Remember when we get back together again next Tuesday, 11/11, your essay on the Leonard Pitts commentary will be due and I also want to hear from each family regarding the Teaching Tolerance exercise. Below is part of the passage I read in class yesterday regarding affirmative action. The analogy with being vaccinated against disease is, I believe, the best of the two Frank Wu offers ---
"Analogies may augment the arguments for affirmative action. Affirmative action may be likened to inoculation against contagious disease. We vaccinate ourselves by accepting tiny dosages of the very causes of the illness. The shot alerts our bodies to the problems and stimulates us to build up antibodies as a preventative measure. Similarly, affirmative action relies on race, which is admittedly hazardous. However, it does so with a prescribed amount of the toxin. Thus, it prepares our society for racism and helps to develop interracial relationships as a protective measure. It is well established that contact among people of different racial backgrounds on equal terms, as with students in a classroom, is the single best means of eliminating racial prejudice." (pp. 170-171)
See you next Tuesday, 11/11.
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