Posted on 05/07/2002 8:50:54 AM PDT by GSWarrior
May is time for ethnic celebration. Cinco De Mayo is just one day. But the whole month is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Get out the egg rolls, and let's party!
In government offices at the state and local levels, events that mix culture and history will take place throughout the month. (I'm speaking at an event at Lawrence Livermore Lab next week).
But if the prevailing attitude of the Racial Privacy Initiative takes over, they won't be happening for long.
The RPI means RIP for such festivities, and, by law, government workers will be left with a May known as (CENSORED)-American Heritage Month, a month dedicated to all the (CENSORED)-American people in our community.
Sound like good, clean American fun?
Just don't call it race censorship.
It's the world of race privacy, the latest scam from the mind of Ward Connerly. He's black, but apparently that's his business and no one else's. The man who gave us Prop. 209, the so-called Civil Rights Initiative, which in reality outlawed government-based affirmative action in the state in 1996, has returned with the next phase in his color-blinding of California.
Connerly's collected nearly a million signatures in support of the initiative, and it could be on the ballot as early as this November. At this stage, a Field Poll taken last week showed that nearly 48 percent of California's voters back the measure.
The idea is simple and extremely deceptive in its appeal.
If it were passed, the Race Privacy Initiative would ban any classification by race. Proud about being Hispanic? Black? Asian? Keep it to yourself. No one would care anymore. And no one would ask you. No more questions on state forms. No more of those "check the box" items. The new initiative would, if signed into law, force you to put a bag over your head (hopefully, not a brown one, but a nice neutral color) -- and make it against the law for anyone to peek.
The basic pitch is privacy, and, in these days, when there seems to be so little of it, it's a winning ploy.
"Tired of being asked?" Connerly's American Civil Rights Coalition muses on its Web site. "It seems like every time we fill out a government form, the snooping bureaurcracy wants to know: 'What are you? What's your race?' Why should it matter to the government?"
Even I am lured by that pitch.
I hate checking the box on government forms, but less out of concern for my privacy and more because of my desire for accuracy. As a Filipino American with a Spanish surname, I'm a demographer's nightmare. Asian? Hispanic? On the census, I mark "other" and write-in "Aspanic."
But race information is more helpful than not. A short time ago, your humble columnist was stopped by a police officer for speeding. Principles of the free market do not extend to driving. After the standard ticketing process, the officer asked me about my race. I was totally taken aback by the question -- angry, even (though perhaps I was more angered by the speeding ticket). Later, after successfully contesting the ticket in court (the officer hadn't used a calibrated radar gun), I learned that having law enforcement ask the racial question is the only way for the government to find out whether, over a period of time, the law stopped ethnic drivers more than whites. If we drive while color-blind, how will we know whether the CHP is protecting our rights or violating them?
Race privacy would not only affect affirmative action -- it would also seriously hamper efforts to research the profiling issue, or any policy issue. Little wonder, then, that researchers and policy analysts have been among those most critical of the initiative so far. Doing government-funded research on heart disease in the community? You wouldn't be able to ask your subjects about race or ethnic background. Research on poverty? Employment? Housing? You name it. Any possible inquiry impacted by race or ethnicity would be stymied.
Of course, without knowing race and ethnicity, how could we have identified such simple public-health issues as the Asian-American community's tendency toward high blood pressure?
Race privacy would make it impossible to uncover the changing needs of the state. Send in English-speaking doctors to administer to the newly arrived Hmong? Do we need native speakers or translators in certain areas? How will we know?
To paraphrase that old Clintonian phrase, "It's the data, stupid."
Connerly says you can get what you need from the census. But you certainly wouldn't find the specific data of particular individuals involved in unique studies. In his desire to kill affirmative action, a highly targeted approach to remedying disparities in education and employment, Connerly gets rid of race as a factor in just about everything else.
The Racial Privacy Initiative says to the growing ethnic majority population of California, "The less we know about you, the better. Just as you become the dominant force in the state, go hide under a rock. And stay there."
In the old days, society could merely ignore ethnic populations. Now, under the cover of "privacy," Connerly makes knowing nothing about ethnic communities seem less discriminatory than it really is.
Ah, color blindness. What a wonderful world it would be, filled with ignorance and invisibility, two essential ingredients for racism. That's the ultimate outcome of Connerly's deceptive vision.
Actually, considering that the vast majority of people living in the US are here because they were escaping poverity, oppression, repression, discrimination, injustice, or some other ill perpetrated by their country of origin, why would anyone want to celebrate where they came from. Let's celebrate being Americans.
I think it's a Canadian thing -- takes place on the day after Christmas.
Might have something to do with working out all those family holiday tensions. <|:)~
I have never thought about it like that - that is a good one. Chip
If you want on (or off) my black conservative bump list, let me know...
I guess little Emil can only whine and moan about that "mean, old" Mr. Connerly.
I totally agree. In my ideal world we would be celebrating what unites us, instead of what makes us different.
California dreamin.
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