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It isn't foolish, though I will agree that a very shallow analysis will make these processes seem that way. In a perfect world, minority-owned and woman-owned
by Frondo 11y ago
It isn't foolish, though I will agree that a very shallow analysis will make these processes seem that way.
In a perfect world, minority-owned and woman-owned businesses would never have faced any discrimination at all. In a perfect world, everyone would have competed on an even playing field since the beginning of government buying. That is not this world.
And the real-world consequence of those decades of discrimination is that minority communities had another barrier placed in front of their ability to build wealth in their communities--not the only one, of course, but still a real one and one that's definitely done lasting damage to those minority communities.
After all this time, and all that damage done, saying "well, we won't discriminate now but you still need to somehow catch up from decades of discrimination, and we won't do anything to undo the damage we did," if you think that's appropriate, then that's fine, you can think that. But it's only foolish if you don't really think at all about the history of the situation and the accumulated effects of that long history of discrimination.
You'd even be in good company if you wanted to take that shallow view--a lot of people I talk to don't seem to want to acknowledge that racism ever existed, or if it did it isn't a problem now, or if it is a problem then someone else should do something about it, and on and on and on.
(And, you know, all these aspirational targets, like spending 20% of our dollars on minority-owned firms, they're not hard-and-fast rules. If there are no qualified minority firms, then the work still goes to a white-owned firm, and after decades of discriminatory procurement practices there aren't necessarily a lot of minority-owned firms with the capacity to manage government contracting projects, so it's not like white folks are suffering in any way in the government procurement space.)
- zeveb 11y ago> it's not like white folks are suffering in any way in the government procurement space Except, y'know, for being ineligible for certain government contracts. What's worse is that those people are being penalised without having been guilty of anything. This is utterly inimical to a free and health society. Yes, there are some lingering negative effects from past racist discrimination: but there are also ongoing negative effects from current racist discrimination. You don't fix racism with more racism: you fix it by not being racist.
- Frondo 11y agoYes, and for decades minorities would be penalized and effectively rendered ineligible for government contracts just because they were minorities. And that has done long-lasting damage to their communities. And they weren't guilty of anything, either! You're absolutely right, decades of systemic racism were utterly inimical to a free and healthy society, and minorities bore the brunt of that for a very, very long time. Systemic racism created a very un-free and un-healthy situation. A lot of blameless people suffered through no fault of their own, generation upon generation. Couldn't agree more, racism is bad, &c &c. This small attempt to undo that--preferring minority-owned businesses for a certain amount of government dollars spent--doesn't really seem to be affecting white-owned government contractors, and it does seem to have a pretty positive effect at starting to undo the effects of all that (utterly inimical to a free and healthy society) discrimination. Again, you can cling to that flag of "all racism is bad!!!" and that's fine. I'm at least somewhat satisfied that you went so far as to acknowledge that there has been discrimination in the past--a lot of people who sound like you are reluctant to even admit that there's ever been a problem. So, well done you. In terms of outcomes and fairness and justice, however, there are probably better principled stands to take than the one against minority-owned/woman-owned contracting preference programs.