My last name is Wu, and I know for a fact I cannot represent an inner city African-American male who may not be able to afford books to further enrich his educational experience, or who may not be able to afford proper test preparation for the SATs or otherwise. However, I do feel that promoting those who are not as well-prepared for standardized exams does not mean that the government is awarding mediocrity through affirmative action.

Affirmative action was created to offset past discrimination, not to please minorities. In certain professions, where minorities were not represented in the past, affirmative action works to show that women can be engineers, African-Americans can be physicists, and Hispanics can be stock brokers. It’s not to say that affirmative action is what made them successful; rather, affirmative action put them in a position where they can succeed where they were denied the chance before.

Minorities who are not under-represented are not and should not be the subject of affirmative action. In fact, they represent the ideals and goals that affirmative action strives to achieve. Young Asian-Americans can look towards fields like medicine and finance and see that they are indeed represented. They may have relatives who can serve as role models in those fields which will mean more to their success than affirmative actions can, but without those role models, it is difficult for them to breach a field they have no familiarity with. The need for affirmative action is eliminated because representation exists.

Kwok Wu