Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action
This paper is to address some advantages and the impact of affirmative action programs for African Americans. This paper will attempt to discuss the issues and concerns some white Americans have with affirmative action. Some white Americans feel that veterans should get better treatment over African Americans. We have to understand the background and reasoning of affirmative action and its purposes. Affirmative action is a program that allows special provisions for individuals of minority (or special needs) groups in particular aspects such as; education opportunities, employment and healthcare (Sabbagh, 2011). All countries utilize the affirmative action but is it utilized more in the United States.
Currently the affirmative action can be seen as an innovation which focuses on the dramatic change of an existing socio-economic and political arena within our society. It is very important to mention the creation of society in the 20th century displaying the affirmative action as a contradictive concept. It is also important to make note that the introduction of the affirmative action in the US was necessary because the existing inequality within American society grew more and more serious and could not remain unresolved. Amazing the first few years of the implementation of the affirmative action policy was supported by all levels of the government.
At the same time, the excitement of the first few years of creation of affirmative action started to become weak and criticism grew to the extent that there appeared a great opposition to the affirmative action. In the beginning the affirmative action received a lot of criticism but the current decisions and policy of the US government in 1990s displayed the fact that the affirmative action is needed and should not be removed (Holmes 1996).
The United States’ affirmative action plan was one of many programs that were implemented in the 1960s to address concerns discuss during the civil rights movements and the non-discriminatory policy changes at that time (Sabbagh, 2011). The goals of these new affirmative action policies was to prevent discrimination to minority groups in the areas of education, employment or any other important area of society. The practice of affirmative action has created some conflict within various minority and special groups.
Since the start of the affirmative action, the government and judiciadial powers realized the importance of affirmative action for equality of American citizens representing different minority groups. By 1995 President Clinton created a new policy called “Mend it, don’t end it” as this relate to the affirmative action (Holmes 85). This policy was geared to modifying and improving the affirmative action in a way that reverse discrimination would be impossible.
This shift was quite alarming to African American community since it minimizes the positive labors of the affirmative action program, which gave African Americans countless opportunities, but, at the same time, this policy exposed the fact that the government had an unease feeling about racial discrimination. The affirmative action program also exists for veterans, and is being observed by various agencies to ensure the success of these programs and report the results to the Federal Government. The Affirmative Action policy was reformed in 2009. The DVAAP program which also falls under the affirmative action policy has shown astonishing success in finding employment for disabled veterans, by partnering their skills with relevant job and finding scholarships and education assistance. This program is also under fire as this is seen by some as discrimination or favoritism.
One critical factor to consider when determining the success of a particular area of the affirmative action is the advantage offered to various minority and special needs groups (Sabbagh, 2011). There is an inter-related aspect of racism, discrimination, and affirmative action, in terms of veterans, other protected classes, and minorities. Sometimes the success of one affirmative action program may come at the expense of another. The Affirmative Action services for disabled may conflict with the program for minority ethnic groups. The competition between the two areas of Affirmative Action can be controversy at times and create problems. These two areas of Affirmative Action were created with two different sets of people in mind and should not be compared to each other.