Affirmative Action Essay: Quotas for White Players in the NBA? :: Persuasive Essay, Argumentative

Is Affirmative Action Analogous to Setting Quotas for White Players in the NBA? The NBA analogy doesnt even obligate because that is not how favourable action even works. All affirmative action recipients must be qualified for their jobs. Besides, the fact that scorchs overcome their social disadvantages to dominate in the NBA is no justification for keeping them disadvantaged. The argument that its wrong to give whites an even greater advantage to make up for their lack of merit is irrelevant. If blacks got an equal low gear in life, they might even dominate the NBA more than they do now. The fact that they dont is a further injustice to their merit. This is a prize piece of rhetoric among anti-affirmative critics. Teams in the National Basketball Association select their players based on merit. For some reason, blacks have come to represent the vast majority of players in the NBA, even though they form only 12 percent of the U.S. population. If we were to impose racial quotas on the NBA to make the teams resemble a cross-section of society, we would be throwing more talented black players off the teams and replacing them with less talented white players. Obviously, that would be an injustice. However, this example is a parody of affirmative action, and is so wrong as to be irrelevant. If affirmative action were truly applied to the NBA, then a study would be done to determine the percentage of qualified players from each race. Although 75 percent of the priapic population is white, and 12 percent black, the study would probably find that 90 percent of the qualified players are black, and only 10 percent white. It would then even off an affirmative action goal of 90 percent black and 10 percent white players, and ask the team-owners to conduct a good-faith effort to meet these goals. Penalties would be incurred only if a racist team insisted on 100 percent black players, and a blatant case of discrimination could be proven. We could quit here, entire ly it is also worthwhile to address the point that critics of affirmative action thought they were making with this example. And that is that its wrong to deny top jobs to the most qualified in the physical body of racial fairness. However, the NBA example fails to make even this point. To see why, imagine that you have been asked to preside as a judge at a track-and-field event.