National Center For Public Policy Research: The Big Picture With Thom Hartmann- Affirmative Action Debate: Horace Cooper vs Hilary Shelton

Source:National Center For Public Policy Research- The Big Picture With Thom Hartmann, courtesy of President Vladimir Putin's Russia Today.

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RT operates as a multilingual service with conventional channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America (since 2010),[7] RT UK (since 2014) and other regional channels also offer some locally based content." 

From Wikipedia 

"Horace Cooper of Project 21 debates the merits of affirmative action policies in general and recent Arizona policy in particular with the NAACP's Hilary Shelton with host Thom Hartmann.  This segment comes from the 11/15/10 edition of "The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann."

The Project 21 black leadership network is a program of The National Center for Public Policy Research." 

From the National Center For Public Policy Research

If you believe in the notion that all people are to be treated equally under law under under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, then great, I'm with you. We should never as a society treat people by anything other than their character and their merit when it comes to employment, education, housing, etc. 

If you believe in Dr Martin Luther King's I have a Dream speech, that he has a dream that one day his children would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin and you take that to mean that all children should be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin, then great, I'm with you on that as well and thats exactly what we should be doing. 

We shouldn't be discriminating people in the private or public sectors based on their race, ethnicity, color, gender, religion, sexuality, or any other non-relevant factors. And judge people by what they bring to the table, what are their skills and abilities and punish people when they commit bigoted actions against innocent people at the benefit of the people who were bigoted and society at the expense of the bigots. Bigotry has no place in a free society. 

And we also need an education system that allows for all people in our society to get the skills that they need to be successful in life. So once they are out of school and in the employment market, they have the skills that they need to get a good job. And not be dependent on public assistance to survive. 

I've just laid out my alternative to Affirmative Action which is what I see as public sponsored discrimination, because one of government's role is to protect society equally. But with Affirmative Action you have government benefiting groups of people benefiting at the expense of another group. 

What Affirmative Action is saying that European-Americans (especially Anglo-Saxon-Protestant men)  have had it real good for a long time now, now its time for you step back even though you might have the skills to continue to be successful. And you might have better skills than the people that we are going to let benefit from society at your expense. 

What we should be doing instead is having an economic and education system that empowers everyone in society to benefit from it based on what they put into it. A system that would empower everyone in society to get the skills that they need to be as successful as what they put into the economy. 

And then having strong anti-discrimination laws that are truly color-blind and racial blind, ethnic blind for the benefit of the victims of bigotry and society as a whole. So everyone is judged by their merit and nothing else, what they bring to the table that would benefit the employer or school or whatever that they are applying too. 

If we want to have truly color-blind society, then the only way we can get there is actually being color blind. As well as racial blind, ethnic blind, gender blind, etc. And just treat people by as Dr. King called the: "Content of their character not, by the color of their skin." And you don't get there through government discrimination. You get there by practicing what you preach.