Affirmative Action

I'm a black woman. Under those circumstances, you would think that I would be one of the ones madly cheering the Supreme Court's decision on Affirmative Action. In actuality, I'm rather dissappointed.
The basic premise of AA is that because certain people have been historically denied access to certain 'benefits' of life due to their gender or race, the government should step in and insure that there is no discrimination in areas that recieve gov't. funding. In theory - I doubt that anyone feels that someone who has the same skills & qualifications should be denied a position solely because of their sex or race - that's just basic equality. Where the problem comes in, as in the Supreme Court case, is when people who DON'T have those same qualifications and skills are chosen over people who DO have them, simply because of AA and the color of their skin or their gender.
My disgust with the Supreme Court decision goes beyond them endorsing racism. It goes, in fact to the root of the problem - why DON'T these people have the same skills & qualifications as others? Why do they recieve lower tests scores? Why do they have lower GPA's? Why don't they have as many extra-curricular activities? Obviously, they have some interest in their education, otherwise they wouldn'tbe trying to get into college in the first place. So - what's the problem?
I went to a 99% black high school. Out of my class of 600 people, there was ONE white person, and about 7 or 8 hispanics. Due to the area that the school was located in (very poor, very low rate of home-ownership) the school taxes that were paid barely covered the maintence of the school builiding, much less things like new textbooks, SAT study guides, or any of the other 'perks' that most schools in more prosperous areas receive. In addition, a majority of the people I went to school with were the first generation in their family to even have a HOPE of going to college, and their parents had no clue what was needed to insure that their children had the skills and qualifications that the children who went to the school in the suburb up the street had. I'm assuming that the parents even actively supported their child's desire to go to college, which many parents didn't because they considered it a waste of time and money - esp. when the power plant up the street was hiring people fresh out of high school at the regal rate of 13 bucks an hour - plus overtime.
Contrast this to the also public high school (of mostly middle to upper middle class white people) that my best friend went to. Since it was a public school in a very affluent neighborhood, it was richly funded by school taxes, and it showed in the level of education. They purchased new textbooks every year. They had a brand new chemistry lab. They were able to afford in-school SAT Prep classes. They were able to afford highly qualified, dedicated and skilled teachers. They were EXPECTED to go to college after graduation - and those benefits and expectations showed in their grades and test scores.
Let's take a step back and look at this again. We have two children, and let's assume they have the same IQ, the same basic skills, the same ability to learn- but because of their parents/environment/schooling - one ends up with a SAT score of 1500, and the other ends up with an SAT score of 1000. The difference in the scoring is not due to their intelligence, or their ability to learn, but simply because of what school and what district they attended school in. That is the inequality that AA is supposed to correct - and while it does that for some cases, I firmly believe that it happens WAY too late. AA should exisit at the public school level - from Pre-K to High school - so that there is NO huge gap between the quality of PUBLIC SCHOOLS based on where you live - which most children have absolutely NO choice in. If every child is given an EQUAL opportunity to learn, and an EQUAL quality of education (which is what PUBLIC, gov't funded schools should be all about) then we wouldn't NEED AA at the college level - the playing field would already be level, and the race of the applicant would no longer make any difference in their qualifications and skills.
Screw Affirmative Action. Let's start correcting the inequalities at the ROOT of the problem, not at the tip.