unequal playing field

Imagine with me that you are a senior in high school waiting on an acceptance letter from a college. Or that you are a hard-working employee hoping that you will receive the job promotion that is available. You feel that you are qualified for the position and deserve it for all the time and effort you put into preparing for it. The letter comes in the mail, alerting you that you were denied acceptance and to wish you luck in your future endeavors. Your boss calls you into his office to thank you for the commitment that you have towards his company, but the promotion went elsewhere. Naturally, you are crushed and disappointed and feel inadequate. In your mind, the position went to someone who is more qualified than you, and you can accept that.
What happens when the person who received that position was not more qualified than you? How would you feel if you were denied because of the color of you skin, or your gender? Thanks to affirmative action, you do not need to be qualified to receive a job or a spot in college; you can simply be a minority. Dan Froomkim from the Washington Post stated “affirmative action calls for minorities and women to be given special consideration in employment, education and contracting decisions.” The Department of Labor also includes those who are disabled or veterans. What is translates into is that a certain number of minorities and women are to be placed in post-secondary education programs or jobs before Caucasian males. Giving preferential treatment to others does not fix any problem. Affirmative action puts unqualified people in positions of leadership or higher education. It also makes it seem that their success was unearned and simply handed to them, and it creates even stronger racial and gender tensions.
The Department of Labor requires employers and colleges to set up goals for how many minorities must be represented in their establishments. Brogna Brunner tells the story of a white male who “had been rejected two years in a row by a medical school that had accepted less qualified minority applicants-the school had a separate admissions policy for minorities and reserved 16 out of 100 places for minority students.” The Supreme Court later banned “inflexible quota systems,” but this is just one example of an unfair advantage given to people. Why would we want to put unqualified people in an operating room just because they are a minority?
I do agree that discrimination should not hinder any man or woman from receiving a job. On the other hand, we should not be giving any person a position that they are not qualified for. The most equipped person, no matter what color their skin is, where their ethnic background lies, or what religion they practice, should be the one that receives the occupation or college acceptance. If an African American woman is most suited for a CEO position than the Caucasian male, then logic states that she should receive the job. Why do we need the government to tell us who we are allowed to hire?
When someone is handed $100 as a gift, do people ask if they are qualified to receive that money? No, they see it as a gift with no strings attached. If college spots and jobs are handed over as a gift, do people ask if they are qualified as well? No matter what success the person in those positions builds, it will not look like the success was earned. People will see that they did not put the same amount of blood, sweat, and tears into it as someone who had to fight for their job. I would not give full credit to any person that did not earn their job or the success that would follow it.
Liberals believe that these advantages are owed to the minorities and women because of the discrimination they experienced. Women were denied the right to vote until the 1900s and African Americans only started seeing fair treatments in the 1960s. Many of the other minorities, including Native Americans and Asians, suffered wrongs of their own (U.S. Department of Labor). The Department of Labor used these arguments to support their bills. When the idea of affirmative action came about in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the idea to affirm equal rights to African Americans almost seemed necessary (U.S. Department of Labor). Nowadays, discrimination to the degree found in the 1960s is not prevalent in the American work-force or education system. Are these stipulations still necessary in 21st century America?
In the process of making sure that we give minorities and women what they rightfully deserve, we have limited the growth of the white man. On top of stifling the white man, we have stifled the growth of American intellect by basing advancement on skin color instead of competency. In our haste to move people right to the top, we have over-looked the other portion of our population. Some people would say that the white man already had their time to shine; now they must feel the consequences of their actions. If we are focusing of equality, how can we justify taking away the liberty of one to blindly put others first?
At the time, affirmative action was a wise choice that guaranteed advancement to those who have suffered at the hand of the white man. Nowadays, we have women running for president, African Americans holding offices, Asians running corporations, and countless other minorities represented in schools and companies. If we have all these positives, why must we place people in advanced areas because of their color or gender? They have proven time and again that they can earn their own way. Those who are truly serious about furthering their lives do not need free government handouts. The white men who work hard and deserve higher placements because of their qualifications are shut down so they can work under someone who is inferior to them. If all men are created equal, why do some deserve special treatment?