Hispanics make up about 13.3 percent of the population — and I’d wager that more than a few illegal aliens, who are not supposed to be here, are represented in that number — surpassing blacks (about 13 percent) as the largest minority group.
For the past 30 years or so, blacks have enjoyed preferred minority status, ostensibly to make up for past injustices like slavery and government-mandated racial segregation. Hispanics, who were never slaves in the U.S., are staking a claim on preferred minority status.
Hispanic groups are coming out in full force, demanding their piece of the skin color entitlement pie. See “Hispanic groups blast OPM.” They represent 7.4 percent of the federal workforce, while blacks make up 17.4 percent (”No fair!”). Download the comically titled Federal Equal Opportunity Program Annual Report to the Congress for fiscal year 2005 (PDF).
Proportionately speaking, hispanics are underrepresented in the federal government, while blacks are overrepresented. Ironically, blacks are grossly overrepresented (a whopping 44.3 percent) in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the bloated and unnecessary agency charged with enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But proportionality is an unsustainable way to measure “equal opportunity”; it’s nothing more than a thinly disguised quota system that must discriminate against one race to make room for another. Let’s face it, resources are limited, and as long as the U.S. government sanctions skin color preferences, so-called minority groups will try to grab the goods.
I’ve blogged ad nauseam about skin color preferences. I don’t want to reinvent the microchip in this post, so I’ve linked to related posts below. But I’ll say this: Somewhere along the affirmative action line, reaching out to hire, promote, and admit underrepresented races based on the same criteria as the rest was replaced by hiring, promoting, and admitting underrepresented races based on lowered, less rigorous standards. Racial proportionality by any means necessary became the goal.
[Note: At what point did the idea of proportional representation come into play? If you support proportional racial representation, why do you believe it’s a laudable and/or necessary goal? I’m deeply curious.]
The “past injustices” argument, once a noble proposition, has become a laughably oblique screed used to help disguise or downplay underachievement and justify government-mandated “reverse” racial discrimination and its attendant immoral transfer of wealth.
It is wrong to treat people differently because of their race, a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. That clause does not guarantee equal outcomes. No policy can or ever will guarantee equal outcomes. The idea that everybody must have the same stuff and that every profession must reflect the proportionate racial make-up of the country or else racism is involved is idiotic, illogical, and unworkable. But the notion is entrenched, and the ignorance is passed on from one generation to the next.
The government is already trending toward bestowing preferred minority status on hispanics, for whom affirmative action was not created. Blacks who support and rely on race preferences — particularly for skin color-based government contracts and college admissions — and reject fair and consistent standards of performance will live to regret it.
They’ll get a mouthful of their own bitter medicine, and I’m going to enjoy watching them swallow it, especially since they’re powerless to stop it and have no moral authority to claim that it’s “unfair.”
Reconstruction is over.
Related posts:
This morning, La Shawn wrote about Hispanics itching to get a share of the entitlements which historically were reserved for blacks (“people of color†in PC-speak). Her entire article is worth reading.
Pingback by Cogent Reflections — 08.18.06 @ 10:50 am
Good points La Shawn!
You might want to go even farther, and point out very explicitly what you already allude to: they will reap what they sow, and they are not going to like it one bit…
Cultural degradation in the form of loss of work ethic, dependency, and general malaise, not to mention the increasing role of gangs in their society’s youth.
http://cogentreflections.com/2006/08/18/reaping-what-you-sow/
Comment by Charles — 08.18.06 @ 10:51 am
LaShawn, I generally agree with you on race preferences, but I’m going to take issue with the quotes around “past injustices”. Surely you don’t mean to suggest that slavery and Jim Crow were not in actuality unjust? In your second sentence I would instead place the quotes around the phrase “make up for”, to imply that reverse discrimination does not and cannot make up for past wrongs in any sense.
Also, I think you misspoke towards the end of the “ad nauseam” paragraph. It seems to me from your previous arguments here that racial proportionality [sic] was originally used as a justification for race preferences, but is conveniently discarded (as opposed to being enforced by any means necessary) in cases like the EEOC. All we are left with is the double standard.
I enjoy reading you as always.
Comment by FzxGkJssFrk — 08.18.06 @ 11:15 am
Ms. Barber: As the product of an extensive Jesuit education, I always enjoy seeing the judicious use of a little Latin in people’s prose, but, forgive me, I must again correct your otherwise most recent laudable attempt to keep Latin alive. In your article on Hispanic representation in the Federal workforce, you use the phrase “ad nauseum.” The correct phrase is “ad nauseam.” In Latin, “nausea” is a feminine noun, not neuter or masculine, as would be indicated by the “-um” ending in the accusative case.
Comment by Michael F. Kiely — 08.18.06 @ 11:52 am
You know, I thought I spelled it incorrectly, but I ignored the spell-check warning. Thanks, Michael!
Comment by La Shawn — 08.18.06 @ 11:58 am
As usual, you take a logical approach. The liberals aren’t going to like that.
Comment by Ol' BC — 08.18.06 @ 12:34 pm
Blacks who support and rely on race preferences — particularly for skin color-based government contracts and college admissions — and reject fair and consistent standards of performance will live to regret it.
How will they regret it? Won’t it force blacks to become more self sufficient and thus more successful? Won’t blacks then appreciate not being catered to as much?
Comment by Shade — 08.18.06 @ 2:38 pm
Won’t it force blacks to become more self sufficient and thus more successful?
In the long run, perhaps. In the short run, it’ll be a shock to the system. There will be gnashing of teeth.
Won’t blacks then appreciate not being catered to as much?
In theory, perhaps. In reality, some blacks like being catered to. They like being treated differently based on race, as long as the treatment is favorable. This is “good” discrimination. They definitely will not like losing preferred status to hispanics, which is “bad” discrimination.
Comment by La Shawn — 08.18.06 @ 2:47 pm
Racial preferences and grouping people for the purposes of establishing quotas and so on is why so many on the left are supportive of large scale, out of control immigration. Hispanics (along with Blacks) are much more likely to have ethnocentic tendencies. People who think of themselves as members of a group first, and an aggrieved group at that, are much easier to manipulate and more likely to vote as a bloc. Ergo the desire on the left to dilute the influence of white voters through the importation of new, more malleable future voters.
Now, can someone explain to me why George Bush and Republican leadership are so enthusiastic to bring on their own dispossession?
Comment by Gary — 08.18.06 @ 4:42 pm
When you think about this, preferential treatment for Hispanics is ridiculous. Hispanics are, historically, white. Most of the people streaming across the border are actually Amerindian. Spaniards are white. They were also imperialist conquistadors, and their Latin American descendants are benefiting from their conquest of the New World, as are those of us in North America. Black Africans did not come here voluntarily - they were chattel.
I am Hispanic/Latina on my dad’s side. What amazes me is that growing up in the 60s and 70s, we were “white.” Now, the race baiters and victimology advocates are trying to create a new “race.” Ricky Ricardo? White. Rita Hayworth? White. Cameron Diaz? White. Christina Aguilera? White. I can tell you for a fact that if you said that most of the Hispanic “advocates” that LaShawn mentions were anything but white in the country they or their ancestors came from, they would spit in your eye.
Comment by Phoenix — 08.18.06 @ 6:34 pm
Complaints filed with the EEOC, for years, have primarily been age related complaints followed by sexual discrimination complaints.
Reagan defunded the EEOC-like function in the Agriculture Department, the result being discrimination against Black farmers by the Ag Dept.
Comment by DarkStar — 08.18.06 @ 9:05 pm
I am an unreconstructed idiot when it comes to what makes someone a black or a white, so there is clearly no hope for me when it comes to Hispanic.
I notice that the Hezb’Allah are paying displaced Lebanese in the South with a wad of $12,000 in US currency! US currency! If I fly in and say that I am an Hispanic, black, Native American, Irish- Catholic white/black mix, what will they pay me? Will vegan pagan fire-walker up the ante? Should I mention that my children are orphans and that I was a personal friend of the widow of the unknown soldier? What if I tell them I don’t have a satellite dish?
Comment by Heliotrope — 08.18.06 @ 9:42 pm
Phoenix brought up a very interesting point about Hispanics being historically white.
I think the difference between the U.S. and South America is blancamiento (whitening). In the U.S. nothing whitens you. Not money, not social status and in the past, not even if you looked white. Think about the one drop rule where people who physically looked white were labeled black simply because they could trace their lineage to one African ancestor. White in the U.S. seems to strictly apply only to those of European descent (with no mixed blood) but for some reason not Spaniards. Could it be because of the Moores?
Then you have South America where money or lineage whitens you. It doesn’t matter if you’re as dark as the night sky if you’ve go money, you’re considered white. I can’t think of his name, but there’s a soccer player from Brazil that fits this category. He’s physically black, but because he has money, he’s considered white. Not like the U.S. where someone like Bill Cosby is considered a black man with money rather than white.
Comment by Shavonne — 08.18.06 @ 10:01 pm
La Shawn Barber says Brown is the new Black.
Pingback by basil's blog — 08.19.06 @ 7:54 am
I have always thought that Lincoln’s statement in the Gettysburg address where it said, “all men are created equal,” should have been adhered to long, long ago… Now look at the mess we’re in.
Comment by Sharper — 08.19.06 @ 9:52 am
Just a hunch, but don’t blacks born in the USA, know better English - at least those not suckered into Ebonics - than many Hispanic immigrants - and being able to communicate in English being a requirement for most government jobs?
Comment by UNK — 08.19.06 @ 10:22 am
For most federal jobs, I would at least hope one of the requisites would be US citizenship. If so, perhaps the reason for the “under-representation” of hispanics is for one of two reasons:
1. Many are just legal residents and not US citizens.
2. More of the hispanic population is illegal than we assume.
Comment by mark — 08.19.06 @ 10:33 am
I am a true believer they are entitled to a bus ride south of at least 100 miles
Comment by Frank — 08.19.06 @ 11:28 am
I am a true believer they are entitled to a bus ride south of at least 100 miles
Finally, an entitlement program I can support! But wouldn’t it have to be more than 100 miles?
Comment by mark — 08.19.06 @ 5:13 pm
A bitter pill to swallow
Lashawn Barber highlights the irony that affirmative action supporters are now going to have to deal with other minorities whining for race or ethnicity-based entitlements. The past injustices argument, once a noble proposition, has become a laug…
Trackback by insomnomaniac — 08.20.06 @ 9:31 pm
Illegals highjacking Black causes
I have posted here at Right Truth several times on black Americans being upset with illegal aliens (criminal invaders) highjacking their causes. Let me say here that I do not like the term ‘black Americans, or Mexican Americans, or Muslim
Trackback by Right Truth — 08.20.06 @ 11:39 pm
#12
I actually have a “Heliotrope” file on my computer for all of Heliotrope’s gems…..
Comment by jan — 08.21.06 @ 12:03 am
Wel if they want entitlement then why dont they return to mexico and stay there
Comment by BIRDZILLA — 08.22.06 @ 2:52 pm