Berman James
Watts
February 1998
Affirmative Action did not spring into being with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although such act was a compromise with those opposed to equality of opportunity and integration of public accommodations, it did usher in change that was anathema to white supremacists. Thus open defiance of such law combined with more "subtle" methods of maintaining inequity.
Some firms, organizations and even entire industries have managed to stave off or limit integration and equality of opportunity since the inception of such law. Of course the means of such resistance were modified over the years. Open defiance proved unsuccessful in the face of new law. A facade of equality of opportunity that obtained the same results achieved previously under segregation was a dead giveaway that myriad discriminatory acts could -in a just tribunal- demonstrate to be mere camouflage. Where that failed claims of minority lack of qualification or performance could be alleged so as to limit the presence of the classic black "PHD from MIT" in favor of the white illiterate graduate of the late cotton fields. Where such blacks were persistent in demonstrating such travesty, staged incident and criminal accusation were not unheard of. Nor was the obvious involvement and advice of the authorities and courts who would determine the matter. Indeed, the gradual evolution reveals it self statistically not only in employment but criminal accusations and court results- some regions having their successful discrimination litigants being predominately whites charging "reverse discrimination".
Thus bigots held out until bigots could be elected to appoint bigots to the courts in sufficient numbers to reverse- where not neutralize- anti-discrimination law.
Following the Civil War and for a century afterwards vast economic difference in the South and the rest of the nation was attributed to economic "discrimination" by the North. But the south clung to backward practises- chief among them bedrock racial prejudice- in preference to economic development. Moreover the deceit necessary to such bigotry warps the ability to perceive reality especially given the bias towards self/clan/race interests. Not only are economic capital and opportunity apportioned on the basis of race and favoritism with reduced regard to maximizing the efficiency of a competitive market economy, but minorities are savagely suppressed as economic competitors not under equal protection of law.Thus it should be no surprise that the economic collapse of the entire nation to a state resembling that of the post civil war south followed the Klan's (and the Republicans they backed) surge to National prominence as a political power in the 1920's.
This time, the Republican party adopted a "Southern Strategy- appealing directly to the disgruntled white males, especially of the south- who - although hardly displaced by, but nevertheless resentful of blacks- were ripe for such essentially racist "standing in the School house door" appeal. Reagan-Bush repaid such support, appointing right wing judges to the extent that two thirds of all such federal judges now serving are Republican appointees. The reversal of effective civil rights law enforcement is no accident. So obviously gutted was Federal Civil Rights Enforcement under Reagan that a new Civil Rights Bill (after an initial veto by Bush and much mutilation by Republican's in Congress) was passed.
Affirmative action remains a pivotal issue, not for it's virtually nil effect upon whites, but for it's exclusionary and destructive effect upon blacks. Affirmative action is the most visible symbolof effective percieved challenge to white America's power to return to an enduring past of white supremacy in preference to merit and ability. As inequity of treatment was the cause stridently denied in Plessy versus Fergerson so it is in the anti-affirmative action movement today. Doubtless the "equality" of opportunity achieved under the destruction of affirmative action will match that enforced under the "separate but equal" doctrine. Indeed such decision ushered in an era of white efforts to outdo one another in finding new ways to enforce second class citizenship upon minorities. Many segregation laws date from such period (1890's to 1920's) rather than Reconstruction.Thus, whites supporting efforts aimed at inequitable results behind a facade of "equality of opportunity" are hardly to be satisfied even if affirmative action were to vanish. Recall the savagery exhibited when King's nonviolent methods challenged the ultimate results of the american apartheid ushered in by "separate but equal"- as interpeted by whites?
Frenzy in the defense of the indefensible recurs where crime against minorities is thus justified and alleged racial or ethnic superiority thus proved. Upon exposure and censure, such practitioners simply increase the fervor of their acts ,no matter how horrific, in an effort to show the sincerity of their beliefs and the "necessity" of their crimes. Recall that the South that, after winning in the courts with Dred Scott, made further appeal to civil war despite the election of a President who stated that if necessary to preserve the Union he would maintain slavery. It was not enough that the Federal Goverment was willing to permit the South to maintain slavery. The failure to join the Suuth in expanding such practise to new states despite economic injury was the price the south demanded to preserve the Union. Other examples? Rather than divert precious transportation and resources to a desperate defense, NAZI Germany maintained a massive system of collecting and exterminating alleged subhumans. Vicious police riots-aided by civilians- against peaceful civil rights demonstrators were restrained only by federal intervention.
Thus, mere appeasement can never satisfy the drive to justify enforced inequity with ever greater levels of repression. Indeed even where the minority population first singled out is a victim of a successful genocide, other groups will be sought out for such treatment in turn- including, eventually members of the group inflicting such treatment upon others. Bigotry in the hands of demagogues is too addictive to not be used. Any group including dissdents and political rivals can become it's target. For example ,Republican's first and continue to target minorities, liberals and democrats-especially leadership. Previously, single mothers, welfare recipients, those "convicted" of crime, the poor the homeless...... Now they "attack" (in a most restrained manner compared to attacks upon AA or the Goverment of Washington DC) the IRS- the very source of the income and largress they squander upon themselves and their cronies. Thus is achieved Government by "scapgoating" -minorities, the unpopular and of course the opposition- with application and evaluation so skewed that were such standard directed at the accusers they would show up far more guilty than the accused. The elegant interlocking checks and balances of a consitutional "government of the people, by the people and for the people " has been sacrificed to the politics of tribal witchdoctors and shamans scapgoating the other and the unpopular - whose sacrifice will bear away all troubles , cleanse all guilt and, most importantly always enrich the the witch doctors, showmen and shamans.
bjw