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7. Counting Origins
- University of Nebraska Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
While greater social mixing is certainly needed, ethnic monitoring is no easy matter. In the United States, besides the problems associated with quotas, there are serious difficulties concerning the definition of ethnic groups and the extent to which particular individuals belong to one group rather than another. Among all those categorized as Hispanic how can account be taken of different forms of past discrimination suffered by minority groups as diverse as Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cubans, and Colombians? Similarly, among those categorized as Asian, how are we to distinguish between Chinese, Japanese , Filipinos, Koreans, and Vietnamese? There is another problem: How should a person from mixed ethnic origins be classified? What about a child with a black father and a white mother? 7 Counting Origins 115 116 counting or ig ins It is impossible to count clearly without someone feeling unjustly treated. Difficulties of this kind have, in recent years, helped push affirmative action into a third phase, that of the dismantling of ethnic quotas. North American lawmakers now prefer forms of positive action that are more flexible and limited in scope. Affirmative action certainly has not abolished the racial and ethnic frontiers fragmenting American society, and it has benefited the poor less than the middle classes. But it has, nevertheless, helped produce greater social mixing by facilitating upward mobility in every sphere of public life by individuals of minority origin, who have become strongly patriotic Americans. We in France need to reflect dispassionately and without prejudice on the American experience in order to create new ways of ensuring equal opportunities for young ethnics. Affirmative action targeting racial or ethnic minorities has been increasingly challenged and replaced by a spatially defined approach targeting disadvantaged areas. Here we can see the beginnings of a convergence between French and American approaches to equal opportunities .1 To counter the decline in enrollments by black and Hispanic students following the removal of affirmative action measures, a state law adopted in Texas in 1997 required public universities to admit every year the top 10 percent of students from every high school in the state. Florida has introduced similar measures. In France specific measures targeting discrimination against specific minorities have the disadvantage of reinforcing those minorities’ social marginalization, if not their ghettoization. For this reason it is better for equal opportunities policies to target all socially disadvantaged persons, not just young ethnics. Spatially based policies [3.94.150.98] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:23 GMT) counting or ig ins 117 targeting disadvantaged urban areas should take precedence over ethnically targeted policies. Antidiscrimination policy should put areas of this kind before specific ethnic groups. It is very difficult to conceive of policies being adopted in France aimed at correcting social inequalities targeting exclusively people of foreign origin and openly excluding native French citizens in similar situations. There is widespread political agreement that one form of discrimination cannot be corrected by creating another. That said, it still remains essential for us in France to introduce a system of counting differences if we are to make a reality of equal opportunities. For spatial and ethnic approaches are complementary rather than contradictory . Sooner or later we will have to give the statistical means to an ombudsman for equal opportunities to measure the extent to which diversity is being achieved within the public sector. As victims of multiple forms of color-based discrimination, young ethnics will have to be identified statistically in terms of the features by which they are handicapped in the field of equal opportunities . Our nation needs the technical and legal means with which to compile statistics on ethnic origins. Too much time has already been lost. We can no longer leave to market forces and the abstract principle of universalism the management of de facto inequalities between citizens. State intervention must permanently guarantee that unjustified differentials will be corrected and that equality of opportunity will be ensured by monitoring the situation and retuning as necessary. To achieve this it is essential that we quantify the progress made in diversifying the labor force. There can, of course, be no question of forcing onto 118 counting or ig ins citizens any sort of system for keeping files or spying on them. If we explain clearly enough the objectives of these measures, job applicants and employers will voluntarily provide the necessary information on their origins, knowing that the information will be used...