Free Beyond Affirmative Action Essay Example

This chapter explores the current issues affecting the social, political and economic landscape of the United States. It begins by looking at how some of these issues influenced the presidential campaigns of 1992 where Senator Bill Clinton ran against President Bush. The issues ventilated on cut across a wide range of societal concerns that have come to dominate debate in the American society from the 1990s up to now. The book boldly highlights the various forms of discrimination that are rooted in the American society today. The author singles out racial discrimination as one of the leading challenges Americans currently have to live with.
Another issue that the book addresses is gender-based discrimination. Most importantly, however, the chapter delves into the question of affirmative action and how it can be used to tackle these challenges. The chapter makes reference to what other writers have said about the issues it seeks to handle in an attempt to give a balanced and credible opinion on the issues.
The chapter paints a grim picture of the racism situation in the United States in the 1990s. The author writes candidly against the horror that non-white Americans had to go through in their pursuit of economic freedom. Most affected by the form of discrimination discussed by the author were the immigrants. This group included people of Hispanic background who had moved into the United States mostly from the South American countries such as Mexico, which have seen thousands of their population moving to the United States in search of greener pastures. Also affected by racist discriminatory tendencies were the African Americans.
After explaining how these discriminations motivated the clamor for affirmative action, he deliberated on how effective affirmative action has been in solving the problems associated with racial discrimination and poverty. Here, he begins by stating that affirmative action was largely a failure. It did not work because the American society did not, from the onset, appreciate the value of diversity to their economy. As such, there was no goodwill from white Americans with respect to the policy of affirmative action. Affirmative action, he writes, did not succeed in entrenching attitude change in the society. This made its implementation very difficult. He writes that affirmative action would have succeeded if everyone was valued for what they did at work, rather than their skin color.
He concludes that a healthy coexistence among members of different races in the American society is necessary if racism was to be eradicated. It is only be appreciating the worth of one another that collective economic justice can be achieved in the American society