Free Republic

PBS, 8:00 P.M. Wednesday, November 19, 2003 – Following the visual of the Rebel Flag, a youngish, very short haired woman appeared on the screen. My reception is fuzzy here, so while I can hear the audio perfectly, I cannot always see the picture clearly. As near as I could tell, she was in a setting which spoke of academics. It may also have been an office conference room. She had the large round glasses of the modern female “scholar.” The first time she opened her mouth, she testified to the total bias, the total Orwellian historical rewrite, that one...

When did people who claim to be civil rights activists start supporting government-sponsored racial discrimination? Forty years after Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream Speech," many people and organizations who claim to be his heirs argue that rather than judging people by the "content of their character," the government isn't classifying people by the color of their skin enough. It's become a cliché to quote Dr. King in opposition to race-conscious affirmative action programs. It's true that the most famous leader of the civil rights movement was more open to these types of government policies than many political commentators...

<p>Any day now, the Supreme Court will announce its decision on the constitutionality of the University of Michigan's affirmative-action policies. Advocates for minorities hope the court will uphold the program. It should not. Such a decision will almost certainly damage the long-term interests of the very groups the proponents of diversity seek to protect.</p>

The diversity argument--how are we gonna get enough blacks and Latinos unless we rig the rules?--is transparent baloney. As Bass, our top-drawer cartoonist has trenchantly pointed out, universities ignore questions of diversity when really important activities, like football, are at stake. Is it necessary to dwell on the question of just how many black and Latinos constitutes sufficient diversity? Who the hell are those admissions officers to decide who gets what goodies? What in the world does this have to do with running a university? The best argument for racial preferences for blacks is the reparations argument advanced by Mick...

<p>"Now it is true, if I may speak figuratively, that Old Man Segregation is on his deathbed. But history has proven that the guardians of the status quo are always on hand with their oxygen tents to keep the old order alive."</p>

It was Inauguration Day, and in the judgment of one later historian, "the atmosphere in the nation's capital bore ominous signs for Negroes." Washington rang with happy Rebel Yells, while bands all over town played 'Dixie.' Indeed, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who swore in the newly elected Southern president, was himself a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, "an unidentified associate of the new Chief Executive warned that since the South ran the nation, Negroes should expect to be treated as a servile race." Somebody had even sent the new president a possum, an act...

“From the time it was passed in 1870 until 1965, no president, no Congress, and no Supreme Court did anything serious to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment …” -- Howard Zinn “I’m gonna sing this verse, I ain’t gonna sing no more / Please get together, Break-up this old Jim Crow.” -- Lead Belly, “Jim Crow Blues”Certain myths remain popular in spite of reality. Americans, for example, rely on a few admired figures and television images to help them understand the impetus behind the civil rights movement, even though the bus boycotts, voting drives and the March on Washington were just...

Know your place, chile. Always know your place.'' I still remember Mama Robinson telling us that, talking about Jim Crow and segregation. We black folks, colored folks, Negroes could never be uppity, always had to be deferential. Folks would be watching. Bad things could happen. She was a sweet old lady, her white hair pulled back in a bun. She wore that ever-present apron that always smelled of pound cake. Yellow pound cake. ''Get you a piece of cake, baby,'' she would say. More than four decades removed I can still see her, sitting in a rocking chair on that...

Mayor Bloomberg was right to call reparations a divisive issue. What's historically just for black Americans is historically wrong for America.