boohabian
slamdance

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

boo what?
interview with the boohab

test your racism
black hell
cyberspace my black ass
race man's home companion

operating theories
why are you white?
what is racist?
affirmative action
race man's debunker
technical references
case law

Links

Until the creation of this blog, of all the anti-racist stuff I had done in the many years that I've been building my multiple websites, Niggers & Basketball has been the most popular destination, and it still shows up as the top entry if you Google the two words. I just happened to read that correspondance again this morning. It holds up rather well, lo these many years, though I must admit I probably wouldn't have the patience to do all that explicating today. It's Class 3, you know.

9:52:58 AM    comment []

I'm getting quite an education from Jack Balkin. At long last, the internet is living up to its promise. I can't express how gratified I am to see scholars debate publicly.

but i've got a gripe about pbs documentaries and npr stories about emmett till and other murdered negroes. the difference between today and the past is misrepresented in the syllogism: today it's just name calling and nobody should take it seriously because yesterday it was murder. over at cafe utne, people honestly don't believe that racism is a problem any longer. so long as it continues to be described in terms of cross burnings, fire hoses, murder and other class one acts, people will fail to recognize the destructive power of class two.

i know i said that i would ignore discussions about class three, but i would like folks perception a little tighter. so i suppose i will continue to intervene in mumble about smirnoff commercials.

1:11:46 AM    comment []

Volokh vexes me. He's not entertaining. He reminds me of the man who has escaped the torture chamber and has decided to run roughshod over people who aren't making the absolute maximum profit allowable by law. But I concur with him on his point about what the MLK holiday should be, and I am integrating his thinking on the state's compelling interest, or lack thereof in campus diversity.

some days ago, i said:

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.

and i essentially didn't want to deal with the metaphorical tangle of woods the law makes with regard to strict scrutiny etc. but since i've always been a hardliner for racial integration, i don't want to see diversity be the leading reason for affirmative action. diversity is squishy and always has been. so i agree that the state does not, and should not have a compelling interest in diversity.

at the same time, i like 'critical mass' because i think the quality of campus life is greatly improved by having the strengths of black culture in particular maintained through a vital selection of clubs, organizations and fraternities.

even so, i don't believe the state has a compelling interest in maintaining critical mass or anything like it. i do believe the state has a compelling interest in seeing to it that barriers to opportunity are as limited as possible for the oppressed. i'm not sure that affirmative action in higher ed addresses this for blacks or whites, so i'm not so sure why the supreme court is involved in this matter. it seems to me that the consequences of the racial discriminations of affirmative action taken out of the context of america's racial history could not, under any circumstances, have generated the legal equivalent of passion attending the current controversy. in other words, affirmative action of this sort is not a constitutional issue at all, especially when we are using squishy terms like diversity.

despite the fact that the polity doesn't, i am confident that it could adjudicate such matters adequately in congress. thus i am in agreement with the principle that allowed the state of california (despite the fact that it was clint bolick, the man i love to hate) to settle the question (or not) via statewide referendum.  remember, all the u of m is doing is trying to get 'diversity'.

as balkin has promised, although i am not finished, he has presented a reasonable case that the 14th amendment is not colorblind. i am willing to take him at his word as he summarizes in part two what i couldn't parse from part one. essentially he goes us one better by distinguishing civil rights from political rights and social power. to wit:

As I noted previously, most of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment believed in a distinction between civil, political and social equality. Civil equality included the the right to make contracts, own property, sue and be sued, give evidence in courts, enjoy freedom of speech and religious liberty. Political equality included the right to vote, hold office, and serve on juries. Social equality meant equal status in society, and concerned social comingling and intermarriage. The Fourteenth Amendment was understood to guarantee blacks civil, but not political or social equality. It was not a guarantee of colorblindness. When people said that the Fourteenth Amendment made all races equal before the law, it meant only that they were civilly equally, not politically or socially. They were equal in their “civil rights,” that is, their right to make contracts and hold property, sue and be sued in court, but not in any other respect.

this is abundantly clear, and again we are talking about my class 3 racism and social power.

so. given that affirmative action should be a tool for moving forward to a more realistic racial equilibrium, operating below the radar of political equality, what is wrong with its tokenism? nothing, i say. what's wrong is that a political class of whites, operating out of resentment and deception can manage to raise this discomfort to the attention of the supreme court.

here's to hoping they do as little as possible.

12:28:37 AM    comment []