ABSTRACT
No examination of the issue of social justice would be complete without a discussion of affirmative action. The reason is that, even as its adequacy is still being debated, the current race- and gender-based affirmative action was the first systematic response to Black demands for social justice. 1 In Race Matters, Jews and Blacks, and The Cornel West Reader, West takes up the subject of affirmative action. In The Cornel West Reader, for example, he characterizes affirmative action as a significant but weak response to Black demands for social justice (1995b, 495). 2 According to West, affirmative action is significant because it was the first formal policy response of the society to the systemic exclusionary and discriminatory practices against Blacks. Such practices existed in a variety of spheres and were manifested in a number of ways, such as in employment, housing, healthcare, and political disfranchisement. But affirmative action is weak, contends West, because it was a concession extracted from the powerful political, business, and educational establishment through pressure from organized citizens and angry unorganized citizens, the latter of whom vented their anger in street disturbances. And so, as a concession, it offers much less than it otherwise could to address the issue of social justice with fairness and equity. Thus, says West, it is “imperfect” (495). To address this alleged imperfection West advances a class-based alternative affirmative action proposal.
