Chance for College

Is it fair to blame students for something that is not their fault, the education they have received? Across the world education is not as well developed as education is here in the United States. The colleges we have here are some of the most desirable to go to, however because of the lack of education in other countries, and here in America students cannot get in the colleges they want to go too. To help these minorities affirmative action, helps them by giving them extra points so that they have a chance to get in a college. Some colleges do not use affirmative action so the people that go to those colleges are mostly white or very rich people. Affirmative action is needed to even the playing field between minorities and the more fortunate. Without this minority children will feel even more isolated than they should.

Affirmative action is not racist because not only does it help minorities, but it also helps poor people and white people can be poor. Every nationality will have poor people, so then any person of any nationality could benefit from affirmative action. Racism is the discrimination of a race as a whole people. Seeing as white people can also benefit from affirmative action, is it racist? Some may also say that is sexist, however both men and women benefit from it. Sexism is the discrimination of a gender, but both genders male and female can both benefit from affirmative action. Affirmative action evens the playing field between minorities and the more fortunate.

White people have connections to colleges that minorities do not have. They can get extra points for having family members that have gone to that college before, or if they know the dean. If they can get extra points how come minorities cannot? More fortunate people can go too good schools were they are taught at a very high level. Here they get the edge over the minorities because the minorities go to very bad schools. Where extra curricular activities like sports are more important than core classes. In East St.

Louis this is widely seen “sports and music…for many children here the only avenue of success” (Kozol 3). If the school board has given up and is not helping the children learn then, how are they supposed to have a fair shot at being accepted to a college? The more fortunate have an edge not only on the school part, but also in the standardized tests like the SAT. These people have more money and so they can learn how to get good scores on the test. These scores allow many colleges to be very interested in you or not. While more fortunate people get these non-essential advantages, minorities are left to do everything by themselves and if they do not know something how can they learn? Education in other countries and in slum areas is not as grand or good as the education we are getting. I have lived out of state for three years in Malaysia, and while I was over there education was not as rigorous as it is here in America.

When we came back my sisters and I where behind in education. We worked very hard that year to get us back into the system. We also went to Kumon an outside learning center to get better. In slum areas like East St. Louis the education level given is not adequate enough “‘Well, it’s amazing,’ Solomon says. ‘I have done without so much so long that, it I were assigned to a suburban school, I’m not sure I’d recognize what they are doing.

We are utterly cut off'” (Kozol 3). These kids are left in the dust because of their disadvantage of not having enough money. The schools the children are forced to go to have very little teachers and more subs. This just increases the learning difference between the minorities and the rich. The supplies for the schools are bad like in St. Louis where textbooks and regular school supplies are little.

Is education supposed to be based on money or the children? It must be accepted however that some of the students who get in a college through affirmative action will be less qualified than someone else however, this does not mean they are less intelligent. They could be extremely intelligent people with great working habits. They could have come from a bad school that did not prepare them as well for college, but they could be extremely hard working. There are some that will drop out of college, but I doubt anyone one of these children would willing allow themselves to. If they drop out that would be hard-earned money wasted, and they will probably go and do very degrading jobs such as working at fast food restaurants.

I believe that even people that are lazy would try extremely hard to get out of a job like that. By staying in college they will have to work very hard to stick with the curve and to get into college they are still competing with a lot of people so they need to do good in school to stick out more. It also must be accepted that some minorities can be rich and so they get a double advantage over everyone else. This is true and I believe that this is not fair, but if we take away affirmative action because of them, then millions of other hard working students will not have a good enough chance to get in. People of different races usually have different views than others such as political views, economical views, religious views, social views, sport views, and educational views. Granted some will not share their perspective, but most will.

I find it hard to believe that if a white person is talking about Indian culture, and an Indian person is just sitting around and not educating them about what is correct and not. If you put a stanch Republican and a stanch Democrat in the same room and tell them to talk about the government, a heated argument will pursue. People also assume minorities are at a college because of affirmative action, however it should not matter if they are there or not it should only matter about how they work. If all we see is a charity case then we have failed as people. We are supposed to see people for what they are, not for what they are on the outside. Racism is still around in jokes, and in our heads we need to take it on head on or else it will still be here when our children walk around.

Affirmative action gives minorities and chance to become better educated. If we have more educated people in our world then, our world would be a much better place. We would have people making good decisions, more inventors to help us with future problems like gas shortages. We need to allow affirmative action to help others who are not as fortunate as us. We need to push for more schools to allow affirmative action so in turn we are more culturally aware. Affirmative action is needed, without it minorities stand no chance in our modern world to get descent jobs