Descendants of slaves

That’s a new category I saw online the other day, in the context of the affirmative-action case now before the SCOTUS and a new poll showing public support for affirmative action at a new low. 

You can read about the poll here:

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/11/18885926-nbc-newswsj-poll-affirmative-action-support-at-historic-low?lite

In the same article, Kevin Brown, a law professor at Indiana University, claimed that we shouldn’t consider the ascendency of Barack Obama (President), Colin Powell (retired 4-star general and former Secretary of State) and Eric Holder (Attorney General) as indicative of progress for black Americans. 

He pointed out that these people were “Kenyan, Caribbean, Caribbean” respectively and not “descendants of slaves.”  

Okay.  I guess there’s a new litmus test for who is really black in America.  Or at least, who still needs special consideration in all things because of something that ended almost 150 years ago. 

I’ll admit, I was not aware of this distinction.  Probably, because like many in my generation, I really don’t give that much thought to race or ethnicity on a daily basis.  I took Dr. King’s message to heart at a very early age and naively – it seems – thought most of the rest of us did as well. 

Silly me. 

It’s not that I don’t recognize that there are people in the population who look different from me.  I’m not blind after all.  I can see that some people are various shades of black or brown, some have varying degrees of Asian features, some are various shades of white, and some are a mix of some or all of the above.  Unless I talk to them and they have an accent of sorts, or they make a point of telling me, I can’t really tell where they are from.

I certainly can’t tell if they are descendants of slaves or not.  But then again, I’ve never thought to make that distinction.  Apparently now I have to.  

So it makes a difference now where someone who is one of those shades of black or brown is from originally, and whether they can trace their lineage back to being descended from slaves brought to America from Africa at some point. 

That seems to be somewhat of a fine point to me.  As important as that must be to some people, I’m not sure how that’s going to come up in a casual conversation. 

I can’t remember any Irish or English descendants of indentured servants – of which there were many in Colonial America – making this type of distinction for their current social standing. 

I’ve always tended to measure people I meet for the first time on their manners, their skills, their intelligence, how articulate and thoughtful they are, and their sense of humor or lack thereof.  Not necessarily in that order.  But I can tell you that race or ethnicity is not one of the criteria. 

Much less if one or more of their forebears were slaves from Africa brought to America. 

I guess the point this professor was trying to make with his “descendants of slaves” carve out was that we should ignore all the positive signs of progress that blacks in America have made – in government, business and industry – and focus instead on those who haven’t done as well. 

Forget the silver lining; focus on the cloud. 

In short, he’s using an old academic trick of skewing the sample – changing the parameters of measurement at the same time – to get the results he wants instead of dealing with the reality he doesn’t want to acknowledge.  It’s intellectual fraud. 

Blacks, African-Americans, or whatever the proper name du jour is, have made enormous progress in America over the past 150 years.  And spectacular progress since the 1960s.  Only an idiot or huckster would ignore the progress that’s been made.     

Much of that resulted from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed most major forms of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion and gender.  It ended racial segregation of public schools, workplaces and public accommodations, as well as unequal application of voter registration requirements. 

For you political history buffs, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was championed by Republicans and opposed by Southern Democrats like the late Robert Byrd – a former KKK member who filibustered against its passage for 14 hours.  Hubert Humphrey, the Democrat liberal lion from Minnesota, also wrote two amendments to the bill to outlaw school busing to achieve desegregation. 

Just a side note to consider. 

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 which followed outlawed states from setting any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."  It also created something called “covered jurisdictions” primarily in the South to place a special burden on states and counties with histories of suppressing or restricting voter registrations and voting by minorities in general through literacy tests, poll taxes and the like.  To make changes in practically anything related to registration or voting, these covered jurisdictions had to get Federal approval first. 

Flash forward to today – almost 50 years later.  Those “covered jurisdictions” still exist and the rules governing them still apply to most.  If one of them wants to move a polling place, or change a ballot, or redistrict, they have to get “pre-clearance” from the DOJ or a three-judge panel of the Federal District Court in DC – for every instance. 

So if they want to change the color or paper used for a ballot, or move a polling place two doors down, for example, they probably have to get prior approval.  And every time they need to get approval for something – no matter how minor – they are subjected again to scrutiny by a politicized DOJ which can use it as leverage to get another bite at the apple. 

The net/net of all this is that these areas are still being punished for infractions that may have happened decades ago and haven’t happened since.  They are presumed to be up to something, automatically. 

Because nobody wants to have on their record that they voted against the Act – which would open them to charges of being a racist – Congress has renewed the Act four times, and George W. Bush signed a 25-year extension of the Act in 2006.  

One of the cases before the SCOTUS this session – Shelby County v. Holder – has to do with the need to maintain the pre-clearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, especially since many of the covered jurisdictions now have better voting records for minorities than other states and counties who aren’t under the same rules. 

Of course, this is bringing out the old guard of the civil rights movement who see an opportunity to bring up racism – real or imagined – again.  Keeping their political base as perpetual victims in need of special consideration at all times is the source of their power.  If their constituents are no longer the abject victims they claim them to be, they no longer have power to demand concessions by making the rest of us feel guilty about their plight.  If the real reasons a minority group is still poor and at the bottom rung of the economic ladder are proven to have nothing to do with institutional discrimination, then what?  

It’s a scary proposition for them.  It’s like waving the bloody shirt and then learning it’s not blood after all but ketchup.   

So the Shelby case, coupled with the affirmative action case – Fisher v. University of Texas – has their heads spinning.  In Fisher, the Court will decide if a public university violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by considering race in its admissions process.

Consequently, you’ll be seeing a lot of stuff in the media about how far minorities haven’t progressed in this country.  How discrimination by race is still rampant.  How voter suppression by requiring voter IDs is targeted at blacks and Hispanics.  How America remains a hotbed of angry whites, just waiting, as Joe Biden said, for Republicans “to put y’all back in chains.” 

You and I may realize that’s just complete and utter bullshit.  But the media and some minorities eat it up.  It’s easier and more comforting to believe that there’s some big conspiracy holding you back than take a hard look at what you may or may not have done to yourself.     

Look, a significant majority of white voters helped elect a true African-American (Kenyan father) to the highest office in the land.  Twice. 

It’s hard to maintain that widespread racial discrimination by whites still exists when that happens.   Or that remedies from the 1960s that put special burdens on selected states and counties to insure that minority voters aren’t disenfranchised need to be kept in force – especially when minorities in those same “special” areas voted in historically high numbers in the last two elections.    

When Obama was elected, I said that this is both the dream and nightmare of many civil rights leaders in the black community. 

Dr. King would be proud that so many Americans of all colors and backgrounds came together to elect a black President apparently on his merits, not his skin color.  His dream come true. 

Conversely, the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world – who have made playing the race card their only raison d'être – lost an important plank of their platform.

How could they keep a straight face while telling America it was fundamentally racist when it freely elected an African-American to the White House, not once but twice?  And did that with a majority of white voters in both cases? 

Well now we know the plan going forward for race-baiters and advocates of race-based entitlements and privileges.  Those who consider themselves black and have succeeded – like Colin Powell, Eric Holder, and yes, Barack Obama – don’t count.  They aren’t descendants of slaves.

Others who have risen to high positions in government – like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as well as Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, Douglas Wilder in Virginia and numerous other elected officials in the North and the South – don’t count either.  They’ll dismiss Thomas and Rice as tokens.  I don’t know how they’ll dismiss the others. 

Maybe they’ll decide those people aren’t really black, or black enough.  Maybe they’ll come up with a new category based on how dark-skinned someone is.  Or something else. 

Folks, only racists see everything though the lens of race.  They think race is a primary determinant of a person’s ability, aptitude, and potential outcome.  No other criteria matters.

I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.