Yes. During my career I have been affected by the guy thing, the gay thing and the female thing. The guy thing is too numerous to mention but to be passed over for a promotion to someone's kid whose father happens to be the vice president of the company (not a family run business) made people mad for me but in the end nothing happened. It is called life................
There's a legal adage that translates from the Latin that "the inclusion of one thing is the exclusion of everything else." That defines affirmative action as it has been used perfectly. Under historic affirmative action, Arthur Ashe, who grew up on Long Island, would have been given a preference over Sam Huff, who grew up around coal mines in PA as I recall. That's not to demean either of these men but only as an illustration of what pure reliance on skin color could achieve. The best illustration I can think of for the diminution of all women is the movie "Hidden Figures."
In my early years growing up, I heard about women and people of color having to work harder, being treated differently at work, etc. There was a time in my late teens and early 20s when it seemed like society had changed and that people were seen as more equal. I heard less sexist comments, I heard less racist comments. There were older patients that I had that still persisted in some racism and sexism. Even that has seemed to be less now among older patients. But, it still persists to a degree. I was shocked a few years ago when I was working on a project with my state's Department of Transportation and one of the project engineers casually said a veiled racist comment to me. I read Carole Simpson's book a couple years ago and was shocked by what her colleagues thought was appropriate treatment of her when she was starting out, and reading your thoughts here, I know that you likely saw some of that in your time as well.
Do I think preferences remain necessary? I don't know. The current trend seems to be to focus so much on our differences rather than what makes us alike that perhaps we're still creating a segregated, biased society. I look forward to the time that Sandra Day O'Connor predicted, but instead of it "no longer being necessary" that there is a time when people don't want it to be necessary. I believe that we are advanced enough as a society that it is no longer necessary if we want it to be no longer necessary.
However, I do see a growing divide in class in this country. Lack of education, or educational opportunities, low wages- I think those can contribute to increased racism and sexism and our US society would do well to try to lift those near the bottom (regardless of gender or race) up to a more middle class lifestyle.
Yes. During my career I have been affected by the guy thing, the gay thing and the female thing. The guy thing is too numerous to mention but to be passed over for a promotion to someone's kid whose father happens to be the vice president of the company (not a family run business) made people mad for me but in the end nothing happened. It is called life................
There's a legal adage that translates from the Latin that "the inclusion of one thing is the exclusion of everything else." That defines affirmative action as it has been used perfectly. Under historic affirmative action, Arthur Ashe, who grew up on Long Island, would have been given a preference over Sam Huff, who grew up around coal mines in PA as I recall. That's not to demean either of these men but only as an illustration of what pure reliance on skin color could achieve. The best illustration I can think of for the diminution of all women is the movie "Hidden Figures."
In my early years growing up, I heard about women and people of color having to work harder, being treated differently at work, etc. There was a time in my late teens and early 20s when it seemed like society had changed and that people were seen as more equal. I heard less sexist comments, I heard less racist comments. There were older patients that I had that still persisted in some racism and sexism. Even that has seemed to be less now among older patients. But, it still persists to a degree. I was shocked a few years ago when I was working on a project with my state's Department of Transportation and one of the project engineers casually said a veiled racist comment to me. I read Carole Simpson's book a couple years ago and was shocked by what her colleagues thought was appropriate treatment of her when she was starting out, and reading your thoughts here, I know that you likely saw some of that in your time as well.
Do I think preferences remain necessary? I don't know. The current trend seems to be to focus so much on our differences rather than what makes us alike that perhaps we're still creating a segregated, biased society. I look forward to the time that Sandra Day O'Connor predicted, but instead of it "no longer being necessary" that there is a time when people don't want it to be necessary. I believe that we are advanced enough as a society that it is no longer necessary if we want it to be no longer necessary.
However, I do see a growing divide in class in this country. Lack of education, or educational opportunities, low wages- I think those can contribute to increased racism and sexism and our US society would do well to try to lift those near the bottom (regardless of gender or race) up to a more middle class lifestyle.