*** Updates already! Keep scrolling ***

Ohhhh…White liberal Joe Biden’s gonna catch it for calling Barack “He speaks so well!” Obama “clean.”

It’s not that big a deal really (he probably meant clean as in scandal-free), but unfortunately, people (bloggers?) will jump all over it. Some blacks will be offended because Biden’s statement implies that “articulate,” “bright,” and “clean” (hygienically speaking) blacks are unusual.

Obama has been all over the press. Mainstream media has got him running for the presidency in 2008, and he’s the great black hope of white liberals everywhere. Last year — and in 2004 when he ran for the U.S. Senate — I speculated that white folks were fawning over Obama because he was one of those articulate Negroes. His publicist is also responsible for the hype, I’m sure. Obama recently wrote a second book about his life. If I had the money, I’d hire his publicist.

Continue reading Barack Obama: The Clean Negro

Thursday, February 8: Ward Connerly responds to commenters’ accusations of hypocrisy.
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Note: How could I have forgotten to link to Heather Mac Donald’s must-read article, “Elites to Anti-Affirmative-Action Voters: Drop Dead”? She writes:

After Prop. 209’s passage, UC Berkeley, like the rest of the UC system, “went through a depression figuring out what to do,” says Robert Laird, Berkeley’s pro-preferences admissions director from 1993 to 1999. The system’s despair was understandable. It had relied on wildly unequal double standards to achieve its smattering of “underrepresented minorities,” especially at Berkeley and UCLA, the most competitive campuses. The median SAT score of blacks and Hispanics in Berkeley’s liberal arts programs was 250 points lower (on a 1,600-point scale) than that of whites and Asians. This test-score gap was hard to miss in the classroom. Renowned Berkeley philosophy professor John Searle, who judges affirmative action “a disaster,” recounts that “they admitted people who could barely read.”

The downward trajectory of those students was inevitable, Searle says. “You’d be delighted to find that your introductory philosophy class looked like the United Nations, but that salt-and-pepper effect was lost after six to eight weeks,” he recalls. “There was a huge dropout rate of affirmative-action admits in my classes by mid-terms. No one had taught them the need to go to class. So we started introducing BS majors, in an effort to make the university ready for them, rather than making them ready for the university.” Searle recalls a black studies class before his that was “as segregated as Mississippi in the 1950s.” One day, Searle recounts, the professor had written on the blackboard that a particular tribe in Africa “wore colorful clothing.”

Read it all, and applaud measures like Proposition 209 and Proposal 2.

Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity put in a freedom of information request and found out what’s really going on at the government-supported University of Michigan.

Yes! Ban racial profiling…including racial profiling in government hiring and admissions. (Hat tip: Discriminations)

*** Scroll down for updates***

Continue reading Has ‘White Guilt’ Run Its Course?

No More Raid; Roaches Reportedly Happy

Last month I wrote about the federal government’s raid on Swift & Company, a meatpacking business that knowingly hires illegal aliens in violation of the law. It was showy theatrics that made for good photo ops.

The raid was the result of an identity fraud investigation, a new strategy in the “fight” to curb illegal “immigration.” The feds have decided, apparently, since they can’t round up and deport illegal aliens and penalize companies that hire them, going after select illegal aliens for identity theft is the next best thing.

Well, I can’t argue with that. Even if I did, the effort would be pointless. The United States is not interested in expelling its cheap labor force, an underclass that commits a disproportionate share of crimes and dicatates who can come and go in certain neighborhoods in Los Angeles County.

Having your identity stolen is unpleasant, I’m sure, and getting illegal aliens for identity fraud is killing two birds with one stone.

This morning I found out about a new program called “ICE (which stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Mutual Agreement Between Government and Employers” (IMAGE) via an Associated Press story. (Pet peeve: It’s bad form to use abbreviations and acronyms without writing out the entire name first, which the AP neglected to do.)

It seems the feds are “quietly” trying to “persuade” businesses that hire illegal aliens in violation of the law to “spare” themselves from “embarrassing federal raids” by cooperating and voluntarily handing over employee documents, including employees authorized to work in the U.S. An excerpt from the AP:

Continue reading Illegal Alien-Hiring Businesses ‘Volunteer’ for IMAGE

Last week I told you about a cool four-disc special edition of the movie The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I mentioned what was included — two featurettes called “Creating Narnia” and “Creatures, Lands and Legends,” a documentary about the film’s production, a 75-minute documentary on C.S. Lewis, author of the fabulous stories, additional scenes, and a 10-page companion guide — and how much the collection costs: $33. (Last week it was $30.)

Disney will discontinue the four-disc special on January 31, 2007, but Amazon and other retailers will continue selling it while supplies last. Don’t miss out! (Am I subtle or what? Disney isn’t paying me [wish it were], but I am an Amazon Associate.)

For more info about the movie, see the post “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Four-Disc Special Edition.”

*** As usual, questions below the fold. Keep reading! ***

According to Marin County, California, developers must include “affordable housing” in any development plan with two or more “market-rate” houses.

Residents of Strawberry, an affluent community in Marin County, oppose the requirement. Specifically, they oppose the local Habitat for Humanity’s (a “Christian” organization? Yeah, right…) efforts to build so-called low-income housing in their neighborhood. (Source)

[Clarification: Habitat for Humanity’s work is admirable. Don’t misunderstand me. The issue isn’t what the charitable organziation does. It’s the county’s affordable housing requirement.]

Reasons cited: traffic congestion, parking issues, and concern about lowered property values. The unspoken reason is this one: We don’t want those people in the neighborhood.

If I lived in an affluent neighborhood, I’d feel the same way. This is an issue of class, not color.

Before I continue, let me say this up front and get it out of the way: I’m speaking in generalities. I recognize that there are exceptions to every rule, but the exception doesn’t disprove or negate the rule.

Generally speaking, people who work to save money to buy a house (and work hard to buy a nice house) appreciate it and the neighborhood in ways that people who don’t work to save money to buy a house don’t. It’s the difference between having a long-term outlook and a willingness to delay gratification, and an in-the-moment view of life and a focus on short-term pleasures. Saving money requires discipline and good financial planning. These qualities are correlated with other qualities you’d want in a neighbor.

Continue reading A ‘Right’ to Affordable Housing

Tuesday, January 30: This post is closed to commenting. Continue the discussion at Has “White Guilt” Run Its Course?

Update II: Affirmative action for pastors?

Update: Commenter Michael Burrow writes:

“If we want to keep AA [t]hen it should go full circle. I want to see the rough percentages of our population on all the sports teams, both professional and college. That way nobody is left out. It’s not my fault that I was born a slow white man with no athletic talent.”

Later…In response to Proposal 2, the law that bars race and sex preferences in government hiring and admissions, the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, created the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. It’s a way to get around the law, but it will have unintended consequences. An administrator at the Equal Opportunity Office said the designation disadvantaged could refer to any business, without regard to the color of the owner’s skin.

Writes John Rosenberg, “Imagine that! The ‘Equal Opportunity Office’ has discovered that equal opportunity can be promoted without racial discrimination!”

Continue reading Supreme Court to Race Preference Proponents: Scram!

Friday, February 2: Post is closed to commenting. Resume discussion at the latest post.

(Update: If it wasn’t clear before, it should be clear now: Mike Nifong, disgraced Durham County district attorney, is in serious trouble. Also, in addition to James Waller [pictured with lawyer Barry Scheck], I should have mentioned Cory Maye. A few bloggers on “the right” have covered his case, including The Volokh Conspiracy and libertarian Radley Balko.

Later…Linwood Wilson, Nifong’s investigator, is quite a character. He’s the subject of ethics complaints, too. Some team Nifong had.

A few months back, Wilson publicly challenged a statement made by the defense, and all it did was reveal his own ignorance. He was unfamiliar with the case files, and had the nerve to publicly criticize someone quite familiar with them. What a dope. More blog stuff here.)

Columnist David Hawpe makes a good point in his latest column about the Duke case, “On wrongful prosecutions, the right engages in selective outrage.” He wonders why “the right” isn’t just as vocal or as outraged when blacks are falsely accused of obviously phony crimes. He calls our outrage selective.

Is he correct? Is there a bit of unnatural selection going on?

Before I deal with the substance of the piece, allow me to point out to Mr. Hawpe that his column’s title just as easily could have been, “On wrongful prosecutions, the left engages in selective support and reverence for prosecutors and the police.” But tit-for-tat doesn’t get us very far.

Continue reading Duke Rape Case: Unnatural Selection on Both Sides?

Secession.

What a loaded word. Its soothing sibilant sounds mask a rebellious meaning, almost diverting attention from its unequivocal connotations: separate, disassociate, abandon…

Whenever I hear the word secession, I think of my home state of South Carolina, the first to secede from the Union back in the day. Disenchanted with the federal government over slavery, taxes, free trade, state’s rights — whichever you prefer — South Carolina withdrew from the United States. When the South lost the war and slavery was abolished, old SC had to concede.

Secession will always be associated with race in our minds.

Have you heard the news? Some residents of Fulton County, Georgia, want to secede and become a separate county. As it turns out, the side that wants to split is “predominantly white” and “affluent.”

A secession of the wealthier part of Fulton County would leave the rest without its significant tax base, and poor black neighborhoods likely would suffer. Secessionists say Fulton County is “too large, and certainly too dysfunctional.” It’s about money. Twenty-nine percent of the population pays 42 percent of its property taxes to run the local government, and if residents get their wish, the country stands to lose a wad of cash.

The people paying the most taxes want true representation in their government. Nothing wrong with that. They’re tired of the huge transfer of wealth, a redistribution of their hard-earned money to a myriad of social programs and services they don’t use or need. They’re fed up with a government unresponsive to their needs. But the debate to secede will be tinged with race, unfortunately.

Continue reading Secession: What’s Color Got To Do With It?

What a race conscious bunch we are!

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was supposed to end government-mandated discrimination based on attributes like race and sex, but in subsequent years since the Act’s passage, policies like race preferences slithered in.

Despite the plain language of the law, government agencies, including the one charged with carrying out the Act’s directives, practice discrimination in hiring based on race.

But who cares about those fussy details?

I’m waiting for some white lawmaker, preferably a liberal one, to take race-based congressional caucuses to task. Publicly. I doubt it’ll happened, but one can hope.

I was surprised to see a headline like “Black Caucus: Whites Not Allowed.” Then I realized the story appeared in a new publication called The Politico, which covers Capitol Hill. The Politico isn’t what you’d call mainstream, but as a new creature on the block, its agenda is yet to be known. It probably leans more to the left than right, but one can hope.

The article is a brief write-up about white Congressman Stephen I. Cohen’s futile attempt to join the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). I haven’t done any research on the particulars, but I doubt very seriously that the CBC or any other race-focused, taxpayer-supported committee can exclude members based on the color of their skin. An excerpt of the article:

Continue reading Solution to the “No Whites Allowed” Black Caucus Problem