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boohabian |
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The notorious Boohab slams racist thinking right and left.
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raucus
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Men talk of the Negro problem. There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own Constitution -- Frederick Douglass, August 1893 |
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boo what? test your
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race man's home companion |
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operating
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| Saturday, January 18, 2003 |
| Discriminations has me piqued. Affirmative action is the spoils of a just war, and I think we would do well to remember that. I am often brought to mind of the conversations between Malcolm x and James Farmer, with the latter being fundamentally appeased by the prospect of a half dozen cashier jobs at a southern Woolworth’s, whereas the former considered the militant possibilities of 10,000 protest marchers. Today I would think nobody considers affirmative action anything more or less than 'nonviolent social change'. So at this point I should insert the following quote by King: "Although the terms desegregation and integration are used interchangeably, there is a great deal of difference between the two...desegregation simply removes legal and social prohibitions. Integration is creative...more profound and far reaching than desegregation...integration...is the welcome participation of Negroes into the total range of human activities...desegregation is not enough; integration alone is consonant with our national purpose." -- "Ethical demands for integration" ,1963, (p.118). What I believe is a fundamental problem, besides the lazy conflation between racist discrimination for the purposes of exclusion and racial discrimination for the purposes of inclusion (or national security for that matter), is the forgotten initiative to integrate. While legal scholars must speak in terms of 'strict scrutiny' and determine the state's interests in seeing/recognizing race I think a fundamental error has legally ossified in the logic of colorblindness. That is that colorblindness itself as a social habit was simply the first attempt at social intercourse for newly integrated blacks and whites. The era of "don't pay attention to my color" has been superceded by multiculturalism, and thank heaven for that. How could one possibly individuate blacks and whites by the presumptions of colorblindness? Did white folks look at each other with the presumption being that to speak of their ethnicity and background would poison their relationships beyond repair? In short, colorblindness does not recognize the individual, rather it abstracts the individual, and it can do so in ways just as detrimental to that individual as the presumption of a racist stereotype. If I cannot talk about what my race (or gender or persuasion) means to me and you cannot recognize it for any purpose, I become a demographic statistic and not a person. What I am is this observable thing, but I am not in control of the meaning attached to it. (I presume at all times that individuals from those protected classes can always choose to opt out of consideration for affirmative action simply by checking 'white', or a simple note, if it means that much to them to avoid 'stigma', so one is in control vis a vis race & affirmative action) I want my rights applied to me in a colorblind fashion, I want my *self* recognized in a fashion I deem appropriate. A college application is not an expression of rights so much as it is a presentation of self. It is a declaration of what I see as the most important qualifications about myself with regards to my further education. Importantly, and especially at a public university, it is a declaration of those things that I think should make me belong. If there is something I find valuable cannot say and they cannot recognize, then I am forced to conform. Our racial identities, given, assumed, transformed, subsumed, are still that important. I want racial neutrality in the Constitution and anti-racist politics. So while we may fiddle with the proper way to balance discriminations for the sake of diversity or racial integration (and what if that were an essay question instead of a checkbox?) how could we possibly justify blindness? I believe the reason today is the same as it was yesterday, which is the tacit admission that racial prejudices cannot be overcome. Which is to say that certain colors are irrevocably wed to certain character traits and to acknowledge color is to acknowledge a stereotype or the presumptive defeat of a stereotype. How else can one explain that the mere existence of an affirmative action program tars all blacks on campus with white resentment despite the fact that beneficiary status is kept confidential? How else can one call attention to (in opposition to affirmative action) the resentment of those blacks embarrassed by the 'stigma' of affirmative action? It sounds as if you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. But the only way out is to support integration and see what you get. Unfortunately, you can't separate out the real world from the university experience. I think you are left with a debate, not about affirmative action as a remedy for educational deficits, but attached to the fate of race mixing itself. What are the merits of racial integration? Determine that, then come back and see if university is a proper place to practice integration. I believe strongly that forward racial integration gives an enhanced ability to individuate. I give you this quote by Greg Tate: "Perhaps the supreme irony of black American existence is how broadly black people debate the question of cultural identity among themselves while getting branded as a cultural monolith by those who would deny us the complexity and complexion of a community, let alone a nation. If Afro Americans have never settled for the racist reductions imposed upon them -- from chattel slaves to cinematic stereotype to sociological myth -- it's because the black collective conscious not only knew better but also knew more than enough ethnic diversity to subsume those fictions." Anyone who advances a colorblind standard, or defends the stigma argument, does so in contradiction to what Tate so accurately states.
Few Americans would suggest that this nation, with regards to racial integration in all dimensions of life, is at an equilibrium. Or if so that equilibrium is something other than the result of socio-political deadlock and intransigence. Despite all of the protests by well-meaning or resentful whites and others, the demand for affirmative action remains. People still want it. It seems to me that they will continue to demand it until America recognizes the reality of the ethnic and class diversity. You cannot do that without integration or simply through the false meritocracy of college admissions. I would not suggest that we have exhausted the moral universe of ideas on race or that those who did their penance 40 years ago have all the answers. But the principle of colorblindness at this level of society does not serve the greater good. Instead, it buries the individual, frustrates the unfinished task of racial integration, and allows the same persistent prejudices to remain unchallenged by the truth of ethnic diversity. 7:51:16 PM  comment []
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| I'd like to start out with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.
affirmative action exists because blackfolks were burning down cities to make it exist. affirmative action fits directly in the bucket of 'nonviolent social change'. it is integration. it goes beyond, it pushes, it challenges, it has costs. those costs are acceptable. many who don't like the magic words 'racial preference' are relying on a simplistic sense of symmetry to make their moral case. but race is not so simple. there is clearly a difference between racial discrimination for the purposes of inclusion and racist discrimination for the purposes of exclusion. it is simple enough to substitute class for race and get the same results, but conservatives and republicans are trying their damndest, and failing, to make their own kind of moral racial politics independent from the real push and pull of the civil rights movement. at this moment they are depending on resentful whites and wooly colorblind theorists to support their cause as a silent majority. they are winning the poltical battle but losing the moral war. they are winning the battle because their opposition has spent all their real ammo during the 60s and 70s. their later ammo is weak. 'diversity' doesn't quite cut it. nor does '400 years of oppression'. nor does 'the white man is evil'. nor does 'america sucks'. the moral war is being lost to the republicans and conservatives not because of the kinds of social failures that liberals often cite like '35% of african american children are not prepared for kindergarten'. those are education questions. no amount of afrirmative action is ever going to solve those problems. academic affirmative action is not an education question, it is an integration question. so really, 'diversity' is about all you can get from it. that's a good thing, don't get me wrong, but diversity is not social justice. liberals want social justice and see affirmative action as a part of the equation, but that is a mistake. if you want social justice in education, don't waste your breath on affirmative action, and don't make it an either or situation, as jeb bush has in florida. liberals who do will get neither. the question of affirmative action should not be about meritocracy, it should be about integration. this should be maintained until nobody asks for affirmative action any longer. while it's true that real social justice in education will obviate much of the need and call for affirmative action, the two cannot be closely linked. the bottom line should be, is it better for society that blacks and others who demand it, use affirmative action to integrate predominantly white universities, or should they just go to historically black colleges, like they used to. affirmative action is about race mixing. do you want it or not? 6:42:16 PM comment []
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Last update: 4/12/2003; 6:48:38 PM.