Affirmative Action: Re-visited -Changing Times

Some believe technology provides more choices for us.  For example, for some it is simple to point, click, and email their way to a job during a search on a computer.  However, it is important to recognize that not all will have the liberty or technology to choose their own adventures.  Even though we may be leaning towards an individualized, customizable type of society as Cherny suggests in his book the Next Deal; the 'choice generation' has its limitations.   He fails to consider the minorities that fall through the cracks, the non-educated, and the 'individuals' excluded from places like high tech companies and technologies.  His interpretation of society is jovial and not based in reality: "The tools of farming-the plow and furrow and scythe were designed for the use of individuals.  The same is true of modern personal computers and hand held devices." (Cherny, 66).   Strikingly, these devices don't automatically grant access to knowledge, this fact makes reality and the freedoms that come with technology a lot more perplexing.  It is helpful to look to the past, especially during times when injustices were rampant.  In examining history it is interesting to note that the plow and tools used on plantations did not benefit those slaves who worked them.  Actually the tools were used more to control and domesticate them, as slaves were not allowed to reap their own.  Without changes in affirmative action, minorities may at best have these tools in their hands on the job, but not as technologies they own to benefit their own advancements.  More than likely, they will only have narrow technological skill sets, which will make them vulnerable to those more technologically advanced. 

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