Blacks should feel insulted

Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 6/25/03 | John McWhorter

[NYC Republican]

The Supreme Court's legitimization of pursuing "diversity" in composing a university class is the saddest development in civil rights since the Bakke decision of 1978.

That's no renegade assessment from a "black conservative." The decision ratifies a practice that black Americans themselves overwhelmingly deplore. Too often lost is that while racial preference advocates coo about the importance of "diverse" perspectives in classrooms, black students tend not to appreciate being singled out this way. In a recent issue of Philadelphia Friends Central School's newspaper devoted to diversity, a black teen treats this practice as an example of racism: "It makes you become representative of your race. Anything about black culture, they expect you to know." The undergraduate-written Black Guide to Life at Harvard insists: "We are not here to provide diversity training for Kate or Timmy before they go out to take over the world."

Meanwhile, in poll after poll, black Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of racial preferences. Typical was a poll by the Washington Post that showed 86 percent of blacks opposed. In Black Pride and Black Prejudice, Paul Sniderman and Thomas Piazza report that 90 percent of 756 blacks rejected admitting a black student over a white student when their difference in SAT scores is 25 points. In the Friends Central newspaper issue, a black teacher writes: "I would like to receive praise and awards and not have others consider them to be hand-outs." He sees this as an aspect of racism in his life.

Sure, Monday's decision outlaws quota and point systems, but this is window dressing. Permission to "take race into account" remains, and this phrase is a fig leaf for treating students' skin color as one reason for admitting them over someone else. But this is what most black people do not approve of.

And the decision gives a stamp of approval to a general-thought culture where whites are comfortable assessing black people as headcount-fodder. This leads to episodes like former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair being promoted beyond his capabilities out of a tacit sense that "diversity" was more important than his abilities.

Of course, many insist that racial preferences are about opening doors for people coming up the hard way, as if all but a sliver of black people live hardscrabble existences in 2003. But middle-class students have always benefitted most from preference policies.

"It is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor writes, as if racism somehow blocks even middle-class black students from posting grades and test scores as high as other students.

But it's hard to see bigotry in the white administrators so elated this week that they will be able to continue jerryrigging classes into a suitable level of "diversity." O'Connor's statement tiptoes around the elephant sitting in the middle of the room: Why is it that even well-off black students so rarely hit the highest note in grades and scores?

The answer is a culture-internal tendency, largely tacit but powerful, to associate scholarly endeavor with being "white." This affects black students' performance regardless of class, as countless journalistic reports have demonstrated and UC-Berkeley professor of anthropology John Ogbu's book-length study of the problem now confirms. If we wish to undo that tendency, lowering standards for all black people regardless of life circumstances will only nurture it.

As so often, what passes for civil-rights advocacy today contrasts jarringly with what black thinkers in the past assumed.

Zora Neale Hurston never knew racial preference policies, but once wrote: "It seems to me that if I say a whole system must be upset for me to win, I am saying that I cannot sit in the game, and that safer rules must be made to give me a chance. I repudiate that. If others are in there, deal me a hand and let me see what I can make of it."

"Taking into account" socioeconomics is just in a society riddled with inequality. But Hurston would have deplored middle-class black students being submitted to lowered standards to assuage white guilt. She would be right, and Monday was a dark day for getting past race in this country.

[mhking]

If others are in there, deal me a hand and let me see what I can make of it.

Hurston and others of like-thought from the Harlem Renaissance were far wiser than many give them credit.

Game on...

[Zeppo]

In many ways the shift in thinking by current high-profile "civil rights activists" away from the beliefs of an earlier, wiser generation parallels the shift by virtually the entire Democrat party towards mindless obstructionism and damaging goals, in stark contrast to the beliefs of their idolized predecessors (the visceral hatred that is directed towards anybody who points out the realities of the Kennedy tax cuts comes to mind).

This has led, for example, to the absurdity of people invoking MLK's name to champion policies that institutionalize racism, while demeaning the goals of people such as Ward Connerly whose work would lead to a diminishment of racism.

[Warrior Nurse]

When you read the works of Booker T Washington and Frederick Douglass you find men fighting for the right of self-determinaton and not some benevolent white person helping them up when they scrape their knees. Black people in our nation need to be held accountable and in some case to a higher standard.

When there are no standards chaos ensues e.g. the inner city public school. The so called civil rights leaders have been around for 40+ years and nothing has changed. If you look at the districts of Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Charles Rangel etc. There is a common theme; hopelessness and blame the white man.

I think Chris Rock says it best "When I go to the ATM at night I am not looking for the media or Ted Koppel I am looking out for N-Word. When black folks consider education and good grade to be "acting white" Our ancestors and former slaves that fought and died for the freedoms that we enjoy must be rolling over and flipping in their graves. What did those people die for? This is a pathetic indictment for all of us as Americans.

Think about it!

[mondonico]

Good post. I have to say that lately I've been noticing that the Philadelphia Inquirer, an insufferably liberal paper in an insufferably liberal city (my home town of Philadelphia), has actually been publishing conservative commentators, such as McWhorter, Linda Chavez, and Jonah Goldberg. This, of course, provokes great wailing and knashing of teeth in the Letters section by our resident commies, professional victims, and PC fascists. Although I still don't like the Inquirer much, I'm going to send them an attaboy for at least attempting to provide intellectual diversity.

[Sabertooth]

Thanks for the flag.

If quotas are to be opposed because decisions on admissions/hiring/loans/etc. should not be made on the basis of race or ethnicity, then colorblindness should be the goal and the policy. It's both the end and the means. Valuing "diversity" is not colorblind.

So long as ethnic "diversity" remains a goal, then, at the very least, unwritten quotas will persist. It's specious for anyone to say that it's ok to promote diversty while posing as opposing quotas. It's splitting hairs. It's an attempt to have it both ways. It's patently dishonest. It doesn't pass the smell test. It's Clintonian.

We Republicans need to put our principles where our mouths are, instead of rationalizing why we don't.

What's the point of pretending to sidestep the racial gerrymanderers by playing their game, when the game itself is the problem?

[rdb3]

It's on.

[mvpel]

The undergraduate-written Black Guide to Life at Harvard insists: "We are not here to provide diversity training for Kate or Timmy before they go out to take over the world."

And yet this is exactly the rationale that the defendants and the amicus brief writers used to justify their position.

[Old Sarge]

My 60 pesos (2 cents at the current rate of exchange):

In 2000, the percentage of black voters who voted Socialist was 90%.

In 2002, that same group voted 94% Socialist.

Write them off. Today. It is a waste of time and political capital to ever think that they will leave the plantation.

And, why should we waste said time and capital on only 8% of the vote, anyway? We got the Senate back, and the House, and the Presidency, without them. To hell with the Negro Vote.

[Old Sarge]

My 60 pesos (2 cents at the current rate of exchange):

In 2000, the percentage of black voters who voted Socialist was 90%.

In 2002, that same group voted 94% Socialist.

Write them off. Today. It is a waste of time and political capital to ever think that they will leave the plantation.

And, why should we waste said time and capital on only 8% of the vote, anyway? We got the Senate back, and the House, and the Presidency, without them. To hell with the Negro Vote.

[Old Sarge]

My 60 pesos (2 cents at the current rate of exchange):

In 2000, the percentage of black voters who voted Socialist was 90%.

In 2002, that same group voted 94% Socialist.

Write them off. Today. It is a waste of time and political capital to ever think that they will leave the plantation.

And, why should we waste said time and capital on only 8% of the vote, anyway? We got the Senate back, and the House, and the Presidency, without them. To hell with their vote.

[John Lenin]

The Supremem Court legalized racism and they know they did.

[Old Sarge]

My 60 pesos (2 cents at the current rate of exchange):

In 2000, the percentage of black voters who voted Socialist was 90%.

In 2002, that same group voted 94% Socialist.

Write them off. Today. It is a waste of time and political capital to ever think that they will leave the plantation.

And, why should we waste said time and capital on only 8% of the vote, anyway? We got the Senate back, and the House, and the Presidency, without them. To hell with their vote.

[Old Sarge]

Sorry, Folks. Browser brain-phart.

[Orlando]

Sarge, there is a way to reach them, and break the deception's and lies of the Demoncrat hold on the minority,
we need to realize that the minority fathers/men/boys are under attack and families being destroyed by the laws thhe feminist(All colors)supported by the Deomocrat party are pushing on them. I am writing about helping the fathers in the inner-cities fight back the evil the demoncarts bring to them.
#1. Unfair/unjust family courts systems(It is destroying the males)
#2. Reform child Support, it's become a system of eviil against minority men/fathers.
#3. Stop drugging the boys at school with this adt bs..
#4. Help them fight back these evil from the left,educate them, show the fathers(the good one left) that reinforcement's is coming, and it's TIME for a FATHERS CIVIL rights movement to defend there rights to LIVE as fathers, and get involved in there childrens life, and break the violences,gangs,crimes,etc....BOOT CAMP time.
The feminists are in control, in the schools,social services,child support, family courts, and gov't. There is NO FATHERS groups, and Support..., just maybe, just....maybe ??, we can stop this killing machine of fathers/men/boys, and god. vet/out.193rd inf Bn(Panama Canal Zone)70's,80's.




http://mensnewsdaily.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=488#488

[NYC Republican]

We need to break the cycle of lies... educate them on the facts that the Republican party is much closer aligned to their views... In a nearly 50/50 electorate, a few percentage points either way could make a difference.

[Dan from Michigan]

Blacks are about 14% of Michigan's population.
2000 - 4232711 Voters.
14% of that - Approx 592579 votes.

Approx 59000 black GOP voters here in Michigan. John Engler won in 1990 by 17,000. Mike Cox(AG) won in 2002 by 5,000. Mike Rogers won his Congressional seat in 2000 by 88 votes.

Those "8-10%" votes are important. I don't support any pandering, but votes are votes, whether it comes from a white guy or a black guy.

[NYC Republican]

We need to break the cycle of lies

I was referring to the libs of course...

[Arkinsaw]

So long as ethnic "diversity" remains a goal, then, at the very least, unwritten quotas will persist. It's specious for anyone to say that it's ok to promote diversty while posing as opposing quotas. It's splitting hairs. It's an attempt to have it both ways. It's patently dishonest. It doesn't pass the smell test. It's Clintonian.

We can't turn a blind eye to problems however. We do have disparity in education and in economics, we ought to solve those problems in our way, and not just pass the whole thing off as a race thing.

For instance, in my State, we have severe problems in the Mississippi Delta region. There are definitely economic and educational disparities there. Much of it has to do with the fact that it has always had an agriculturally based economy with nothing to fall back on. It just so happens that a large percentage of the population is black.

The State should be focusing on solving those problems there since it is the poorest area of our State. Doing so will help black Arkansans more than it will white Arkansans. But such a policy would be based on geography and economics, not on race. A poor white, Indian, or hispanic who happens to live there would benefit as much as black citizens. The solution would not be limited by race even though it would happen to assist blacks more in the short run.

At some point in the future, when that area's living standard was raised the focus would shift to the next poor area which might just be primarily white north central Arkansas which also has limited opportunity.

The Democrats claim that these problems can only be solved with race-based solutions (primarily because of their soft racism). We disagree, but we should not dismiss any solution that just happens to help black citizens more in the short run or think that they are necessarily race-based.

School vouchers is such an example. We support it, it will help inner city black students/parents primarily. This is the way that we can make a difference, break the Democratic stranglehold, and still maintain our principles without pandering in these areas.