ASA002, A01
Week 4
In this weeks reading, I would like to explore the ideas found in "Why We Should Fear University, Inc.," by Frederik deBoer of the New York Times. I found one topic particularly interesting, which is the idea of how corporations, including Universities, exploit policies. Whether it be ideas of color blindness, affirmative action, or tokenism, corporations and universities seem to only truly care about reputation and funding. Take for example the idea of color blindness, which is the belief that there is no color, and anyone who judges another person based on their skin is racist. A university may then address that issue by implementing affirmative action--however, the problem is that the university uses the new policy not so much as "a way to bridge a divided community" but more along the lines of how can "we show that we aren't racist so that we don't have a massive lawsuit on our hands". The true issue, which is the issue of racism in our culture, isn't inherently solved, and is in fact made worse due to the issue either being underemphasized ("it's 2017, racism doesn't exist anymore"), misdirected ("look we aren't racist since there are a few black kids who go here"), or victim-blaming ("they just didn't try hard enough"). Universities essentially shift the blame from themselves or the culture they are a part of (a capitalist culture which only cares about profits) by abusing certain policies for their own benefit. The worst of it though is that such abusing of policies is widely successful, and by "giving an inch to gain a yard" allows corporations to display a facade that problems are solved, thus avoiding the issue all together. It is the equivalent of using duct tape to fix a leaking pipe; sure, it will fix the issue now, but the underlying root of the problem is still there, and will only serve to destroy the rest of the foundation that the pipe is a part of.
How should corporations or universities change their policies in order to truly combat societal problems such as racism?
References:
1. deBoer, Fredrik. “Why We Should Fear University, Inc.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Sept. 2015, www.nytimes.com.
2. Unknown. Retrieved October 15, 2017. <http://www.azquotes.com/quote/896551>
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