Wednesday, October 23, 1996
PROP. 209:
Measure seeks to annihilate long sought-after, deserved civil
rights By Shannon Chambers
This letter comes as a gentle chiding to your column ("Limping
on the crutch of affirmative action") in the Oct. 17 edition of the
Daily Bruin. I feel that you may not have been completely aware of
all the potential problems surrounding the controversial upcoming
ballot initiative and have taken it upon myself to educate you. You
can thank me later.
Oh pity the children like yourself, who have lead lives so
sheltered and privileged that they cannot recognize the truth of
reality. And why should you? It isn’t your reality, at least not
yet.
But if Proposition 209, grossly mislabeled the California Civil
Rights Initiative, passes on election day, it will become your
reality very quickly.
As a young Caucasian female and presumable student, you probably
have managed to avoid personally confronting the devastating
effects of discrimination in your short, happy life. Naturally
then, based on your microcosm of experience, you feel we live in a
society where true equality prevails.
What you fail to realize is that it is largely because of the
sacrifice of "enlightened" feminists and civil rights activists who
struggled to have current affirmative action legislation enacted,
that you enjoy the privilege of your "perceived" equality today.
Many of the feminists and activists that you berate in your
diatribe against affirmative action gave their very lives to
eradicate social injustice and to bring about the changes that you,
in your immense ignorance, so easily take for granted.
Apparently, you, like the many others who support Prop. 209,
have allowed yourself to be lulled to sleep and into believing that
true equality exists today!
In your column, you state that feminists have betrayed women by
convincing them that they are "wholly dependent upon the
graciousness of men for their survival." Please give me a break! If
we could depend on the "graciousness of men," affirmative action
programs would not have been needed in the first place. Affirmative
action doesn’t force men to be gracious, it forces them to be fair.
You also imply that somehow any gender discrimination that may
result from the passing of Prop. 209 can be handily rectified
through legal recourse. That’s a nice thought, but if you really
believe that justice prevails, even the majority of the time in our
judicial system, then you need to hit those history books a little
harder.
Furthermore, you claim the infamous Clause C provides all the
protection defendants will need in court because it states that,
when it is "reasonably necessary," gender can be used as a
consideration for employment. I’ve got a news flash for you! They
get to decide what constitutes "reasonable". You also state that
the reasoning for the clause is "grounded in common sense …
Imagine the discomfort of being strip searched or having your rest
room attended by someone of the opposite sex." Oh, the humanity! As
a side note, last time I went to the ladies rest room I wasn’t
"strip searched" by the male bathroom attendant on this campus.
Whew! And as far as I know, the only places strip searches are
performed these days are in jails, so don’t you worry your pretty
little head about that.
On a final note, after graduation, when you venture out into the
real world and into reality where the rest of us live, when that
less qualified and less educated male competitor gets that higher
paying corporate position over you, I’m sure you’ll understand.
After all, hiring a women might cause the other male employees
"discomfort," and you wouldn’t want that would you? See you in the
unemployment line, sister.