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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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Over at Discriminations, it is written:

(5) Is the use of race as one factor in Presidential appointments in order to please potential voters more or less praiseworthy than the use of race to produce a diverse student body from which students might learn from each other?

Leaving aside the fact that I think the former is legal and the latter illegal, I believe they're about the same. They have the same virtue of "inclusiveness" and racial diversity (insofar as racial diversity itself has any virtue), and the same vice of divisiveness. Actually, racially categorizing students is probably worse, since it grooms new generations to think of themselves primarily in racial terms, to think their rights are tied to their race, and that wrongs done to them are all because of their race. Counting by race makes race continue to matter more than does making it legally irrelevant. I think it should be made to matter less, not more.

I think it is a fallacy to suggest that race consciousness in the law grooms new generations to think of themselves primarily in racial terms or that any of the real meaning associated with ones racial identity comes from reflection upon the law.

The very opinions of those African Americans who would feel stigmatized by the racial preferences of Affirmative Action, as compared those who continue to demand it,  suggest that identity is mobile indeed. Is it possible to predict which direction racial self-consciousness will take? I believe it is the old and simplistic presumption that races are naturally antagonistic which is subsumed in the thought that any attention to race cannot be managed.

I think rather what we are considering is the effect to which political majorities can be drawn into conflict over race, rather than racial identity itself. We should ignore what people can amp themselves up into believing and rather pay closer attention to the level and extent discriminations in question are permissible by the law. 

Southern segregationists in this light, have some legitimate claim in support of States Rights. Who today could justify sending Federal troops to maintain a lid on the chaos surrounding the presence of a dozen black children on the first day of school Little Rock?

3:03:14 PM    comment []