Invisible Victims: White Males and the Crisis of Affirmative Action

By Frederick R. Lynch

Book Overview

Lynch's passionately argued book asks: How did controversial social policy that lacked public support nonetheless become institutionalized? The social policy Lynch examines is affirmative action. . . . Lynch condemns the sloppy, fearful thinking that has converted affirmative action into quotas and that has kept social researchers shying away from this explosive topic. Choice

Anyone interested in race relations and sex roles in the United States must read this book.
Social Forces

More and more questions have surfaced in the past decade concerning the wisdom and fairness of affirmative action programs. In this book, Lynch takes a hard look at affirmative action policy development and the social and ethical implications of a system that promotes gender and race as criteria for vocational advancement and educational opportunity. He focuses on the experiences of white males who have been victims of reverse discrimination under such programs and explores the lackluster response from government, the media, and employing institutions. Lynch examines the political taboo that for two decades effectively stifled discussion of the issues that affirmative action raises in both public discourse and scholarly analysis. He reviews the original ideals and purposes of affirmative action and contrasts them with the program as it has actually operated in everyday work settings. In case studies based on interviews and other data, Lynch assesses the reactions of white males to affirmative action barriers, as well as their impact on co-workers, friends, and relatives. He describes the role of the mass media, the social sciences, and ideological elites in creating a conspiracy of silence concerning the hidden and unintended consequences of affirmative action policies. The only study that deals specifically with the impact of affirmative action on white males, this book will appeal to academic and general readers with an interest in public policy, law, political science, sociology, and social psychology.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0313264961
• ISBN13: 9780313264962
• Release Date: December 1989
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 253 Pages
• Weight: 1.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

***** A CRUCIAL PIECE OF AMERICAN HISTORY *****

When the "Decline and Fall" is written for America this will be a crucial work from which it will draw. This book has hard facts, names names, and is well written. One must understand that the quota system in the United States has damaged not only the social contract but, perhaps even most ironically, the very people it is supposed to help. You can bet that the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, and Russians are rubbing their hands in glee as the quota system continues to self-destruct the West.

discrimination to stop discrimination it still discrimination

Its no secret why young American males are underachieving, although you would be hard pressed to find anyone who will admit the fact. Affirmative Action, meant to eliminate discrimination did just the opposite. It not only promoted discrimination against males it implemented laws and programs to make sure males were discriminated against. If a young American male was lucky enough to find an employer who would hire him he would have to work along side a non-English speaking alien who was less qualified to do the job and at the same wage level as his unqualified co-worker who couldn't even understand the instructions for doing the job. In addition the more qualified male was pigeon-holed while the unqualified co-worker received wage increases and promotions. How discouraging can it be to be in a job and knowing no matter how hard or how- good a job you did you were not going to be rewarded with pay increases or promotions and yet a person working with you who was not even an American citizen and could not even speak English would. In addition to racial discrimination males were discriminated against sexually during the same era and still are. Males are not just discriminated against in work but from the time they begin school up to and throughout most colleges and universities. At home parents were encouraged to discriminate against male children and 'daughters only day' in which daughters (not sons) would be taken to spend the day at work with a parent. Statistics given which demonstrated minorities and women were being discriminated against were manipulate to justify the discrimination against males. The jobs of women who worked lower paying temporary or part-time work to supplement family income was included in statistics comparing average wages of men and women as well as the lower starting wages of new employees which were compared to wages of men who had 20+ years of yearly wage increments. Men were no longer bread winners nor loving protectors of the family they were redefined in the most negative way possible as abusers of their spouses and their children. No one dared step forward to dispute these false claims less be terminated in place of employment or be accused of being a sexist or racist. Government-imposed quotas were explicitly banned in the 1964 Civil Rights Act Nevertheless they immediately spread through the economy. For most of that time, they received eerily little media and even less academic attention. Of some 1,300 papers given at a recent American Sociological Association conference on Race and Ethnic Relations, the topic attracted only one. The result: the situation summarized in the title of Lynch's new paperback,Invisible Victims: White males and the Crisis of Affirmative Action (Praeger, $14.95). The ideal of merit hiring has been subverted by politicized hiring, with white men unable to defend themselves against open discrimination. But quotas bring other problems, including conflict among the "protec

Academe & the Politics of Race and Gender

The word "quotas" is largely avoided, because public opinion polls found that 80% of the public opposed them. Instead, we hear of affirmative action (AA), equal opportunity employment, and the goal of diversity in higher education and the workforce. AA at work in the workforce, & reverse discrimination suits filed by white males, are well-known and occasional news items; likewise, instances of white males passed over for promotion are also known. But the insidious nature of race-and-gender preference as the determinative principle in academic hiring has not received the attention it deserves. Lynch describes how affirmative action began as a series of directives designed to encourage recruitment of qualified minorities and women. Under this version, women and minority applicants would compete on a non-discriminatory, colorblind, and gender neutral basis. Today, a more radical version of AA exists, in which women and minorities are to be hired in proportion to their numbers in the general population. What was once a temporary, transitional expedient to redress inequalities has become a permanent, institutionalized feature of academic hiring practices. Proponents of AA identify white males as the past perpetrators of discriminatory hiring and promotion practices. That present day white males might suffer loss from AA seems justified. But as Lynch notes, older white elite members imposed AA quotas upon white, working, middle class baby boomers and, to a growing degree, their children. The generational cleavage between white male perpetrators of discrimination and present white male victims of AA has been ignored. Why should the latter group redress historical inequalities an earlier generation created? The hypocrisy of the whole situation needs to be underscored. The very universities that accept gifted students into their graduate programs--including many white males--were the first to shut out white males when job opportunities arose. Part of the American dream is that education is the key to unlimited opportunities. But just be sure to check your sex and skin color first.

Affirmative Genocide

Frederick Lynch has done an excellent job of exposing the US Democratic party's betrayal of its's white electorate in enforcing Affirmative Discrimination without a mandate. The lives of an entire generation of white American males were severly damaged by this evil and unjustified racial engineering program.Lynch goes on to ponder the seeming conspiracy of silence among the mass media and their refusal to highlight the plight of white male victims, even though there was no dearth of evidence.However, as insidious as the the application of Affirmative Discrimination was in the US, it pales in comparison to what is currently being perpetrated in South Africa.For every white male job applicant in South Africa there are approximately twenty to fifty black applicants, yet it is the minority which legislation enforces discrimination against.The silence of the Western media on this matter(particularly the BBC)borders on the criminal.(The ANC controlled media does not deserve mention as it is merely a propaganda engine.)Lynch details how American organisations applied an AA selection criteria which resulted in many meritous white applicants being arbritarily rejected.Instead of ensuring that all meritous applicants, regardless of race, be allowed an equal chance to compete, non-meritous black applicants were given preference over skilled white applicants - pure racial engineering. In South Africa the ANC uses demographic and occupational statistics in an attempt to justify its' heinous racial engineering agenda - this is not too different from the Nazis philosophy as expoused by Goebbels.During the Nazis invasion of Eastern Europe they were quick to identify those strategic political and economic positions which were held by Jews and to demand their removal and replacement with Nazis.This is the very same strategy being pursued by the racist ANC regime which demands that the majority of skilled positions available in the economy be occupied by blacks, and imposes substantial financial penalties, and refuses lucrative government tenders, to those organisations who fail to comply speedily enough.This effectively dooms an entire generation of young, white South African males to a future of poverty, regardless of their educational level.This is tantamount to ethnic cleansing and ethnic cleansing is Genocide. This, not crime, is the primary reason for the brain drain from South Africa as many white males would otherwise be reduced to the level of beggars. While it is unlikely that any of the US Deomcratic party perpetrators will be brought to book, it is a neverending source of puzzlement to me that many white Americans continue to vote for a party which so blatantly sold them out.Affirmative Action is a Gross Human Rights Violation and must be declared a Crime Against Humanity.It goes without saying that its' victims should be paid substantial reparations for the economic, psychological and emotional trauma they suffered by having their basic human rights vi