a job?” These African Americans want to be treated as equals, not as incompetents. In a statement released in 1981 by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Jack P. Hartog, who directed the project, said: Only if discrimination were nothing more than the misguided acts of a few prejudiced individuals would affirmative action plans be “reverse discrimination.” Only if today’s society were operating fairly toward minorities and women would measures that take race, sex, and national origin into account be “preferential treatment.” Only if discrimination were securely placed in a well-distant past would affirmative action be an unneeded and drastic remedy. What the commission failed to realize was that there are thousands of white males who are not discriminating yet are being punished because of those who do. The Northern Natural Gas Company of Omaha, Nebraska, was forced by the government to release sixty-five white male workers to make room for minority employees in 1977 (Nebraska Advisory Committee 40). Five major Omaha corporations reported that the number of white managers fell 25% in 1969 due to restrictions put on them when affirmative action was adopted (Nebraska Advisory Committee 27). You ask, ”What did these white males do to bring about their termination?” The only crime that they were guilty of was being white. This hardly seems fair to punish so many innocent men for the crimes of a relative few. But the injustice toward the white male doesn’t end there. After the white male has been fired, he has to go out and find a new job to support his family that depended on the company to provide health care and a retirement plan in return for years of hard work. Now, because of affirmative action, this white male, and the thousands like him, require more skills to get the same job that a lesser qualified black man needs. This is, fo...
