We all want to be the “best.” It’s our nature. If we can’t be the best in the world, we’ll take the best within a group. The best American short story of 2004. The best lawyer in the firm. The best performer of the year. As long as it’s an honor, we don’t mind being the best. When it comes to performances, writing, litigation skills, etc., it’s an honor to be called the best. But when the word “best” is followed by “minority” or “black”, the insidiousness of skin color preferences has tainted the process.
I’ve written a few columns about the double standard of race preferences, so my opinion is on record.
The American Advertising Federation sponsors an annual “Most Promising Minority Students Program”, where black and Hispanic students are called accomplished, talented, the best and the brightest…for blacks and Hispanics.
Columnist Jeff Jacoby borrows the term “best black” syndrome from Stephen Carter, who wrote Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby. Check out some of Carter’s writings.
Quoting Carter, Jacoby writes:
“We are measured,” he wrote, “by a different yardstick: first black, only black, best black. The best black syndrome is cut from the same cloth as the implicit and demeaning tokenism that often accompanies racial preferences: ‘Oh, we’ll tolerate so-and-so at our hospital or in our firm or on our faculty, because she’s the best black.’ Not because she’s the best-qualified candidate, but because she’s the best-qualified black candidate. She can fill the black slot. And then the rest of the slots can be filled in the usual way: with the best-qualified candidates.”
Jacoby makes the point that the competition excludes more than 70 percent of the field (presumably white students). But of course that’s the point of the competition.
The purpose is to fulfill a politically correct mandate and to raise self-esteem by showering accolades and praise on “minority” students. Does it matter to these students that they aren’t actually the best in their field, just the best for blacks and Hispanics? Are they insulted by this “honor”, as I would be? Probably not. That’s the kind of world we live in now.
Jacoby sums it up for me: “Black and Hispanic Americans would rise and overcome as well if only they could be liberated from the condescending mind-set that thinks it’s a compliment to tell a group of college seniors that they show great promise — for minorities.”
The students feel good about themselves. And that’s the important thing, right?
