To the Editor:
As many of you may know, an Affirmative Action Bake Sale was held by Advocates for Conservative Thought on Friday; in this type of bake sale people of different races are sold the same product for different prices. The purpose of this activity is to display that affirmative action is a discriminatory policy that actually promotes inequality and racism.
To opponents that voiced their opinions to ACT during the bake sale: ACT sent out literature conveying the conservative viewpoint on affirmative action to members who volunteered to work the bake sale (so they could be aware of the general conservative position on the issue) and had no intention of distributing it during the sale. The piece wasn’t written by ACT but by a conservative author. One particular issue that has been brought up and misconstrued is the part of the author’s argument referring to the Special Olympics. In this statement the author is addressing the question of how affirmative action hurts African Americans, “Affirmative Action conveys the message to society that ‘this group is incapable of making it on its own merits.’ Racial preferences are a sort of Special Olympics for African Americans. Such preferences devalue black achievement, and they intensify doubt about black capacity.” This quote doesn’t convey the message that African Americans need special help, but rather it promotes the opposite: that African Americans can succeed based on their own qualifications.
ACT feels the bake sale promoted diversity of thought and an open dialogue about an important issue that deserves attention. ACT supports Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that people in our nation will someday “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Sincerely,
Advocates for Conservative Thought