Unless you live under a conveniently placed rock, I'm sure
you've seen the opinion article about affirmative action that was recently
published in The Harvard Crimson. If not, take a couple of
minutes to read it
here. I'll wait.
You're finished? Great.
I'm not going to address most of this article. Because a lot of people
have done that, including
a friend of mine and even the site
Jezebel (this
one probably counts as fighting fire with an even hotter fire, but that's
beside the point). I'm going to focus on the following line very briefly,
because as a black, female medical student, it strikes quite an unsettling
chord:
How would you feel if you were assured before going into
surgery that your surgeon was the beneficiary of affirmative action in medical
school? I do not see why higher academic institutions should lower
their standards for admission.
Quite frankly, I doubt anyone's desire for self-preservation
would allow her to entertain that question for even a second if she required
immediate surgical attention. It would be ludicrous of someone to decline
the help of a surgeon of color because the presence of affirmative action makes
questionable his or her ability to do the job. The patient would still
want that surgeon to stop his bleeding, or excise his tumor, or put in his stent to keep his arteries open. Even if he or she did still refuse to
be treated by that particular physician, it is important to remember that every
physician could potentially make a mistake while performing a procedure--even
if affirmative action didn't exist. Opting out of treatment provided by a
beneficiary of affirmative action does not magically erase the possibility of
error, that uncomfortable reality of the medical field.
Sarah--Miss Siskind, if you like that better--I will be honest with you.
I've never met you. I know next to nothing about who you are, where
you come from, why you chose Harvard, anything of the sort. And I'm sure
you're a nice girl. But your article made me furious. After I read
it, I probably called you some names and celebrated the bashing you were
beginning to receive from all corners of the internet. I could apologize
for those actions and ill-feelings toward you, but I'm not sure how sincere an
apology would be, seeing as how the words that you wrote (and that many people
seem to agree with) still sting me and many of the people I care about. All
of us--my peers, my classmates, you, I--worked hard to be where we are, and we
will go on to become fabulous physicians, lawyers, i-bankers,
actresses...whatever we decide.
But I suppose I should thank you. You've inspired me to lay aside the
jokes about how Harvard and Vanderbilt must have picked me to meet a minority
quota. Your article gives me motivation to work hard, just to make sure
I'm proving you wrong every second that I'm in medical school. And I'm
sure that others like me feel the same.
The bottom line is this: I deserve to be where I am. And in a weird,
twisted way, Miss Siskind, you've opened my eyes wide to that fact.
