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Turning Off the Gaslight in the Neutrality and Inclusivity of Affirmative Action

Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith
7 min readJul 2, 2023

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America has had a penchant for using inclusivity and neutrality whenever it comes to explaining anything Racial within the broader sense of its culture. You might ask, what do I mean by that? Well, take Affirmative Action for example. The Encyclopedia Britannica calls it:

“an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and for women. Affirmative action began as a government remedy to the effects of long-standing discrimination against such groups and has consisted of policies, programs, and procedures that give limited preferences to minorities and women in job hiring, admission to institutions of higher education, the awarding of government contracts, and other social benefits. The typical criteria for affirmative action are race, disability, gender, ethnic origin, and age.”

Note to self: Why include women specifically when all “minority groups” include women. This differentiation therefore means “white women” in particular. Limited Preferences is a misnomer since Affirmative Action means to actively recruit, consider and hire or admit Negroes who were never even considered prior to the inception of the Civil Rights Act and its provisions.

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Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith
Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith

Written by Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith

Anti-Racism Essayist & Educator offering discussions about Race, Racism, White Supremacy and the language used, from perspectives not ordinarily considered.

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