Wednesday, August 20, 2008  The Elephant in the Room  I suppose
that, as a female computer science blogger, I should have
realized I'd have to address the elephant in the room
eventually. What elephant? The elephant from an interview with
Sally Ride in 2006:     Affirmative action is used to slay the
elephant, and so affirmative action is the real elephant in the
room. And with that, I'm done with the elephant metaphors.
Sadly, affirmative action is one of those issues about which
people tend to have strong opinions that are unlikely to change.
My unlikely to change opinion is that affirmative action is
fair. Note that I don't say equal. Affirmative action is not
equal because it is trying to correct previous situations which
were not equal. But it is fair to try to correct previous
wrongs. I'm not talking about previous wrongs that were
committed hundreds of years ago (though that's when these
systematic wrongs started), I'm talking about the every day
continuous wrongs that, through racism*, classism, and