The (Empty) Victory of Affirmative Action

Did you ever let someone win?  For instance, has there been a time when you were playing, say, basketball with a kid and you went easy on him?  This is one of those areas of raising kids or just dealing  with kids, where we adults have to walk a thin line between help and hindrance.  Maybe sometimes it's ok to let a kid win.  But at least sometimes it doesn't work out.  Especially if the kid finds out; it's a completely empty victory.  This is another area where our desire to shield him from pain can backfire.

Another issue for parents is when to lose the training wheels on your kid's bike.  They help the kid to keep from tipping over, right?  Up to a point; but beyond that, the training wheels can actually cause him to tip over if he takes a corner too fast.

The point is, at some point, the kid is ready to lose the training wheels and it's no longer necessary or healthy to let him experience unearned victories.  As he gets older and begins to experience the adult world, he learns that any coddling he experienced in his early life will not be replicated in adult life.  He sees that only hard earned victories are meaningful to him.  He discovers his strengths and develops his talents and rejects unneeded assistance.  He can; he wants to do it by himself.

Well, many elements in our culture and society have worked hard to stifle those feelings of independence, self reliance and capability.  If you can be made to feel a part of some under privileged minority, you've been convinced that you can't do it without special help.  The system, the machine has now made it possible for you to win a major bike race with training wheels on your bike and with officials holding everyone else back.  I'm referring, of course, to affirmative action.  They've so succeeded in killing people's pride and "can do" attitude that people are to blind to the facts that, number one, they don't need training wheels, number two, their victory is ridiculous if others were held back to make that victory possible.  They should be mortified and outraged.  But they blithely cross the finish line and hold out their hand for the prize.

Those who invented and who seek to perpetuate this system are the racists, sexists, etc.  And we all, especially those "helped" by the system, must reject it.  It is just another example of being treated like a kid when you're an adult.  You don't need special treatment and if you reached the position you now occupy because of any special treatment, you should feel ashamed.  All you've done is the equivalent of win the aforementioned bike race.  You need to go back, lose the training wheels and make sure no one is held back to give you an empty, unearned victory.