Affirmative Action

I refer to an article (sorry all, I was unable to find this article online again) from Friday's San Diego Tribute in which the authro stated his opinion that all the minority competitions are more of a degrade than anything else. It was the author's opinion that the competition was short of saying, "You are pretty good, for a black or Hispanic". For the most part, I agree with him. What is the point of being the best "among all minority competitors". It certainly does not say anything about one's ability among the rest of the peer groups. However, how fair is a multi-racial competition? The writer of the article apparently reside in San Diego. And I, I have been living in California for 16 years and Sacramento the last 6. Sacramento is one of the most racially diverse city in this country. I do not feel that I was ever discriminated because of either my race or my gender. (Well, I was sexually harrassed at my first part time job in high school, but we are talking about stupid high school boys here, alright?) I was never aware that I am a non white female. (Okay, sometimes people like to do the "where you from?" thing to me, but that's more of an annoyance than discrimination.)

I refer to the national TV show "Who wants to be a millionaire." I've watched at most 4 episodes of this show. And I couldn't help but to notice that whenever a colored or female canditate sit on the chair, the questions were NOT of the same level. It's like they deliberated would not let them make very far. I've also watched the one episode when it's a father-son team. When the black father-son team came up, they didn't even made it through the first five (usually common sense, grade school level type of questions that even non native would know) questions. That was NOT because they were not as good as the white male competitors, but their questions were of a different class altogether. And this is national TV we are talking about. Are they really that afraid that once in a blue moon (it's hard to made it to the final level) a colored person OR a female could become a millionaire? I've also heard that charges or complaints have been pressed against the show but I did not follow up on the outcome of them.

Regardless, this entry is not about the TV show, but about a all race competition in general. I do not believe that at this day and age and in some states, a truely fair competition is always possible. So long as the judges have available data on the competitors' race and gender, the outcome might not be based entirely on one's ability. A truly fair competition not necessarily have to be "minorities only" or "white only", but I suggest an entirely different system in which competitors are identified by a number and only a number. Afterall, what's the point of making "race" and "gender" optional when one's name says it all?