Category Archives: affirmative action

Some Thoughts on Affirmative Action

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Do affirmative action programs accomplish anything in the direction of “fairness?”  No, these programs are, by their nature, racist and sexist.  Such programs do no more than perpetuate the myths that some groups are more equal than others, and that other groups are less equal than some.  How very Wilsonian:

segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.

What are affirmative action programs but a holding apart of some groups from others—segregation?  This holding apart is founded on the gravest of bigoted insults: some groups simply are unable to do for themselves, and so they must have special treatment from Big Government.  This is baser than the simple, honest hatred of most bigotry: it’s the insidiously velvet-gloved slur of low expectations.

Moreover, these programs deny their victims a fundamental aspect of their Americanism, much less of their humanity: their individuality and their individual responsibility.  Those who are the targets of affirmative action are lumped into groups assumed to be so inferior that they must have handouts; such targets are denied their opportunity to succeed or fail on their own merits, they are denied their opportunity to show the best that is in them.

Worse, such targets are denied such capacity in perpetuity: they are made dependent on government as surely and as thoroughly as the administrators of such programs and the politicians who create them are made dependent on these dependencies.

The failures go on.  The targets of affirmative action, even in those cases where they’re allowed to leave behind the preferences, are denied the full pleasure of their efforts.  Anyone who has ever received a scholarship, or a job, or any other success as a result of affirmative action cannot fully enjoy that success: did he earn it, or was he the right color, the right ethnicity, the right gender; did he merely satisfy the right affirmative action criterion?  Our own president is reduced to bragging about having benefitted from affirmative action programs, including possibly having gotten his position on the Harvard Law Review as a result of affirmative action.

In the end, how can we achieve a full integration of all comers into our society, into what it is that is an American, when we continue to hold significant portions of our fellows apart through deliberate special treatment based, not on the content of their character, but on the color of their skin or the chromosomes of their gender?  Where is the morality of such segregation, of this denial of another’s right and obligation to see to his own responsibilities and to make his own way in our common world?  How is this fair by any stretch of that term?

On Affirmative Action

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I’ve written before on some of the aspects of affirmative action.  Here are the views of our Attorney General, Eric Holder, on affirmative action.

Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices.  The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin … When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?

What’s Holder getting at?  On a couple of minor notes, he apparently views benefits as entitlements, rather than things to be earned, at least insofar as “people of color” are concerned.  Moreover, he’s simply ignorant of recent history.  Affirmative action only developed in the 1970s—some 100+ years after emancipation, segregation, and the development of his party’s Jim Crow laws.

He considers that affirmative action must never end—it’s always to be kept in play.  Yet there’s that stigma of affirmative action, whether or not justified: did the individual get the position because he was the best qualified, or because he best filled a political square?  This is fair to “people of color,” how, exactly? Or to “people of no color?”

He exposes a breathtaking blindness to the segregation that is affirmative action.  Groups always will be segregated—and so always actively barred from joining the mainstream—as long as they’re singled out for special treatment, such as affirmative action inflicts.

This is one of the especially corrosive aspects of such policies.

More Affirmative Action Fail

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Here is the Party of Progressives’ paternalistic view of minorities made plain.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) apparently doesn’t think Latinos can succeed on their own—they must have the overt support of the Progressive Know Betters because Latinos are not otherwise capable—they must have affirmative action support.

Here’s what he said about Senator Marco Rubio’s (R, FL) opposition to Mari Carmen Aponte’s nomination for Ambassador to El Salvador.

In Nevada, this woman is seen by the Puerto Rican community, the Hispanic community, as really somebody who is an up-and-rising star. … I just think it’s a mistake for someone who is supposedly representing Hispanic issues to do what [Rubio] has done.

Hmm….  Rubio is supposed to support Aponte because of the color of her skin, and not at all based on her qualifications or the content of her character.  Furthermore, Rubio is not allowed to do what’s done routinely (with some justification) by other Senators—hold up a confirmation as leverage to obtain another goal (in Rubio’s case to try to force the Obama administration to overtly acknowledge Nicaragua’s, et al., enmity toward democracy)—no, the minority (in a couple senses of the word) Senator himself is just supposed to sit quietly and betters have their way.

Many recipients of Progressive race-based affirmative action (excuse my redundancy) support also exposed their addiction to that support: an Orlando, FL community activist, Javier Cuebas said

This is not the first time Sen Rubio has expressed concerns about a Puerto Rican nominee—when he was a candidate, he expressed similar concerns about Judge Sotomayor.  People don’t forget these things. … And remember, Cubans only make up about one-third of the Hispanic population in Florida.

At least Aponte seems to understand the legitimately political (if that’s not an oxymoron) nature of the maneuverings and the lack of place for Progressive racial politics in America.  She emailed Rubio after this latest Progressive tempest, signing it familiarly “Mari Carmen” (Politico says they have a copy of the email):

Thank you very much for all of your support during my confirmation process.  Although the outcome is not what all of us had hoped for—friendships were made and a lot of strength was gathered from the effort. I will forever be grateful for your hard work.

She’s not alone; others also reject Progressive paternalism.  The Executive Director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, Alfonso Aguilar, said that Reid’s remark was “appalling,” and

This blatant attempt at racial identity politics is offensive and condescending to all Latinos.  It’s insulting for Reid and Obama’s minions to imply that all Latinos support a person’s nomination to federal office just because he or she is a fellow Latino.