The LA Times’ Greg Rodriguez says it’s time to end racial preferences, not because it’s the right thing to do, necessarily, but rather because the continuation of racial preferences as a way toward a colorblind society is gonna piss off Whitey — especially those latently violent hilljacks who people increasingly racist Tea Parties.
And then they’ll be hell to pay!
Is there hard evidence that whites are hurt by affirmative action? No. Over the course of four decades of the program, white educational attainment has increased. And whites still make up the vast majority of federal employees. Have blacks or Latinos reached parity with whites in employment and income? Not even close. In fact, during this recession, they lag behind whites for higher-paying jobs at the largest rates in a decade.
But such data are not likely to change the growing perception among whites that the deck has been stacked against them. The number of court cases in which whites claim reverse discrimination is going up, and we’re routinely hearing the cries of white minority victimhood. And it’s not just coming from white nationalists.
Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has argued that the culture of affirmative action in the Ivy Leagues is not only depriving poor whites of a shot at entering the nation’s elite schools but fueling “racially tinged conspiracy theories” such as those claiming that the president is a foreign-born commie. Conservative Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia essentially argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that plenty of white folk have it rough too and that affirmative action only makes things rougher.
Calls to scrap affirmative action will only grow more fervent as the rest of the nation begins to look more like California. As whites in more states become the minority, they will seek to protect what they perceive to be their self-interest, or will be seduced by the siren song of minority victimology that has captivated other groups. Or both.
Leave aside for the moment the obvious response — namely, that if blacks and Latinos haven’t reached “parity” after decades of racial preferences, then perhaps government-mandated racial preference programs aren’t the right way to go about addressing racial disparities in the work force — and instead marvel at the suggestion that any effects racial preferences have on whites is but a fevered dream, a form of “victimhood” that whitey is irrationally claiming for himself.
That racial preferences and set asides have the direct effect of giving something to members of privileged groups at the expense of those belonging to groups not so privileged — and so necessarily takes away opportunities from whites or white-owned businesses solely on the basis of race — seems never to occur to Mr Rodriguez.
Listen: we should end racial preferences because racial preferences are wrong. If what it takes to convince the race industry that racial preferences are ineffective and divisive is the threat that Whitey might start bringing out the hoods and robes, then clearly racial demagogues like Rodriguez aren’t yet ready to give up the racial stereotyping that so clearly animates them. Making his entire column something of an empty rhetorical gesture.
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update: Seems I’m not the only one who took some small measure of offense.
White flight?
Is there a white way to be pissed off? I was not aware of that. I am just generally pissed off. So if I vote against those currently in office, am I enginging in something wrong?
Is there hard evidence that whites are hurt by affirmative action? No.
Is there hard evidence that the recipients of affirmative action are harmed by it? Yes. Especially in college admissions.
I saw it with my own eyes: kids from the ‘hood and barrio were admitted to Cornell despite their low test scores, as if scholastic standards were the exact equivalent of poll taxes: an artificial way to keep a brotha down. So these unprepared kids, in over their heads, don’t benefit by attending classes they aren’t ready for. And the same thing happens when unprepared legacy white kids get in over their heads, too.
Look, if parity hasn’t been reached because of artificial barriers such as racism, then those barriers have to be addressed.
But if the lack of parity in results comes from lack of parity in behavior, then the behavior must change. As Evan Sayet points out, Lefties refuse to believe that one’s personal behavior affects outcomes, so the explanation must be someone else’s bigotry.
engaging. My bad.
I wanted to comment, but I couldn’t think of anything to say that was at the same time. racist AND empathetic. But I do feel bad for those poor cullurds.
Besides, a college admissions board is the last place in the world where a brotha is going to be rejected on account of his race.
The answer is to help kids before they get to college, make sure that all who want to go are prepared before they get there.
I can’t think of a combination of English words I hate more than “reverse racism.”
There is no such thing as “reverse racism.” There is only racism, and whatever excuse is used to justify it.
Racism is either bad or it is not bad. I think it is bad, regardless of its rationale, or of the colour of the racist’s skin.
dicentra, the way you help kids is make vouchers available so they can go to decent grammar schools. Some inner city kid has limited options on scholarships to a few private and parochial schools and a failing public school system.
It should be pointed out that blacks are overrepresented in federal employment. Hispanics are also overrepresented based on the level of Hispanic American citizenship.
Seen way too much affirmative action and discrimination to believe it isn’t hurting. The place I currently work is scrupulously fair about who it employs but its obvious they have to resist pressure from the government to do so. One place I worked had a breakdown of about 80% Filipina with the rest consisting of about equal numbers of Filipino, white, black, Hispanic and other. Corporate decided that Hispanic was underrepresented and black was way underrepresented. It wasn’t a good time to have a surname of Lim or Lee as Lims and Lees were fired in batches for the most outrageous reasons while Martinezes and Fernandezes could get away with anything. In one incident a Martinez screamed “whore” at her sister in law Lim at a store two miles from work because she’d been seen after work with one of the black employees. The Lim yelled back and and the others with them got involved, a Lim a Lee and a Fernandez on one side vs a Martinez a Fernandez and a Lee on the other. The incident resulted in the firing of 4 Lims and 2 Lees.
Spork, I shouldn’t have laughed at that, but I did.
Something I notice is how this is most often framed as a black / white issue.
Asians, as a group, are probably hurt the most from some of these policies. Oh… does that not fit the narrative?
dicentra pointed this out above, and I thought it should be given prominence, as it is at the heart of the matter.
Does it bear repeating that as a classical liberal I firmly believe in equality of opportunity, and if there is inequality of opportunity then the government should step in to correct it? Perhaps. However, I am decidedly not in favor of altering the conditions if they are “unfair.” Academic standards should apply to everyone equally. If one cannot do well enough, then one must choose a school with less rigorous standards. If one cannot meet some physical condition requirements, one had either get into better shape or realize that some of us, due to genetics or gender (should have said “sex” but I wanted the alliteration), cannot be firemen or astronauts or whatever.
I couldn’t agree more. Just so you know, there have been “tolerance”seminars taught on college campuses (most required) which put forth the idea that there is no such thing as reverse racism because … racism is strictly a European/Caucasian condition. I’ve actually read the materials from the U. of Delaware and they boggled the mind … until outraged parents and a college free speech organization shamed the Trustees into canceling it.
Ironic under these circumstances but not the least bit funny.
racism is strictly a European/Caucasian condition
Because Whitey is in power. Full stop.
It doesn’t matter whether Whitey is married to a black woman or has adopted Latino children, or if Whitey has the pure love of God in his heart for all mankind, if he’s a designated “privileged” class (by the Left) because of his skin color, he’s a racist.
Likewise, all men are sexist as long as men are considered to be privileged.
And straights are homophobic as long as they’re considered to be opporessors of Teh Ghey.
The Left reduces all human relationships to power structures: who’s on top, who’s kicking whom, and it’s all zero-sum: always a dominant and a submissive in the relationship, and if you’re not one, you must be the other.
All else is the result of raving paste-eating Christers and their h8 of teh Other.
One of my preparing future faculty (it didn’t take) instructors said, “I will never experience racism, because I’m a white woman.”
My brain seized up when I heard that.
BJTexs, I hear that.
I’d be interested to know how the parents/free speech group went about shaming the Trustees. I didn’t even know that was possible.
Darrell: Read it and weep. Remember: All whites are racist.
Fire is a terrific organization, BTW.
I’m a white woman, and two of my Colombian companions didn’t like white people, and especially not white estaounidenses. One of them was my first companion, and she ended up ordering me around with finger-snaps and whistles, as if I were a dog.
But because the USA is more powerful than Colombia, and in Colombia the higher classes tend to be whiter, that wasn’t racism.
Wait, Ross Douthat is a conservative?
Oh and in case you were wondering:
Dr. Shakti Butler, author of the U of D. race seminar.
Have a bottle of bleach handy before you read too much.
In Mexico City I am gringo. In Tokyo I am Gaijin. Here in Honolulu I am both Haole and apparently so powerful that my mere existence keeps those of a darker hue from reaching their full potential.
It’s a lot of pressure really.
OT and anything but shocking – Kagen was confirmed.
My first employer had a rather nasty encounter with the EEOC back in 1980. So much so that we had to generate reports giving quotas for blacks (yes, that word) for various job categories in the organization.
As whites in more states become the minority, they will seek to protect what they perceive to be their self-interest, or will be seduced by the siren song of minority victimology that has captivated other groups. Or both.
that’s interesting kinda but I wonder if he really read Mr. Webb who really took care to emphasize that there’s no such thing a monolithic Whites
The incident resulted in the firing of 4 Lims and 2 Lees.
It’s all fun and games until somebody loses a Lim.
It’s so much easier to blame someone other than yourself for your lot in life. Plus you get to feel self-righteous to boot. Win!
What? When more than 15% of the total US population is Hispanic illegal immigrants? Wouldn’t that be swell…
[…] The AmeriKKKan Way […]
*as* a monolithic Whites I mean
Because they don’t fit the narrative:
White Fleet.
teddy was a eugenics guy too
who’s whiter than bjork?
no one/that’s who
Well, I’m a supporter of affirmative action AS ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED. The present system under that name is simply racial quotas: if you don’t have enough black people, you have to hire more.
That’s because, after a trifle of soul-searching, I have decided to come right out and admit that I’m a racist. I believe that melanin level is a genetic marker for lower “intelligence” — whatever that means. There’s a lot of controversy about that. The researchers involved have come up with the concept of “g”, which inherently can’t be tested for, because such “intelligence tests” as the classic Stanford-Binet don’t give results they like.
But intelligence tests, including S-B, are reliable statistical predictors of success in a complex, information-heavy industrial society. On such tests, black people routinely score 5 – 10 points lower than whites (and asians score 5 – 10 points above whites). Hispanics score 5 points or less below whites, but there’s an unauthorized intruder in that ligneous fuel store: If you control for European ancestry vs. black or Native American, the statistics look a lot like those of the US population. That is, Argentinos, southern Brazilians (ex-Nazis, a lot of them), Uruguayans, and Peruvians are largely of European ancestry, where (e.g.) Mexicans and northern Brazilians have a lot of “indio” and black forefathers. Note, too, that in all Hispanic countries the ruling class, the population from which Presidents and rock stars alike comes, has fairer skin than the general population and throws out enough biondinos to be noticeable.
But if skin color is a reliable predictor of success (in a statistical sense) affirmative action is necessary. That’s because individuals aren’t statistics. Thomas Sowell isn’t stupid, nor is our friend Juliette Ochieng. Employers tend to take the path of least resistance, and if black people in general are less “intelligent” than the other competitors, they are nearly guaranteed to turn away black applicants — which is unfair in any sense to the statistical outliers who are, in fact, capable of doing the job. Affirmative action in the original sense forces such people to at least consider black applicants rather than dismissing them as a class.
But it only works if employers are allowed to distinguish between those who are able to do the job and those who are not, and to discharge those who can’t hack it. The present system essentially says that once you’ve hired anybody other than a white male, they’re your dependent until the Sun grows cold. That’s not affirmative action, it’s a quota system.
Supporting either one is pure racism! Neither affirmative action nor quotas make any sense whatever unless the group being favored by those policies is, in fact, less capable than the one disfavored. That’s not what they say, of course, but actions…
Anybody got good plotting software? (I’m looking your way, serr8d) I’d like to see a plot of two curves: the standard Gaussian distribution with median = 100 and sigma = 30 (white intelligence, more or less) with a superimposed Gaussian with median = 95 and sigma = 35 (roughly what American blacks score). I’d be willing to bet you could draw a vertical line on that graph anywhere and read the ratio of success for blacks and whites without resort to further investigation.
Regards,
Ric
S*t. The graph in question should also have the total population (area under the curve) of the median = 95 curve be one-sixth of that of the other one.
Regards,
Ric
Graph Schmaph Ric. I suggest the Fortune Cookie strategy of putting the words “because we’re unable to succeed” after every Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton statement.
But if you want to be scientific, have at it, by all means.
– Is there evidence…..
– Does anyone need anymore evidence than Bumbblefuck?
Did those studies control for malnutrition, maternal drug use, and other stuff that messes you up as a kid?
Did they control for fatherlessness?
Because I have a hard time believing that bloodline actually affects intelligence rather than environmental and epigenetic stuff.
Given the mental skilz Rodgiguez demonstrates, he should count his blessings[?] = LAT employment.
gigo
And goombah was a making the trains run on time claimer.
What’s your point?
We still give him shit about that at the train geek meetings.
The present system essentially says that once you’ve hired anybody other than a white male, they’re your dependent until the Sun grows cold.
And don’t think that the smart Cracker business people don’t know this – as do their children, especially when the latter are exposed to certain “people of color” and their progressive enablers, loaded to the brim with the chips of victimhood and anti-white racism*, and maybe even moreso in “elite” institutions of “higher” education.
*that, er, “black privilege” just don’t work out too good…
From Jeff’s Reason link update:
It is time to end affirmative action, Rodriguez writes, not because the practice is unfair or discriminatory, but because if it continues much longer we can expect a “destructive white backlash” against minorities, an explosion of racial resentment from those angry Tea Party types.
In psychopathologic terms Rodriguez is projecting, accompanied by projection’s “big brother”, paranoia [Dr.Sanity]. In his fantasyworld, he’s fucked and he almost consciously knows it: he’s out to get certain people, so they must be out to get him. In the real world he’s also fucked and he almost knows it, but not for the “reason” he gives. Instead it’s because rational people know that his mental system is evil and they are now showing him that they are not going to stand for it. In other words, Rodriguez’s fantasyworld racist “values”, now enacted in the real world, are the cause for his fear of getting what perhaps he almost knows he should rightfully deserve.
Along the same lines, while surfing am. radio I flashed over a Lib talk show host saying that if the Republicans get power in Congress, they will “hunt Obama”.
[As if…but anyway my immediate one-liner comeback was, “Hunt him, no need, he’s right there at the trough.” And everyone knows it!]
That person was merely parroting Peggy McIntosh of “invisible knapsack” fame.
One thing about that LA Times article. Even though he backs into it it is the first time I can remember that someone in media placed the beginning of affirmative action where it belongs, the early Johnson Administration.
Even though he backs into it it is the first time I can remember that someone in media placed the beginning of affirmative action where it belongs, the early Johnson Administration.
Lordy, where else do they put it? But now we’ve even got THREE females on the ussc! Oh Happy Day! Today I caught a local am. Boise talk show guy soliciting women to comment. They all reamed this “historic” meme a new one – not amused in the least.
Boise, Id.. now has two ‘conservative’ talk stations, both high quality: Limbaugh, Hannity, Mark Levine, Savage, Beck – he’s often damn good on radio – some good locals. My little station, about 200 miles away, carries Limbaugh, Lars Larsen, and Dennis Miller. Dennis is getting pretty perturbed.
Larsen does local Oregon and National, and has a National show. He didn’t graduate from college, either. He’s right on it and takes no shit.
Meanwhile ABC am. news reported over and over on the heat wave, where one guy died while mowing his lawn, and some puppies died in an airplane cargo hold. Hence, we’re doomed.
Yeah, that employer was pretty shameless about making the Spanish surnamed Filipinas more equal than the Chinese named ones.
Ric
When people argue that the book The Bell Curve is racist or that it justifies their, racism I like to take that one graphic where the distribution curves for black and white populations are drawn to the same height. I’ll color the area under one curve with yellow highlighter and the other one with blue. Then I’ll ask them what color covers the most area. The point of that is that most people are in the area under both curves. The point of course is that to an intelligent eye the book does more to undermine a case for racism and discrimination than to build one.
Was in a book store and came upon the audio books section, now I know that some people buy audio books because their eyesight is really bad or to listen to on their commute but at least in my experience the more common reason is too dumb to read. When what did I see there? The Bell Curve. Had to leave the store as I couldn’t control my laughter. I still wonder how much would you would really get out of such a book without being able to see the graphs?
Thanks for that great link, BJTexs. Wish there was a Canadian equivalent.
Have a great weekend.
“if blacks and Latinos haven’t reached “parity” after decades of racial preferences, then perhaps government-mandated racial preference programs aren’t the right way to go about addressing racial disparities in the work force”
Or perhaps one might have the temerity to ask, “What is it about these two groups of people (in and of themselves, respectively) that cause them to lag behind white colored people as a socially defined group?”
Example: Brown colored children lag behind white colored children in every category of performance except for violent crime and illegitimacy. The sane question to ask is, “Why are brown colored people(on average) such shitty parents? After all, brown colored children aren’t being raised by white colored people. What the fuck is wrong with brown colored people? (We can’t ask, “Why are white colored people so damn good.” for obvious reasons.
Asking such questions, however, eliminates the soothing salve of white guilt, so they are never asked.