the state.
I, however, am not one of them. Equality is all about that, bringing the rights of everyone else up to the standards of white, Protestant, hetero men. Unfortunately for men, leveling the playing field sometimes means that they will have to give up some of the "rights" they currently hold.
Let's look at, for instance, "Women's" Studies. It is entirely correct that, essentially, all of history covering every topic has been "Men's Studies." In order to rectify and equalize this, women should be given equal mention in history classes and other topics. Of course, I, as a woman, realize that oppression has prevented women's involvement in many of the great, intellectual discoveries throughout time. However, that doesn't mean that we have no history.
Or let's look at childbirth and childraising. Women often are awarded children in custody battles because they bore the bulk of responsibility for the children: pregancy, birth, feeding, etc. Also, men are not required by society to take care of children they create, except perhaps monetarily (though even in this instance, men are often delinquent with few consequences) . Without abortion and birth control, however, women would be forced to risk their lives to have children they may not want or be able to care for.
What man would say to his accidentally pregnant girlfriend (or one-night stand) , "Sure honey! You have the baby and I'll take care of it and we'll go our separate ways, no strings attached. I just need child support." No way.
What we all have to understand in this equation of equality is that sometimes you can and even need to have different mathematical values to come up with the same answer. (men - 2+2=4; women - 1+3=4; etc.)
Wow, and I hate math. Ironic.
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| Beware The Slippery Slope! | Oct 24th. at 8:16:49 pm EDT
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Aidan Odinson (Collingdale, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
Equality is one thing. The things done in its name are often something else altogether.
I recall in the Air Force, the "Official Picture" required in officer records - and a factor in promotion boards. I also recall the rumors of how those pictures insured that various quotas were met. More than one high-ranking officer of a minority group could not shake the rumors of "he colored his way to the top", or of female "tokens."
There are the deserving. And unfortunately, such situations taint the legitimate success of anyone who gets ahead who is not male, white and Protestant.
And there's the slippery slope.
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| The Bill Of Rights. | Oct 24th. at 3:55:11 pm EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
I agree to different bathroom areas, (if possible) and different rooms for Gym exercises. The sexes do differ, and while males might complain, I feel they deserve a place where they can dress and undress in private, away from prying eyes, ditto for females and it isn't just a gender thing.
And where it is said that a woman can't be forced to be a mother, that's not entirely true. By laws, disposing of abortion and some holding back on contraceptives, it is in effect trying to force a woman to be a mother against her will.
Women are not asking to be put on a useless pedestal, we are asking for equality under the law. While it is true we do have some needs that are different, because of our gender, the fact that we do has often been held against us and used as an excuse to belittle us or to deny us.And it's not just women.
Every gender and race has a right to be treated equally for the worth of their skills, they deserve equal protection under the law, and an equal opportunity to better themselves. They deserve a right to intelligently speak their minds and to be heard. They deserve to have their needs met within reason and to live and worship however they wish. They deserve what the Constitution promised.
That is the bottom line.
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| Really Need To Get The Facts Straight. | Oct 24th. at 2:35:38 pm EDT
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Llunmere (Germantown Hills, Illinois) - Email Me
Being a father is more than just paying child support. No one can force a man to be there emotionally or even be physically present in his own child's life.
Being legally found to be an unfit parent leads to your parental rights being mostly taken away from you, which includes custody.
A teenage boy has a choice not to be a real father. He doesn't have to be present. Only teenagers with little to no financial support from their own parents would be forced to get full-time jobs. Even so, it is still possible to go to school and go to work. It is still even possible for both teenage parents to get their GEDs and work fulltime until they are both ready to go to college (albeit it may only be a public college, but there's not much wrong with that) .
If my stepsister could finish three years of high school (since she got pregnant her freshman year) , and work, and still go to college without much support from the father, I'm sure it would be substantially less difficult for two parents to stick it out together.
The benefits are there for a reason. Giving additional benefits to mothers encourages both a unified parental relationship as well as a single parent relationship.
While it is true that there is a substantial amount of male rape or sexual assault victims, the amount of female victims of these are incredibly higher. Sexist as it may seem to have a secluded women's area, is it not possible that gyms are trying to make their female clients more comfortable by not having to deal with strange guys approaching them when they may feel otherwise uncomfortable?
And the only reason feminists might cry foul on most gyms having gender-segregated areas would be the potential for unfair treatment by the gym staffs. If anyone has a problem with it, he/she can write to the corporate office of the local gym.
The Jena 6 incident is so controversial because at least one of the students accused was not present at the scene of the crime. Also, the racial tension leading up to the assault of the white teen was severe and went for too long without being dealt with.
Affirmative Action is flawed, yes. However, it is the only means the government has to make certain that such establishments do not give qualified individuals the boot simply because of the factor of minority.
What other method that would work better? How would it be determined that an establishment does not have discriminatory requirements? As flawed as it is, it does give minorities the chances that the majority have. This ensures that society as a whole does not in the long term look at a minority with the stereotype of misfortune.
Just because there are so many of the majority does not mean that they should recieve special treatment. These measures are to ensure that minorities have the chance to succeed alongside the majority. It isn't like the majority is persecuted or at any specific disadvantage. These measures basically say that the majority is at an advantage compared to the minority and in order to ensure the minority has a chance of success, we're giving them incentives.
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| Procrustes Or "equal Protections Of Law"? | Oct 24th. at 12:54:34 pm EDT
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
Procrustes had a rather effective idea for one of the issues this author dances around poorly, achieving "equality". His "bed" could stretch or squeeze people so as to all be the same size and shape, aka "equal".
"Equal protections of law", the Constitutional obligation of US legal systems, is far messier. In large part, it protects not "being equal", but rights to define a level playing field while being different.
Those differences include many chosen and immutable traits defining who we are as humans, in a rather problematic system since it's nearly impossible to find rational, non-subjective criteria to evaluate compliance with legal theory in practice, which don't make flawed assumptions. In theory, competency is not subject to equal protections law, but rather is recognized as a legitimate grounds to discriminate between the broom pusher and the neurosurgeon. In practice, systems which pretend an IQ 85 median black demographic will have equivalent social performance outcomes as other demographics with 100+ median IQ's are fundamentally unrealistic, like the Native American example in this story. There are also histories over the last century of discrimination against many white, European ethnicities, now in sum treated as non-minorities and discriminated against by systems purporting to counter discrimination. Some Supreme Court opinions have suggested that equal "opportunity" laws (not equal outcomes?) based on race or similar criteria should expire, as they are a defective "best effort" attempt to remedy past oppression, by and against people whose generation is now largely dead, and such that those attempted mitigations of past abuse are becoming instead causes of it.
Why do we have the 15th or 19th Amendments?
The 15th did little but threaten reticent states which refused to honor the 13th and 14th. The 19th would also seem useless, were females generally viewed as "persons" within the language of the 14th. The Reconstruction era civil rights laws found in 42 USC 1980's are applied in enforcement of the 19th Am, even though based on the 14th from the previous century. That may also illustrate how "practical remedies" to implement law in how society functions may be more important than the more generic legal theory.
If someone could develop a civil rights related formula to equate apples and oranges rationally, the view that equal protections of civil rights might be achieved via some concept of "equality" could work. Since that's impossible, we're left with finding far trickier ways to protect basic equity under law and rights to be different in ways that cannot be readily equated. That leads to a fundamental premise of this article being unrealistic, but also present. Minorities deserve zero "special rights", whether black, pagan, gay, or otherwise. The challenge is in how to identify when "equal protections of law" over protected criteria are present or not, and how to enforce related rights if not. In an ideal world, that would be done without singling out specific groups for what sometimes becomes special status, since that legal method is the opposite of its own theoretical legal goal.
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| Many Countries Want Immigrants. | Oct 24th. at 10:07:09 am EDT
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Zianna Elanesse (Lusby, Maryland) - Email Me - Web
There are several countries actively seeking immigrants to increase their economic growth, and counter decreased birth rates in their country. Canada, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain to name a few. There was an article in 2000 about an Italian village, Badolato in the southern mountains of Italy that is begging for new blood as the town is dying. When the town got 300-400 Kurdish refugees they were bending over backward to help them get settled into their town.
I am opposed to ILLEGAL immigration, but support having a better system for welcoming people legally into our country. The current system does not work and needs to be fixed so that individuals and families can come to America legally and be productive members of society and not exploited by big business or exploit or system. Most of the immigrants that I know have a very strong work ethic and even those who are 'unskilled' provide much needed and valuable services. That being said, I do not want to support people who come into the country illegally, get paid cash, don't pay taxes and then get free medical care when I pay a fortune in taxes and medical insurance premiums.
Blessed Be,
Zianna
Find More info -- HERE
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| Some Of His Points Don't Hold Up | Oct 24th. at 9:50:42 am EDT
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Serena Moonsilver (Monroe, Michigan) - Email Me
1. Many women studies department are changing their names to gender studies because this is a more accurate description of what they do. They look at gender differences, their causes, and how they affect society. And it's not like these are special "women only" classes. In fact, its sad that there aren't more men taking these classes
2. Ladies nights at bars aren't about giving women special treatment. As I understand, bars have ladies nights in hoping to attract more female customers in order to attract more male customers. So it's more of a "Hey, we've got a bunch of drunk (ie easy) women here". So, Ladies Nights are sexist, but not in the way the author replied.
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