A black columnist named Tonyaa Weathersbee responded to a Boston Globe article about a black law student named Adam Hunter, who shunned the Democratic party to become a Republican, and the title of her column is anything but subtle: Young Black Republicans Want to Trade One Plantation for Another.
Hunter is a product of the post-Civil Rights era and says he doesn’t owe the Democratic party his vote. This is part of a trend. According to a 2002 survey conducted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 63 percent of blacks self-identified as Democrats (down from 74 percent in 2000), 24 percent self-identified as Independents (up from 20 percent in 2000) and 10 percent self-identified as Republicans (up from 4 percent in 2000).
Regardless of how they self-identify, 90 percent of black voters choose Democrats, the same party that created legal segregation, also known as Jim Crow, and opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
While Weathersbee concedes that blacks shouldn’t give their allegiance to only one political party, she accuses Republicans of “undoing the progress and the sacrifices that led to the opportunities that Hunter and other young blacks now take for granted.”
“Undoing the progress” is code for opposing race preferences, euphemistically called affirmative action. To liberals like Weathersbee, black progress can’t occur without it. Little did our forbears realize that as they fought to dismantle government-mandated racial discrimination, to be equal before the law, and to gain the right to be judged as individuals, 40 years later their children and grandchildren would fight to maintain government-mandated racial discrimination, acquire skin color privileges before the law, and forfeit the right to be judged as individuals. It’s a well-worn cliche, but true: those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Affirmative action is a wolf dressed as an innocent and well-intentioned sheep. The term was first used by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. President Lyndon B. Johnson followed up with an Executive Order in 1965, which stated that federal contractors were to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants were treated equally “without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” They were encouraged to cast a wider recruitment net to include in the hiring pool qualified minorities who’d been historically excluded. That, and only that, is affirmative action.
The concept as we know it today evolved from a policy set forth by President Richard M. Nixon. In 1971 he authorized the Department of Labor to set specific goals and timetables to correct the “underutilization” of blacks by federal contractors. It seems that blacks were failing employment tests in high numbers, so in some cases the tests were changed. Today, Republicans are demonized for opposing race preferences, but it was a Republican who institutionalized them in the first place. The irony is almost comical.
In violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Constitution, our government, founded upon principles of freedom and fairness, continues to discriminate against some and prefer others based on race. To black liberals, this is “progress.”
Judging the merit of an individual based on his group membership is entrenched in our government. Adolph Hitler had the same idea. He decided that Aryans were the superior race and the entire Jewish race was unfit to live, so he killed a few million. What Hitler did was extreme, but race preferences are based on the same principle: the rights of the group dictate the rights of its members.
But this isn’t Nazi Germany. Each American should be judged for who he is and not which racial group he belongs to. Embodied in our law is the idea that an individual has dignity and worth, and justice demands that we be given opportunity as individuals. Somewhere between the end of legal segregation and now, we lost sight of this fundamental idea.
America’s sordid Jim Crow history has come full circle. Racial discrimination was once harmful to blacks, and that was bad. Racial discrimination is now beneficial to blacks, and this is considered good. Why? I wish I knew. For blacks to embrace racial classifications in government hiring and admissions is to betray what Civil Rights martyrs were hoping to achieve: the guarantee of constitutional rights for all Americans.
We haven’t always lived up to that principle, but it doesn’t mean we should abandoned it. Government-mandated race preferences were wrong when they benefited whites, and they’re wrong now. America’s sordid history is repeating itself.
Update: Star Parker:
But, I was very disappointed with the president’s rhetoric about race….Permitting himself to give credence to the notion that black poverty of recent years in New Orleans reflects racial discrimination and lack of opportunity was anything but an act of compassion toward blacks. He is either uninformed, which of course is troubling, or willing to bury truth for political ends, which is also troubling.
See Bush the Sugar Daddy.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 29 comments }
I read the article, painful as it was to do so. It’s hard to imagine more faulty logic being crammed into so few words.
The message seemed to be: “Just follow the crowd, don’t think, and don’t ask questions.”
La Shawn:
I missed you this weekend.
Thanks for comments on race.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Plantation is more restrictive than the Republica Plantation – which accepts more diversity of thought.
Unfortunately, President Bush invited Blacks from New Orleans onto another Plantation – the “recovery” Plantation of Federal largess from the taxes of mostly White people – taxed by force.
This isn’t freedom – it’s slavery.
The best thing the federal government can do to help people is to stop trying to help people.
La Shawn, it is the year 2005. There are no miscegenation laws in effect. We have a population that can check several boxes on the census form. Affirmitive action should be history.
LaShawn,
I have read many essays about ending racial preferences, but your words here are by far the most eloquent and sensible I have seen. I bow deeply.
La Shawn, it’s good to hear your thoughts on this-I guess I keep hoping that color will someday be as unremarkable as whether someone is left handed or not. I’ve made the statement:”Think about race too much, and you can become a racist.” Maybe in a couple of more generations we’ll be closer to achieving “race blindness”-something to pray about.
I’ve been told, by some well-meaning people, that a colorblind society is not something we should have. That is difficult to understand. Why would we want to continue stuffing people into pigeonholes by race? To what ultimate end?
It is both difficult and confusing to discuss the concept of affirmative action. The term affirmative action has two seperate and mutually exclusive meanings. The original meaning of AA, was equality of opportunity, or outreach. The meaning since the Supreme Court decision of the early ‘Seventies has been equality of outcome, or disparte outcome, or simple terms racial quotas.
It has been virtually impossible to express opposition to the latter version, racial quotas, without being blasted for opposing the original version, equality of opportunity.
#7 RedBeard, I think your well-meaning friends just want to avoid the other extreme of treating everyone as “generic person” with no unique differences. Like you say, pigeonholing is wrong. Maybe colorblind just isn’t a good enough descriptor….hm, not finding the right words…
Guess I might try again later if I can untangle the thoughts.
In the meantime, we can ponder the lyrics to DC Talk’s song, ‘Colored People.’ http://www.lyricsdepot.com/dc-talk/colored-people.html
The thing that puzzles me as a conservative is why Blacks would bother to jump ship and join the GOP. After all, under Bush the GOP has become the party of irresponsible spending, race preferences, corporate welfare, and wide open borders. In other words, Democrats.
Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark. LOL LOL
I look at the wayward Republicans as possibly redeemable, but the Dems are beyond all hope.
FL Mom, I see your point. But there must be a line somewhere between honoring our various origins and using racial differences to divide.
If we are going on the notion that racism doesn’t exist, then we can agree with Star and Lashawn.
But nobody wants to express that view.
Affirmative Action is designed to attack racism, attacking those who participate in this evil. Of course the fear (white americans toward black americans) in the shift of power (the factor at play here) is the factor behind the vigorous attacks on AA.
Instead of focusing on issue, which barely touches the lives of many Americans, we should focus on health care, corporate welfare, and all the other scandals that rock our industry, increase our cost, and take away our pensions.
That should be the focus. I wonder why it is not?
John Ray has just posted a comment on his Gun Watch. Scotland is the most violent country, even more so than the USA according to a UN Survey.
But how would President Bush explain this crime wave, like he explained the crime wave in New Orleans – due to “racial injustice”.
Perhaps White Scots are “unjust” to other White Scots. This is “White on White” racial injustice.
Antisocial Scots and Americans have something in common – they are victims of “racial injustice” – President Bush said so.
“If we are going on the notion that racism doesn’t exist, then we can agree with Star and Lashawn.”
I know racism exists, and still I agree with La Shawn and Star.
“Affirmative Action is designed to attack racism, attacking those who participate in this evil. Of course the fear (white americans toward black americans) in the shift of power (the factor at play here) is the factor behind the vigorous attacks on AA.”
I support equal opportinity, so I find it rather bizarre to see that I’m accused (in group-think terms) of fearing black people, and that such fear is the reason for opposing the overt racism of affirmative action.
Going from the democrats to the republicans is like going from crack to cocaine.
What is so sad about affirmative action is how little it does to help the truly poor, how it adversely affects those who are its beneficiaries, and how balkanizing and corrupting it is for our society as a whole. Not too many people have the guts to take it on…..Kudos to those who think as individuals, and refuse to place themselves in a box!
La Shawn, Rush had a really good caller today from… Brooklyn, I think. She was a black lady who basically said everything you said. I really enjoyed her call and maybe Rush has it on his website.
If the government wants to give people reasons to envy and mistrust others they should treat races differently.
Oh, yeah, they already do that.
#15, Mr. Zavisca, Sir: Scotland is not all ‘Scot’ anymore. Scotland now is a very multi-cultural part of Great Britain with a significant percent of its population immigrant within the last generation or two. Whether its high violent crime rate existed before the multi-cultural influx or if it was even due to it is not known to me. I would bet also; it is not known to you.
What happened to that dream of Martin Luther King’s, in which people were judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”?
Of course, so many Democrats fall short on the content-of-character scale…
Why is it that the people who hate affirmative action the most are conservative blacks and mediocre white men?
American industry has prospered in the years since affirmative action was initiated, and the standard of living has increased across the board. And the fact is, white households have benefited the most because white females have been allowed to thrive.
I know many of you would prefer the pre-AA days, when the quota for blacks was zero and you didn’t have to compete. Quit crying and go into business for yourself.
I wish I knew why blacks accept lowered standards as a way of life. America was prospering long before race preferences and would continue to do so without taking skin color into considering when hiring and promoting people. I don’t know what country you’ve been living in or where you get your information. If you want to accept the white man’s pity and handouts, go ahead. Second-class citizienship in this new Jim Crow era is here to stay, and blacks like you ought to be content, but you’re not. I’ve had enough of your complaints about conservatism on this blog. This blog is run by a black conservative who hates skin color preferences, and I’m not too fond of people who are deluded into thinking it’s a good thing. Before I lose my temper more than I have, I think you should take a break from commenting on LBC. – Admin
AA is a lousy idea, just like almost every other failed liberal plan to “help” people. It’s socially divisive in nature and ultimately detrimental to the very people it’s supposed to benefit.
Sincerely,
Mediocre White Man
RedBeard;
I was just sitting here wondering how anyone could determine the ‘mediocrity quotient’ of those opposing affirmative action….Now I know…Thanks for self identifying. Otherwise, I’d have been confused.
Mediocrity is a socio-economic quagmire for white men. Maybe we mediocre guys need an affirmative action plan of our own……..
Mediocre is vague to the point of useless. Sort of like Homer Simpson referring to something as stupid. Do you suppose brother b meant, gasp, blue collar? Perhaps he meant that equal under the law is a concept of middling value. At least you aren’t bad, if not exactly exceptional. His comment was valueless insult, but it inadvertinently spoke volumes about the relative worth of the toxic policies he supports.
RedBeard;
The only thing mediocre about you is your ability to be ‘mediocre’…..:)
My memory of affirmative action’s first years (I’m 56) is twofold:
One, that it was supposed to apply only to companies and institutions with a legally proven history of discrimination, not just to a lopsided racial mix that could have many benign reasons.
And two, that even those who voluntarily took up affirmative action would apply it only when all other factors were equal, e.g. if a number of EQUALLY qualified candidates were white and one was black, the nod would go to the black candidate.
These two factors seemed reasonable at the time to many people. It was only as time went by that quotas, coercive diversity and hiring poorly qualified applicants based upon skin color began happening.
Redbeard, jan, nardo, repj et al and of course La Shawn: ba-da-boom! Good comments all.
Ciao
Wish you were here, Andy.
Comments on this entry are closed.