Smith is a second-year undeclared student.
By Sophia Smith
I’ve always thought to myself: why is UCLA considered one
of the most prestigious public universities in the nation if our
students are so dumb?
These feelings were reaffirmed when I was walking back from
class and saw a group of people in front of Kerckhoff Hall rallying
for affirmative action. It was not the people who were rallying
that I thought incompetent, but the people walking up and down
Bruin Walk not caring, and the people holding signs so rudely going
against them.
Sure, I guess you have to have freedom of expression and you
have to listen to both sides of an issue to consider it a fair
debate, but really, how ignorant can you be?
The fact of the matter is we don’t live in happy land, we
don’t live in an ideal world where everyone is equal. I guess
it’s easy to think so. I mean, I’m a white student and
I grew up in the suburbs. Like anti-affirmative action proponents,
I too was once encapsulated in a bubble of fantasy. I thought to
myself: “Well, I worked hard in high school and studied hard
for the SATs, so why shouldn’t everyone else have to?
Admissions should be based on merit.” This is what I
intimately call my “white blindness,” or thinking
everyone starts off on equal ground, thinking everyone in the world
is identical.
If you asked an anti-affirmative action proponent for their
daily high school routine, you’d probably get this synopsis:
I came home from school everyday and worked on my homework, while
my mom and dad were out making their six-figure incomes to buy my
SAT prep materials.
I’m sure if you had to choose between studying or working
full time ““ not to buy SAT prep materials, but to feed your
family ““ you’d have a different point of view. Oh, but
this scenario doesn’t occur in the suburbs, so it must not be
true…
Anti-affirmative action proponents: you’re sure lucky you
were born into your social class.
God forbid you’d happen to be the son or daughter of
immigrants who came to this country through dangerous routes,
seeking a better life ““ does the word “Pilgrims”
ring a bell? God forbid that you have to live with three other
families in one house, afraid to go to the doctor because you are
undocumented, and have to work 40 hours a week so that your
suburban counterparts can enjoy the products of your cheap
labor.
I’m sure if you were born into this unfortunate scenario,
you’d still be advocating “merit” not affirmative
action. Oh, but this scenario doesn’t occur in the suburbs,
so it must not be true. After all, we all get the same
opportunities to get ahead, right?
Merit can be defined as: rewarding people with huge wallets, not
huge brains. And it takes huge brains to realize this.
The ultimate pillar of stupidity, the utmost manifestation of
idiocy, the climax of total, unrelenting buffoonery, however, is
the argument that affirmative action is reverse discrimination.
This argument that affirmative action is against white people
was a concoction of the Republican Party and lunatic conservatives.
They spoon-fed this idea to brainless California voters to end
affirmative action. Admitting that you believe affirmative action
is reverse discrimination is admitting that you’re a shallow,
unthinking human ready to have your opinions decided for you by a
corporate political party.
Why isn’t affirmative action reverse discrimination?
Because reverse discrimination assumes that both parties in
question have an equal ability to cause each other harm, and that
no party has an advantage over the other. This is similar to a
balance: if both sides weigh the same amount, giving one side more
mass would mean favoring it, or discriminating against the other
side.
But what if one side of the balance already has more, tipping
the balance in it’s favor? Would adding to the other side of
the balance to make things even be considered discrimination if the
balance was unequal in the first place?
Thus, if minorities start off with a financial disadvantage, why
would getting rid of that disadvantage be discrimination? People
may say “Well, in order to let them in, you’d have to
kick a white student out.” Well, the whole purpose of taking
this disadvantage into account is to analyze everyone on an equal
level (not the fantasy one, but the real one).
If white students are relatively weaker once the balance is
equal, it shouldn’t make a difference because when there is
balance everyone is admitted based on both academic and life
factors.
If you are white and don’t get admitted to a UC while a
minority student does, that just means that relatively speaking,
you’re a weaker candidate. It means you depended on that
balance to be uneven so that you could carry the false assumption
that you had “merit” admission. It means you need the
imbalance because if we look at everyone realistically in the
context of their own lives and then make conclusions about their
academic potential in a manner that’s fair, you realize
there’s more competition ““ you realize you’re
actually dumb.
So why not just fix public schools instead of affirmative
action? Well, why not do both? While public schools are being fixed
the UC can remedy the problem at a higher level until we get to the
point when affirmative action is no longer needed.
But we’re not at that point yet, because people walk past
rallies not caring about what’s said. But I guess
that’s fine. No problems exist ““ if there were
problems, I would have surely seen them back home in the
suburbs…
I’m so ashamed of being a Bruin.