Letter to Mr G

Dear Mr G,
Upon reading your last post, it has become clear to me that you are an imbecile. Affirmative action hiring practices are the reason why so many minority citizens have jobs today. The laws were passed because businessmen, when left to their own devices, failed to hire people outside of the white elite for upper management positions and the sorts. The ones in power are the ones that want to keep it a club of like men and use their influence to maintain the status quo. It is only logical that a government that protects the freedoms and liberties of all to stand up to the injustices that are oppressing a population that is severely disadvantaged. While I disagree that your friend should receive compensation for his ancestry, I cannot help but feel for his Mexican mother who, as a first generation immigrant, surely struggled to raise her child in as competitive a nature as the suburban white educational system. Her trials in life were no doubt a challenge and the fact that the government recognizes her diligent effort through a reward program to offset the cost of technical school seems the most logical answer. Understanding that our economy is based on the belief of a free market, we as citizens need to recognize the folly of the elite to only look after their own interest. It is the national governments job to uphold the equal protection of the Constitution, even if that means using mild regulations to insure that all citizens get a fair shake in the free market. Also, it is imperative that elitists like yourself recognize that not everything is peachy keen for minority citizens and it is up to our representative democracy to speak and legislate for those who cannot for themselves. Until the upper crust of our nation realizes the importance of equality, it is our government's duty to uphold fairness in the workplace and other realms of society where the minority citizen continues to be shut out.

Sincerely,

Carlos

blindness

One thing, which is imperative we discuss immediately, is the idea of blindness. Our society today has evolved to possess perfect vision. We are able to visualize and make decisions based on the information our eyes process because everything is so clearly visible that it is difficult to convince yourself that what you are seeing is in fact less of a reality then it appears. This clarity must be addressed because the lack of blindness in our nation has lead to some very negative consequences. One area that our blindness would be better suited would be in the hiring practices of workplaces since the introduction of affirmative action. In modern America it is taught to our children that everyone should be treated equal regardless of ethnicity, cultural background, or religious beliefs. It can be argued that this is the very cornerstone with which our nation's foundation was laid. I wonder, then, how a business or publicly traded company can use a persons ethnicity as grounds for hiring them over another person. Quota based hiring practices are using visual and cultural stereotypes about an applicant to make judgments about their work ethic and merit. Applicants must check a box indicating their ethnicity, even though there is a fancy, law-jargon disclaimer explaining that the reason for such knowledge will not be used in the business's decision to offer a position to that person. Sure, and Elena Kagan is a strict constructionist. Society uses affirmative action hiring practices to boost the demographic breakdown of minority citizens in the workplace, which seems great, but does so in such a way that the ideals of merit based achievement are squashed by political correctness and a self-righteous sense of fairness. I spoke with a dear friend about his recent endeavors and learned of his application to a technical college near his home. He was eager to explain to me that the $900/semester he was saving on his tuition had nothing to do with his resume, interview, or test scores. He was paying less for college then similar applicants because his mother was born in Mexico, rendering him a person of Mexican decent, further decreasing his tuition by $900 beyond that of any white student at his technical college who had the same ACT score and GPA. His Mexican ancestry is being rewarded, not his competency. If the future generation has any chance of learning from the mistakes of their fathers, they will learn that affirmative action based hiring practices only perpetuate the segregation of individuals beyond their merit or scholastic achievement. By choosing not who is best for the job, but who is the best minority for the job, we will continue to separate our citizens into senseless groups that have no place in modern society. We as Americans need to start seeing each other as fellow Americans if anything is to change for the better. Blindness, though forgotten, is in desperate need of a revival.

Faster

Timing is everything. If you're not early, then you're late. The lives of us all are on fast forward as the world chugs along and leaves everybody in the dust. Much like the world, college is a whirlwind and it goes by much too fast, which is why the past three days have been so perfect. Nothing moves when there is thick layers of ice impeding one's movement. The frantic hustle up and down the hill, to and from the library, back and forth to the fitness center, it all came to a screeching halt for me when I woke to a barrage of text messages that announced classes were canceled. So what does the great Mr. G do with so much time on his hands? I read ahead in a couple of books, wrote in a reading journal about what I had just read, and finally spent some quality time cleaning up my room. Time, it seemed, was altered in such a way that the calendar day had changed but the tasks for the day remained the same. One still had to do what they were scheduled to do anyways. Similar thoughts were felt throughout the country as businesses and schools closed their doors in an effort to keep the community safe, understanding that people would carry on as planned if they didn't. Nine died in Chicago from inadequate preparation for the storm. Two are allegedly in the hospital from injuries sustained on the icy campus walkways. Nature chimed in to tell the populous that things were moving a bit too quickly for her liking. Nothing slows the transit of humans like an inch thick layer of frozen treachery. Humans today think they are invincible and will not hesitate to keep with the flow of life regardless of the natural impediments that arise from time to time. This ice storm was of epic proportions and many failed to respect the dangers of it, except the school, of course. I applaud the efforts of the school to keep the student and faculty community safe from unnecessary injury and to provide the people who seem to be moving the fastest a chance to slow the pace of the week. By breaking the cycle of the five day week, the school gave its students the best chance they had at staying healthy, a goal that cannot ever be overlooked because without a healthy student body, one cannot have a healthy school. Thank you, nature, for allowing the school to make such a wonderful decision that no doubt enriched the lives of so many.