Being Racist to Prevent Racism

Treat everyone the same. Don’t judge people on the way they look or where they came from.

Isn’t that what we have been taught our whole lives? So why are colleges using affirmative action to “level the playing field” for minorities? Martin Luther King Jr. preached repeatedly for the equality of races and the extinction of racism. Giving extra points to aid certain races so they can get into college is discriminatory and racist itself. I refute affirmative action because college acceptance should be based on achievements not background or race. Colleges that endorse affirmative action emphasize they are trying to prevent racism by using affirmative action but in actuality it is causing it.

Affirmative action does not solve the problem of disadvantaged kids getting into college and making a better future for themselves, it strictly gives points based on your ethnic background. “Minority applicants from a middle-or upper-class background” are given assistance before poor unprivileged whites; this fact, by itself, states affirmative action is completely reprehensible (Sacks 1). Not all minorities go through “extraordinary miseries of life”, and not all people that go through “extraordinary miseries of life” are minorities (Kozol 7). So why give points to minorities? It is unfair and unjust in every way. You should be accepted based on your test scores, grades, and extra curricular activities, not your race, background, social class, or skin color.

Some kids aren’t given equivalent opportunities other kids their age are offered. Many assert that there is “no exit for these children” (Kozol 8). If they anticipate that these kids have the intelligence needed to go to college than they should not undermine their abilities to earn a spot in college on their own. By not allowing the true achievements to determine the students acceptance, no one will ever really know “who belongs” (Sacks 2). The argument that insists on using affirmative action because it gives minorities an opportunity they never had is dishonorable.

Affirmative action compromises the true achievements of many hard-working individuals. Why force diversity upon college campuses around the U.S.? All it does is cause “superficial interaction” between different races (Sacks 1). I would like to reaffirm and disclose the fact that affirmative action should be removed, and acceptance should be based on how much effort you put in to your school work and other interests involving your future. How would you like to work extremely hard all through high school so that you can get in to the college of your choice and peruse your dreams, and then have them reject you because a minority got extra points? That is inequitable and disappointing.

So we need to stop this “strange cure that generates its own disease”, and destroy biased college acceptances caused by affirmative action (Sacks 2).