Gertrude Ezorsky's Racism and Justice: The Case for Affirmative Action
Coser, Rose Laub
RACISM AND JUSTICE: THE CASE FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, by Gertrude Ezorsky. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. 139 pp. Cloth $21.95; paper $6.95. Gertrude Ezorsky presents a powerfully...
...There is no damage to the self-respect of a person who is hired because he is the nephew of the boss...
...The book starts with a demonstration that there is still institutional racism in the United States...
...It is not merely the history of slavery alone but also that a whole people were marked as inferior by the law...
...Space does not permit a listing of all the evidence...
...In New York City, a U.S.-born white male college graduate can expect to earn 50 percent more than an equally educated black male of West Indian ancestry...
...thus [that person] is not a victim of overt racism, even in reverse...
...And nobody is ashamed of—on the contrary, people are being encouraged to build up—important contacts...
...He stated: "The experience of Negroes in America has been different in kind, not just in degree, from that of other ethnic groups...
...Ezorsky argues convincingly against the notion that preferential treatment in employment would harm performance in the work place...
...Such reasoning, she says, implies that white candidates have to suffer the same kind of humiliating treatment that blacks have suffered for SPRING • 1992 • 287 ages...
...For those cases she suggests remedies such as work sharing or compensation...
...Blacks suffer discrimination in all of society, whereas an unwillingness to hire conservatives, if that happened in some academic department, would be a unique event...
...288 • DISSENT...
...Affirmative action, which demands objective performance standards and thorough searches for qualified candidates, would foster rather than discourage excellence in performance...
...Even if a white person misses out on a job opportunity because preference was given to a black, the "rejection is not based on a derogatory false notion of racial inferiority...
...Against Nathan Glazer, who states that tradition has channeled some groups into certain types of work, she shows that in contrast to other ethnic groups, blacks have a history of being channeled into the most miserable types of work...
...Against Daniel Bell, who claims that the right to racial representation would also apply to other groups like conservatives, she argues that the two cases are completely different...
...In 1980 blacks with a college education had a higher unemployment rate than did white high-school dropouts...
...The book ends with the opinion of Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Bakke case...
...Ezorsky demolishes the argument held by many, including Midge Decter and Thomas Sowell, that preferential treatment of blacks would damage their self-respect...
...Gertrude Ezorsky presents a powerfully reasoned argument in favor of raising out of misery that part of the American population that has been relegated to the most miserable jobs and deprived of civil rights and humane treatment...
...Blacks have a claim to civil rights because their status is ascribed rather than voluntary...
...Jobs seekers are being advised to use any influence they can muster...
...This also applies to West Indians, who are usually thought of as doing better than American blacks...
...And that mark has endured...
...This would imply, she shows, that merit is always the only criterion for employment...
...and they are proud when they succeed in developing contacts that help them obtain jobs...
...Yet, she concedes that sometimes an individual might get hurt if preferential treatment is given to a black...
...Let me mention only the fact that, according to a 1986 survey, in the thirty-two states where the death penalty has been imposed in the 1980s, the killer of a white is nearly three times more likely to be sentenced to death than the killer of a black...
...In fact, there are other reasons, such as seniority, personal connections, and so on, that enter into hiring decisions...
...Criticisms of affirmative action are taken up one by one...
...She lays to rest the notion that affirmative action is racism in reverse...
...Ezorsky fails to mention that Bell's criticism is specious because he ignores the distinction between civil liberties and civil rights...
...Ezorsky proceeds with careful logic to establish the importance of affirmative action...
Vol. 39 • April 1992 • No. 2
