March 28, 2005
Affirmative Action: A New Application
With October comes the World Series and with the World Series comes the inevitable debate about large market teams versus small market teams, teams that try to buy championships and those that cannot afford to buy championships. Unfortunately that is the reality of professional sports, but I have found a way to make it more equal: apply affirmative action to baseball.
I cannot believe that someone has not thought of this before. We have affirmative action in employment, college admissions, and in the awarding of government contracts. Why do we not have affirmative action in Major League Baseball? This is the perfect solution. Not only will it benefit the teams themselves, but it will also benefit all of those baseball fans whose team has not won a World Series in many years, and those who have never got to a World Series, let alone win one.
Here is how it will work. We will legislate that both a large market team and a small market team have to make it to the World Series each year. Not only will they have to be classified by large and small markets, but also by which region of the country they come from. For example we can have the New York Yankees, a large market team that comes from the East, and the San Diego Padres, a small market team that comes from the West. Therefore we will be able to make it equal not based on just size of market, but also by region of the country. Of course we will have to alternate years between regions of the country, as well as alternate the size of market criteria between the American League and the National League. This will take care of the size and location inequities inherent in a competitive sport.
The other thing that we need to worry about is making sure that inferior teams, i.e. those who have no chance of actually making it to the World Series, still have a chance to win the World Series. This can be accomplished by setting up a complete schedule as to who goes to the World Series and wins it each year. This way we can make sure that those who work harder to get to the World Series do not have an unfair advantage over those who choose to depend on this new system to get them to the World Series, rather than hard work.
This new system will allow even Chicago Cubs fans to celebrate a World Series victory after some 80 years. Who knows, if this system is successful, maybe next year we can expand it to the National Football League.
Considering that nearly all Major League Players are Republicans and taking Steriods, I doubt the Pharmaceutical Industry will let you do it.
Posted by: Aldous at March 28, 2005 11:22 AMI think the system will work, after all look how successful it works in the real world.
We have colleges lowering stanards to admitt students that couldn’t otherwise get in,Bosses that aren’t qualified for their possitions.
And contractors that don’t have an idea what they’re doing.
But then affirnitive acction is the most successful program that has come down the pike.
Great another ridiculous sports analogy. Dumb idea being that you already have an affirmative action type element in baseball as in all sports. The worst you do the higher draft picks you get. Try again fellows
Posted by: Des at March 28, 2005 02:07 PMI agree: major sports teams need affirmative action straight away. Just look at your average baseball team: no women, no disabled people, no seniors! What are they thinking? They’re back in the 19th century. Football and basketball are just as bad unless you count the pituitary freaks that play those sports as some sort of a subgroup that has suffered discrimination at some historical point.
Posted by: Monica at March 28, 2005 02:09 PMI cannot tell whether or not this thread is actually serious. Monica, I cannot see one could possibly say
Just look at your average baseball team: no women, no disabled people, no seniors! What are they thinking?and be serious about that. I’ll concede about the comment about women because I’m sure that you could find at least one woman who could play at the competitive level. However, the others make no sense. Teams sign the best players. I’m sorry, but I highly doubt that a disabled person or a senior could hit 40+ homeruns in a season or throw 100 pitches in a game, or even one pitch at 90 mph. Is that simply an attempt to make sports politically correct, or do you actually think that a disabled person or a senior could play at that level? I can see where you’re coming from, with major league sports players being the ultimate cream of the crop, but you can’t allow affirmative action to get players into the leagues. Sports are businesses.
I can’t even see why I got caught up in this thread. You cannot relate a person’s attempt to make a living with a 30-team sports league’s playoff scenario. With the horrible public education systems that our country has, it is nearly impossible for someone to rise up out of a poverty-stricken urban environment to go to college and make a successful career. Sports leagues, especially football, have created so much parity with free agent signing and trading that you just might almost believe that there is affirmative action involved in creating their playoff scenarios. I’m sorry, but a poor minority from an urban environment who cannot learn to his/her potential because of the school system that they attend does not have the ability to sign the best teachers for the next season or trade their books for the most expensive. These people truly need affirmative action to get into college, not because of their race but because of their economic situation.
Posted by: Ryan at March 28, 2005 03:26 PMRyan- Can’t you tell I’m only pulling your leg? When the whole world is turned upside down sometimes it’s okay to just laugh. It’s part of good sportsmanship. -Monica
Posted by: Monica at March 28, 2005 04:34 PMMonica-
I must agree with you, that we need disabled persons, seniors, and women in professional sports. Who cares if we have to give them special equipment, such as self-swinging bats and homing baseballs. America has the technology to ruin our sports, so why not use it?
Oh well. We should probably tone down our sarcasm, though. Who knows if another brainless politician takes this thread seriously.
::shudder::
A white woman with a bachelor’s degree typically earned nearly $37,800 in 2003, compared with nearly $43,700 for a college-educated Asian woman and $41,100 for a college-educated black woman, according to data being released today by the Census Bureau. Hispanic women took home slightly less at $37,600 a year.
Can we stop the affirmative action now?
Posted by: Jack at March 28, 2005 05:28 PMWhat you are proposing would never work. Why? It does not keep up with the first commandment of Affirmative Action: “Thou shall help minorities.”
Here is my proposal:
If you are black (Oops! Excuse me, I meant to say African-American) you get 10 extra points added to your batting average. If you are Hispanic and just swam the Rio Grand, you get 20 extra points added to your average. If you are gay you get 30 extra points added to your average. If you are all three you get an added bonus of 25 points.
What? Tom Delay may say. Are those points going to be free? It will be like just another welfare system. Totally unacceptable to the GOP.
The points will not be free. The rules of baseball will have to be changed to “help” the minorities. First, those minorities will have to give up their steroids in order to get their extra points, but when they come to the plate to bat the rules will change to justify the free extra points added to their batting average.
For a black (notice I am not using the dreaded N word. I no want no problem with the NAACP) they would get two pitches thrown to them very softly and under the arm, that come to the plate at 50 miles per hour.
For the Hispanics the same kind of pitch, but at 40 miles per hour.
For the “delicate ones” the pitch will be at 20 miles per hour.
With these rules even Ellen Degeneres and Barney Frank will be able to go to the World Series and compete for MVP honors.
I rest my case.
Posted by: Crocodile at March 28, 2005 05:31 PMyou people are racists. that’s disappointing.
Posted by: Rito Sandoval at March 28, 2005 06:38 PMJack,
I saw a headline about that somewhere today. I’ve forgotten where though. Do you mind posting a link?
Posted by: Nikita at March 28, 2005 06:47 PMJack,
Why not look at the complete average of incomes of each race? A look at the incomes of the college-educated defeats the purpose of the analysis, by which you are trying to disprove the need for the program. Affirmative action is not meant to increase the wages of anyone once they graduate. It is to help them get into college. If you look at the overall average of income for blacks vs. whites, the difference would be much larger than when you look strictly at the college-educated incomes.
Posted by: Ryan at March 28, 2005 07:02 PMSeeing as how professional athletes are entertainers, which are notoriously and overwhelmingly Democrat, I find that hard to believe!
Posted by: Robert A. Dugger at March 28, 2005 07:58 PM“Considering that nearly all Major League Players are Republicans “
Sorry….I cut & pasted wrong…..stupid is as stupid does, I guess..referring to above.
Nikita
The figures come from a census report. I saw that article in the Wall Street Journal today, but I expect it is available in many sources.
Ryan
You are right. As will all statistics, it depends on which you choose. I chose the ones that would be the most interesting or controversial on purpose. But I think it illustrates the pitfalls of statistics on group results. It also indicates that discrimination is not a determining characteristic. If it was, such a statistic would be impossible.
You are right also if I compare the whole groups, I would find greater disparity. That again shows the weakness of statistical analysis when dealing with groups of different characteristics. The only comparisons that are valid are comparison of similar conditions. You need to compare groups that have similar educations, geographical location and years of work experience.
People of any group vary. The college educated make more than the non-college educated. Among the college educated, incomes vary according to major. You wouldn’t expect someone with a degree in classics to make as much as someone with an MBA. People in their 40s make more than people in their 30s and people in their 50s make more than either other age group.
You see the problem with making judgments and the fundamental flaw in trying to set quotas based on group membership. Diversity in the real sense is the biggest impediment to diversity in the affirmative action sense.
“As will all statistics, it depends on which you choose.”
And accordingly, the ones that are chosen tend to say something about the chooser.
I chose the ones that would be the most interesting or controversial on purpose.”
Or perhaps the ones that best obscure the truth, or fools the most gullible/idiot-racist among us?
Our current administration are masters of this trick, as well.
What a pathetic thread. Aldous was spot-on when he jumped right in with his unique brand of heavy (and hilarious) sarcasm.
Posted by: Adrienne at March 29, 2005 02:41 AMI’m curious. I’ve worked in the private sector all my life as both an employee and an employer, and I’ve never run up against quotas. When you guys talk about quotas, you’re just talking about gubmint jobs, right?
AP & Adrienne
Government and academia are most afflicted with goals and quotas. Look at all the trouble Larry Sommers got for mentioning the possibility of differences. The more you are working with the need to generate results and revenues, the less you want to employ affirmative action. But I have experienced them in private firms too.
When I graduated with my MBA, many firms interviewed all the interested women in my U of M class before any of the men. General Mills offered one of my female friends a job before my FIRST interview.
I don’t think it is as bad as it used to be in the 1970s and 1980s. It got bad again 1992-4 when the Clinton administration was actually committed to it. The big reason it is less onerous, however, is the robust job market. Despite all the gnashing of teeth, it is not very hard to get a job anymore (at least compared with the economy from 1975-85 when affirmative action was riding highest. When the pie is growing, there is less need to fight over the pieces.
I don’t worry much about affirmative action any more from a economic point of view, but in many of its forms it is morally odious and racist.
Ah… So it’s not government mandated in the private sector or academia. It’s a voluntary thing. Are you guys arguing that the government should forbid quotas in the private sector? I thought conservatives didn’t want that kind of intrusion.
AP
I don’t care how or why a private company hires anyone. The shareholders can punish bad choices (or not). The problem is that law suites and fear of law suites drive the quotas. Sometimes it is government mandated, as when firms have government contracts. Take away that club. For example, require that plaintiffs prove actual personal discrimination instead of statistical disparate impact.
Most of the people I have hired for managerial and professional jobs have been women – BECAUSE they happen to have been best qualified. I think Condi Rice is an excellent SecState because she is best qualified and doing a good job. That is why we should make decisions and we should do it without reference to race, sex or national origin.
I don’t think you could extend this plan to the elderly and phyically handicaped.
However, I see no reason for keeping the insane out of pro sports.
That would be quite interesting, and if you fielded a team composed of ONLY the insane it might well level the playing field, some of the major teams would likely forfit rather than play them.
Don’t say it wouldn’t work, they let Dennis Rodman play !
They could get that coach Knight to run the team, Hell, he could even play on the team!
The problem is that law suites and fear of law suites drive the quotas.
If it’s not a law, then how could it be illegal? It sounds like this quota thing is being overhyped as a political wedge issue.
Lawyers have become entrepreneurial. Enterprising is a good thing in business where it creates growing wealth. It is bad in the law where one person’s gain in another’s loss and the transactional costs and lawyers’ fees ensure that there is net total loss of wealth.
In my own organization, I have seen the results of lawsuits. It rewards people who never were harmed and harms people who never benefited. Very often, the suite doesn’t even go to court, because it is cheaper to essentially pay off the plaintiffs. There are people who do this more or less as a living. I am not saying there are very many, but they are frequent enough to make firms and individuals over careful.
Let me give you a concrete example of preemptive “justice” in a realated rights field. We wanted to do a webcast of an U.S. speaker to an audience in France. This is to help rebuild the U.S. image over there. Doing a webcast is almost free and could be a wonderful program tool. We can’t use that particular technology. Because of the Americans with Disabilities act, our lawyers tell us we have to do simultaneous subtitles, because we are open to the general public. This means that our cost per user rises from almost zero to about $2.50 if we use a contractor or we have to buy all the equipment and hire staff to do it in house. As you can imagine, we don’t plan to do many of these kinds of things because success (a large audience) could wipe out our budget. This is just a small example of how the fear of lawsuits stopped a promising program. I don’t know what the opportunity cost of NOT doing the program is. I think our lawyers are being too cautious, but the fact is we have been stopped from doing something we think would be useful and good.
This goes on all the time. Pressure groups dismiss these things as anomalies or they claim that it was an overreaction. And then we hear about another successful lawsuit taking advantage of just such an anomaly. Mao used to say something like “Kill one; terrify thousands.” The same rule applied here.
Interesting story Jack, but we were talking about quotas. I said quotas are overhyped as a political tool, then you responded with something totally unrelated.
Posted by: American Pundit at March 30, 2005 10:16 AMI don’t think it is unrelated, since it refers to the lawsuit section.
Quotas are a different matter; that is true. Overt quotas are illegal and not practiced. I almost wish we had real quotas. Right now, you are not sure what the goal should be, but if someone can show you have not reached this elusive goal, you can face a lawsuit.
All major firms, academic and government agencies have somebody in charge of what they call diversity or inclusiveness and these people have significant power over the human resources department. It is usually done surreptitiously, but you sure feel it.
Let me give you another anecdote, this one is more related. I am hiring three interns this summer. I can hire whomever I want and (since interns are low risk) I hired all three based only on online interviews. I have never seen any of them. I don’t know their race and, although I can make a good guess at their gender. I don’t care about their demographic background and I can resist most pressure because of my particular postion. But I keep on getting hints to hire from underrepresented groups and “target schools.” Now what does it mean to be a target school? I was recently assigned to a year of academic study a leading university in the NE. One of the things people in those positions do is recruit, so I wandered into the HR department and offered to help out. The person there was friendly, but told me that that school (despite its obvious quality) was not a target school. I should of course tell people about the jobs etc, but that they weren’t looking for people who “looked like” me.
I don’t believe affirmative action is as much a problem as it used to be, as I wrote above. The economy is good and it is not too hard for qualified people to find jobs. When the pie is growing, we don’t have to fight over the pieces. Still is causes mischief. Many universities did such a good job recruiting females that they now have too many and there is now a kind of sub-rosa affirmative action for young men.
The best thing to do is make opportunity available to all and let it sort itself out. As in our declaration of independence, we have the right to pursue happiness, not achieve it.
Let me guess Mr. Melton, you are white protestant, raised in a middle-upper middle class family, have maintained your social staus in adulthood, and the only minorities you have ever known were the athletes who you went to college with.
Shame on you for trivializing Affirmative Action. If you honestly believe that a high school graduate from, let’s say, the Gary, Indiana public school system received the same academic training and grew up in the same nurturing environment you grew up in, you are sadly mistaken and out of touch with reality. Affirmative Action is necessary, not for people like me, the son of a successful Libyan immigrant, but for Native Americans growing up on the barren wasteland that is the Lakota Pine Ridge Inidian Reservation, and the children of Mexican migrants, and of course the poor African American child who’s neighborhoods and schools are sub-standard. You may be thinking of the whole notion of “picking yourself up by the boot-straps”, which is an excellent ideal that fosters self-reliance and independence, however, it is not possible unless you, at the very least, have straps to pull on.
Affirmative Action provides the straps. Please think before you write, put yourself in the shoes of an 18 year old kid living in the Cabrini Green projects in Chicago, and imagine what you would need to succeed while surrounded by drugs, violence, broken homes, and attending schools that meet none of the federal or state minimum standards. Put yourself in the shoes of someone in a lower financial caste than you, then imagine having dark skin. It’s not a pretty picture is it?
Posted by: Ahmed A. Abonamah at March 31, 2005 02:36 AMAhmed
You assume that the dark skin alone signifies poverty and disadvantage. Most American blacks are not poor. Not every white person comes from an upper middle class background. We might be in the interesting situation of calling a white refugee from a trailer park privileged in relation to the black son of rich lawyer.
The other perverse effect of affirmative action is that it really doesn’t help the poor kid from Caprini Green at all. The Harvard class of blacks, for example includes mostly children of the middle class and very many children of successful black immigrants. This has been a bit of a scandal and not much talked about. According to the New York Times, a high percentage of undergraduate black students at top universities are West Indian and African immigrants or their children or, to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples. In the case of Harvard University, only about a third of the black students are the descendants of African-American slaves and they probably have few really poor kids and none from Caprini Green.
The problem of affirmative action is that one thing is advertised, but you end up buying another, very different product. Few people would argue with your elegant stating of the case, but that is not what we are getting.
You assume that the dark skin alone signifies poverty and disadvantage.
That’s funny. I was just reflecting recently on my travels. Everywhere I’ve been throughout the world, the darker you are, the more likely you’re doing the shitty jobs. Even in India, the darker southern Indians are more likely to be doing low-paying menial labor than the lighter northern Indians.
Most American blacks are not poor.
That’s an interesting statement, Jack. Last I saw, only 15% of blacks make over $50,000/yr, and something like 60% live in poverty. As bad as that sounds, it’s an improvement. But, like the rest of America, the difference between rich and poor is deepening - the middle-class is shrinking.
Posted by: American Pundit at March 31, 2005 10:08 AMAccording to the U.S. Census report I looked up on the web (http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html) 24% of those who reported themselves as blacks live in poverty. That is more than whites, but nowhere near 60%, so MOST are not poor. Although the rate for whites is lower, 44% of all people in poverty are white.
Discrimination still exists, but is no longer the dominant determinant of success.
And affirmative action is now benefiting immigrants, middle class blacks and people of mixed ancestry. There is no particular reason to advantage any of these groups. It clearly has become more of a spoils system or a simple color matching system than a real social program.
Wow, baseball spawned a debate on affirmative action laws in the US. Who is the racist, the government or the people allowing the government to be? 25-30 years ago this was a good idea but today, its a way to screw over people. We are a country that is founded on freedom and getting the best man for the job. I quote Chris Rock “if the best man for the job is white and the slot calls for a black man give it to the white man. But, if the black man is eaqual or even close give it to the black man.”
Sports are the last place where the best available man for the job, gets the job. These are the last jobs where where that still exists. The only reason it still exists in baseball is because; nobody would pay to watch t-ball like baseball where nobody keeps score and everybody bats.
And the whole women in baseball thing no, not fair. Men can’t play in the WNBA, WPGA or any other woman’s league sport. Just because it isn’t the MMLB doesn’t mean that its not men’s baseball.
Affermative action does not work. The purpose was to eliminate racism when hiring. But, in the end all affirmative action does is discriminate against a different group. How is that fair and equal. Affirmitive action is a Jim Crow Law instituted against the majority instead of the minority. We as a people already decided seperate isn’t equal. What has been developed is seperate standards for seperate groups. How does lowering the standards help improve the intelligence/qualification of a group of people? This sounds eerily familiar to the “no child left behind act” which, did the same thing. It lowered the standards and reclassed people to make it sound like it is helping.
What needs to be done? Should we I don’t know, eliminate that part that asks for gender and race. Then, we would have the person that best suits the position in the position. I know it sounds crazy but it would be fair and unbias. Unless it’s unfair to hire people based on their qualifications. Again it sounds crazy but, so did Coke in cans and look how good that turned out.
The current system enforces racism and makes companies racist. It is PC to be racist as long as you’re being racist to the majority. Seperate but not equal.
Posted by: chad at March 31, 2005 02:34 PMAhmed,
What is your solution since hiring based on qualifications isn’t the solution. Should we just have an application that has: race, gender, residence during the formative years, and a listing of all schools attended? No that would be silly, unless of course it got the “opressed” out of the gutter. Because we all know there aren’t any programs designed to help out the poor people in this country. Another thing your example of opression involving the disadvantaged minority. Imagine being white in that same situation. At least that person would be the majority in their situation. Imagine being scared in your own neighborhood, now multiply that times ten because, you’re the minority and you’re different. How do you get out of that same situation? Even though in the overall picture the child would be in the majority but, they would also be a minority why not lift them from the gutter and not let them fail because of their situation. Again not equal.
Actually, I gotta say, I wouldn’t mind seeing baseball become more like football. And by that, I mean the whole host of reforms football did so that one team couldn’t consistently lord it over all the other teams. I’m bored with the Yankees dominating all the time. I don’t know if that’s affirmative action, socialization, or anti-monopoly. But I do think it’s a good example of how unfettered capitalism in football didn’t work. (And how reform means more football players make more money, and football in general makes more money because of reform)
Posted by: Julia at April 1, 2005 05:22 AMSorry, Jack. You’re right. I re-checked, and what I should have said was that by age 30, 56% of blacks have lived in poverty. It goes up to 91% by age 75. And ony 15% of blacks make over $50,000/year. But again, it’s an improvement.
In any case, while every government program should be periodically reviewed for relevence and effectiveness, affirmative action is still more of a political issue for the right than an actual problem. In fact, nobody so far has provided anything but anecdotal evidence that it actually is a problem.
Posted by: American Pundit at April 1, 2005 10:13 AM
