Across this nation, there is an awakening of white males to a fact that Blacks have also realized among themselves: females are outstripping males in school--in numbers and in academic achievements. Blacks females in college out number males two to one. White males are outnumbered by white females but not to the same percentage as Blacks.

Black males know that half of the Black males of college age are either in jails/prisons, under the court/probation's authority or dead because of drugs and an assortment of other malevolent reasons. Whites, on the other hand, have no excuse of an unfair system that is set up against them. They have had all the advantages and privileges society can afford.

In recognition of this white male gap, programs are already under way to their rescue them. These affirmative action programs recruiting white males to help them back into school, balancing their numbers with those of white females, and to help them achieve academically once there. But a number of female organizations are concerned with these programs, arguing that when they were under-represented, there wasn't a rush to affirmative action for them.

Affirmative action is not new to white males; they have had affirmative action since the abolition of slavery. After slavery ended, systems of aggression were set up against Black people in every sector of society, and they have not come down. White discrimination, which can be and is periodically measured, is favoritism for whites and a system of aggression that harms nonwhite Americans. In this system, privileges are accorded or denied based on the color of one's skin.

The quickness of white males to remedy their problem using affirmative action is worth observing. They have quickly and quietly gone to affirmative action when there appears to be an erosion of their male position in educational institutions. They know that education is key to a people's vibrancy; that is why there is such a hue and cry about ethnic affirmative action. Education is the key to our lives, and whites will use any means or method to make sure they do not fall behind in education, as they have already fallen behind their women. []

Gibbs Staff