A-Train rightly chugs along affirmative action track

Okay. So this is it. I guess I should be writing one of those "touchy-feely" columns, but that's simply not my style. But (though everything I write about tends to affect me personally) I will use this last regular spot to answer a particular question about myself: Am I a product of affirmative action?

The interesting thing about that question is that everyone I ask will have a different answer. Those who believe that affirmative action is good will swear that I am the happy "ends" to their "means," while touting my undergraduate success and graduate prospects as proof that affirmative action is not synonymous with mediocrity. Those who despise the programs will hail my accomplishments as the model for African Americans who want to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps," without hand-outs or government charity.

Well, given the conflicting opinions, I suppose that my status as an affirmative action recipient is a matter of personal choice. So what do I think?

Quite frankly, I don't buy the argument that simply because I am smart or successful I cannot possibly be a product of affirmative action. Actually, that line of reasoning is rather modern, not to mention subjectively applied. For example, most people will recognize the "brilliant" black minds of today as products of affirmative action. This group includes African Americans such as Cornel West, Oprah Winfrey, William Raspberry and Colin Powell. These phenomenal men and women have risen to the tops of their fields partly due to sheer talent and excellence. Yet, because of the era from which they came-their qualifications notwithstanding-they are considered to be beneficiaries of affirmative action legislation. Furthermore, anyone from that era who denies any link to affirmative action is quickly denounced-even whites have been known to smirk at the mention of Clarence Thomas.

Blacks born into my generation, however, face exactly the opposite critique. If we claim affiliation with affirmation action programming, then we are lazy or possibly looking for a handout, but we are most definitely unqualified underachievers. If, on the other hand, we renounce such efforts, then we are lauded as the new generation of African Americans determined to make it on our own, no longer claiming the victim status.

I will not dispute that the relative need for affirmative action or the type of effective programming has changed over the last 30 years. America is many things, but stagnant is not one of them. While I criticize the direction in which this country is moving, I do acknowledge that it is moving. But if a person's success was not a measure of the merits of affirmative action then, it cannot be a measure of its merits now, either. If qualified people benefited from affirmative action in the past, then it is quite possible, if not inevitable, that qualified people benefit from such policies today.

I was often warned about people assuming that I was a product of affirmative action and, thus, unqualified and very lucky that my social security number came up in the quota pool. But no one ever told me that I would have to fight to convince people that I am a product of affirmative action regardless of my impeccable credentials and unquestionable qualifications.

My point: Of course I am a product of affirmative action. Even the most staunch social conservatives admit that racism is still prevalent in this society. Anti-discrimination legislation is still being passed into law; discrimination lawsuits against various corporations and service providers are being won every year. Racially motivated violence, as well as white supremacy groups, are on the rise in this country. Thus, though racial hatred may have taken a new form in the '90s, it has remained. Affirmative action was created as a weapon against the "good ol' boy" infrastructure, a network that is owned and operated by racism. If racism exists, the need for policies that combat it remains.