It kills my credibility to voice opinions that readers don’t want to be true. It is easier for a reader to block or dismiss what I say by claiming I am not credible and so that is what they do rather than confront their own ideas that may not be as factually grounded as they’d like to believe.
I think people are so wrapped up in their biases that they can’t even see the real question; is society better for implementing affirmative action? It is a good question with solid arguments that can be made on either side but that affirmative action improves medical care isn’t one of them. Clearly it does not benefit the product to screen out higher achieving candidates to make room for lower achieving ones.
The benefit of affirmative action is that it breaks stereotypes. Doctors are men and women of all ethnicities. Society sees with their own eyes that anyone can become a doctor if they work hard enough. Kids aren’t pigeonholed by their ethnicity or gender. That is a great and noble thing but it isn’t free. There is a cost, and that cost to society is collectively worse healthcare in the immediate term.
Is the benefit to society worth the cost to society? Maybe. Are we well enough on our way now that we don’t all automatically picture a white male when someone says “doctor”? Maybe. Do we have more work to do to break the stereotype? Maybe. These are questions worth asking, but exclaiming that Blacks being best served by sticking to their own kind is a scientific fact, or the bias inherent with European skin colors is causing those doctors to kill Black babies is disgusting and it isn't true.
Here in this thread on JazzFanz, I’m seeing a lot of people going straight to the truly ugly racially bigoted exclamations. A lot of people who have posted in this thread should be looking in the mirror and asking some uncomfortable questions about themselves, but I know they won’t. It will be easier to dismiss what I’m saying as not credible and so that is what they will do.