Jesse Jackson and the Leftists fight for racial equality? Which way is up?

10/02 | Roger Clegg,self

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Roger Clegg;

Question for discussion: When and how should private companies be pressured by other private parties to change corporate policies for political — and especially civil rights — reasons? And how receptive should companies be to such pressure?

As a general matter, it's hard to argue that there's anything wrong with bringing moral pressure to bear on a company that is thought to be acting immorally, even if its actions are perfectly legal. The problem in the civil rights area is that frequently there are conflicting notions of what it is right for the company to do. For instance, in the bad old days, there was social pressure brought to bear on companies by segregationists to discriminate against blacks, even as civil-rights activists were pressuring the companies to treat blacks and whites equally. Now, Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton may demand that a company grant preferences of one sort or another to certain minority groups, which other people — loyal to the colorblind ideal of the earlier civil-rights activists — view as immoral.

Once in a while — a great, great while — a private organization will stand up to politically correct pressure. It happens so rarely that it's hard not to applaud it. Even if you have no particular sympathy with male-only private clubs, you have to love Augusta's Hootie Johnson for his willingness to tell the National Organization of Women to go to hell, and happily sacrifice a ton of advertising revenue for his principles.

Part of the strategy adopted for those seeking reparations is to sue private companies for their involvement in slavery and the slave trade. The claims are of dubious legal merit, but of course the aim is not to win in court but to shake down the companies. Here, too, it's hard not to applaud the companies who are resisting these lawsuits.

Indeed, these companies are more sympathetic than Mr. Johnson. Reasonable people can differ about whether Augusta ought to admit women, but there is no credible legal or moral argument that the plaintiffs in the reparations lawsuits are owed anything…

Jesse Jackson constantly fights for the civil rights and racial inequities of American blacks. The price is always to be paid by free enterprise, the sector of society which ninety five percent of the time created success from the same monetary origin as those Jackson "represents". Why can’t all sectors of society do the same?

There are blacks in society who are achievers (business owners, members of Bush’s administration, MD’s…). As members of the accomplished portion of society, the apparent goal of Jackson and the Leftists, it is in this position that these people are then scorned.

Which way is up?

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

STOP THE LEFTISTS

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