A glance at the November issue of Harper’s: Affirmative action does more harm than good
Affirmative action is stifling black individualism in America, writes Shelby Steele, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Black Americans are expected to embrace the idea that racial preferences are necessary to level the “playing field” and make their white counterparts atone for past racial injustices, but preferences hinder, rather than help, black advancement, he writes. Affirmative action undermines black self-esteem because it promotes the wrongheaded notion that black people need white intervention in order to succeed, he says. While American colleges fight to keep affirmative action alive because it gives them legitimacy and a way to show that they’re not racist, the policy only dehumanizes black people further by making institutions blind to black individuality, he writes.
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