On Tuesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) denounced affirmative action by arguing that it’s “a demeaning process” that says “we do not have the intelligence to be part of this process, meritocracy, so we’re going to give you a 50-yard head start. And, at some point, it begins to wear down in terms of the confidence people have in themselves” and denounced the message sent by only applying affirmative action to academia, but not other areas like physical ability.
Owens stated, “This is the last piece of systemic racism that came from the old school, the days in which people looked at their intelligence…based on their skin color. And this is something we’ve been dealing with for quite a while. Keep in mind, with affirmative action, you never think of affirmative action when it comes down to physical [prowess]. When was the last time you said, well, we’re going to get — we’re going to make sure that the basketball player is a white guy or is a black guy because of how I want to do? It’s only in the area of intelligence, and it’s been going on way too long. And what it does, it’s a demeaning process, by which they’re saying, in essence, black people — and this is where it all started — black people cannot compete, we do not have the intelligence to be part of this process, meritocracy, so we’re going to give you a 50-yard head start. And, at some point, it begins to wear down in terms of the confidence people have in themselves and whether they can compete or not.”
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