President Obama - Unintended Consequences

There was a frenzy of activity as the results of the South Dakota primary rolled across the big screen television. WHOOPS & CHEERS were heard throughout.

At approximately 10:00 PM EST on Tuesday, June 3, 2008, Senator Barack Obama became the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. Forty-something years after the Civil Rights Movement limped into obscurity following the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., a Black man stands at the cusp of acquiring the highest office in the land: President of the United States.

Along with the nomination and hopeful win in November, the nation's Black and brown and underrepresented masses look wishfully to a Washington, DC that will wipe away three centuries of second class status, fifty years of hard fought civil rights, and sixteen months of raucous (and at times, acrimonious) campaigning for the presidency. But what changes can Black America expect?

The United States is structured such that the Chief Executive of the US has NO dominion over the state courts that imprison Black men at alarming rates, the President has no province over state and local school boards who consistently provide substandard education to the those who live in urban and depressed public school systems, the Commander in Chief has no control over the state and local police that will suppress the rights of those without a voice. The war on drugs has been a dismal failure since first uttered by Ronald Reagan those twenty-something years ago, so drug-infested, economically depressed Black neighborhoods can expect few changes to their condition.

Many Black people have expressed the joy in seeing a Black man ascend to such a lofty mantle in their lifetimes, but also see it as a signal that times are quickly changing. Blacks will no longer be able to use being Black as an excuse for their condition. Kwabena Sam-Brew of Minnesota was interviewed after the Obama win, "We as black people now have hope that we have never, ever had. I have new goals for my little girl. She can't give me any excuses because she's black."

This joy and hope of Black also carries with it an unintended consequence of an Obama presidency: the end of affirmative action as we know it!

Affirmative action foes are licking their chops in anticipation: how can this country continue to offer preferential treatment to a minority group who has one of its members sitting in the Oval Office? Ward Connerly, a conservative crusader against affirmative action - policies that favor specific groups - and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, tipped his hand when interviewed after Obama received the necessary delegate votes to become the Democratic party's presidential nominee:

"[...watched a replay of Obama's victory] and I choked up. He did it by his own achievement. Nobody gave it to him. The entire argument for race preferences is that society is institutionally racist and institutionally sexist, and you need affirmative action to level the playing field. The historic success of Senator Obama, as well as Senator Clinton, dismantles that argument."

Connerly expressed hope that Obama's rise would help his own efforts to end affirmative action on the basis of race.

One step further, John McWhorter, of the New York Sun believes that Obama's win shows that racism in this country is in retreat. Although, racism does exist, he opines that its practitioners are few and the effects on Blacks is minuscule. Excerpts of his New York Sun article "Racism in Retreat" follows:

Well, here we are. Are there some bigots? Of course. Did they, or any purported instance of "racism" during the campaign, keep Barack Obama from the nomination?

His victory demonstrates the main platform of my race writing. The guiding question in everything I have ever written on race is: Why do so many people exaggerate about racism?

This exaggeration is a nasty hangover from the sixties, and the place it has taken as a purported badge of intellectual and moral gravitas is a tire-block on coherent, constructive sociopolitical discussion.

Note that I did not say that there was no racism. There seems to be an assumption that when discussing racism, it is a sign of higher wisdom to neglect the issue of its degree. This assumption is neither logical nor productive. I reject it, and am pleased to see increasing numbers of black people doing same.

Of course there is racism. The question is whether there is enough to matter. All evidence shows that there is not. No, the number of black men in prison is not counterevidence: black legislators were solidly behind the laws penalizing possession of crack more heavily than powder.

In any case, to insist that we are hamstrung until every vestige of racism, bias, or inequity is gone indicates a grievous lack of confidence, which I hope any person of any history would reject.

Yet every time some stupid thing happens — some comedian says a word, some sniggering blockhead hangs a little noose, some study shows that white people tend to get slightly better car loans — we are taught that racism is still mother's milk in the U.S. of A. "Always just beneath the surface."

Barack Obama's success is the most powerful argument against this way of thinking in the entire four decades since recreational underdoggism was mistaken as deep thought. A black man clinching the Democratic presidential nomination — and rather easily at that — indicates that racism is a lot further "beneath the surface" than it used to be.

And if Mr. Obama ends up in the White House, then it might be time to admit that racism is less beneath the surface than all but fossilized.

Lastly, one need look no farther than Barack Obama to see hints of how he sees a significant shift in affirmative action in the US. When asked about how his daughters should be viewed when they are seeking admission to college, he said that his daughters, "...should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged. I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed."

Obama goes on to clarify his position on the matter, saying that affirmative action should combine both race-based and class-based preferences. He said, "I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive. I think what one can say is that in our society race and class still intersect, and there are a lot of African American kids who are struggling, that even those who are in the middle class may be first generation as opposed to fifth or sixth generation college attendees, and that we all have an interest in bringing as many people together to help build this country."

Read the International Herald Tribune about the Obama victory here.

Read the entire New York Sun article by John McWhorter on race in America here.

Click the link for On The Issues to see where Barack Obama stands on affirmative action.


plez sez: this was a tough entry to write, i spent over a week going over notes and composing my thoughts. plezWorld grew up in the 60's and 70's, i was a beneficiary, to a small degree, of affirmative action: i participated in a number of programs geared toward encouraging minority students to study engineering and my cooperative education assignment with NASA was a program for minority engineering students. i got into college on my merits, since i had stellar grades in high school and my SAT scores were superb (i was accepted to study electrical engineering via early admissions)!

i'm the same age as Barack Obama and have an outlook on life that is similar to his, even though i was raised by my Black parents, my formative years were spent in a predominantly white enclave in the suburbs of new york city (also known as westchester county). i went to predominantly white schools, a predominantly white university (GO TECH!), and i have been in the minority at every job i've held since high school.

i've always had mixed feelings about affirmative action and have never been a proponent of quotas or set asides based on race. i understand that there is a likelihood of the taint of one's accomplishments when there is a perception that your race (or sex) was the main reason for your success. even though the perception may be grounded in falsehoods, your hard work and determination may be compromised if others have the perception that you did not make it on your merits.

i believe that admissions to state universities and contracts for government work should be awarded to ensure minority representation that is reflective of the community (or state), but i also feel that students and contractors should meet the minimum requirements that are set for everyone else. just as the children of alumni and big donors to universities get some preferences (see George W. Bush), there should be mechanisms in place to ensure that qualified minority students are able to secure slots at these universities. just as lobbyists and government insiders can "grease the skids" for government contracts for their friends and network, the government has an obligation to ensure that qualified minority contractors (and workers) are given ample opportunity to bid and win government contracts.

i have no doubt that affirmative action foes, like ward connerly, won't wait for long after Obama's election to begin the work of dismantling affirmative action as we know it. connerly and his ilk will trumpet the call for a color-blind system that will undoubtedly leave poor and unprepared Black communities in their wake. any chance for affirmative action's survival will hinge on its proponents' ability to quickly institute hybrid race- & class-based system to replace the soon-to-be antiquated race-based system, as advocated by Obama.

i'm afraid that time is running out and those communities who have not heeded the call to provide quality education will be left further behind, since affirmative action was only a boost to those who had the where with all to take advantage of its opportunities. things will undoubtedly get worse before they get better: look at the low minority rates at california universities after connerly did away with affirmative action there (none have more than 4% Black enrollment with UC-San Diego with a Black enrollment of 1.2%).

on january 20, 2009, while we're cheering the inauguration of President Barack Obama, a stalwart institution - maybe the only successful institution - of the civil rights movement will begin to be dismantled.

Clarence Thomas - The Bitter Justice

Clarence Thomas is back in the news. Not only has the Supreme Court begun the fall docket, but he has released a new book, "My Grandfather's Son," for sale. Justice Thomas is doing the obligatory book tour to tout the book in hopes that millions of Americans run out to buy it. I haven't read the book, but if his interview on 60 Minutes and other articles on the matter are any indication, this book will be quite a read.

I ran across a very interesting article on Reason Online entitled "Native Son, Why A Black Supreme Court Justice Has No Rights A White Man Need Respect." It was in 1857 during the Dred Scott case when the question was raised as to whether Blacks were or were not property and therefore if they had or had no rights as a human being. Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney is quoted as saying, "A Negro has no rights which a white man need respect." This article (dated February 1992) gives an in depth analysis as to how Clarence Thomas was the victim of a very old idea called racism:

One of the major reasons for the persistent problem is that millions of white adult Americans define "racism" as its most pathological manifestations: wearing white gowns and hoods, burning crosses, tarring and feathering blacks, hunting them down with dogs. Because those same millions of white Americans would not dream of committing such atrocities; because they vote for political representatives who pass civil-rights bills; because they applauded Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall; because they respect the changing nomenclature by which certain blacks wish to be addressed, they imagine themselves to be free of racism.

What they have never learned is that racism is an idea, a very old and intransigent idea. That idea exists on an unbroken continuum -- all the way from a form that is fully conscious to a form that is unconscious. Its manifestations can range from the most grossly offensive and scornful invective to a compulsive noblesse oblige that cannot permit itself to make any criticisms at all. But whatever the degree or kind of racism, it invariably contains a double standard: The racist simply does not treat black individuals the same way he treats whites.

The effect of stereotypes on blacks is a sense of being unseen, as in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. The effect on whites is the corollary: They do not perceive blacks as real or make the same fine discriminations among blacks that they habitually make among whites. In the last analysis, they do not perceive black individuals; they perceive black skins. And this remains true at every step of the continuum.

It should not, therefore, come as an insuperable shock that the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court were a racist phenomenon. The "nice" kind; no Simon Legrees or fiery crosses here. But racist nonetheless. Setting aside old segregationist Strom Thurmond, who conscientiously counterfeited a dead man and may, for all I know, actually have been dead, the other senators participated, singly and collectively -- and unwittingly -- in a process that ceaselessly generated negative stereotypes about Thomas.

The author goes on to lay out the racist stereotypes that were applied Thomas from the day he was nominated by President George Bush (the first) until the day he was confirmed by the Senate:

The Nomination President Bush LIED when he told the nation that Clarence Thomas was the "best" candidate and that he was not chosen because he was Black. Everyone knew that there were other candidates as qualified as (or more qualified than) Clarence Thomas and he was only nominated because he was Black. The nomination was an affirmative action move to maintain a Black seat on the Supreme Court by a party who was against affirmative action.

The Art of Evasion Supreme Court nominees normally do not answer questions about how they will rule on specific situations that may come before them on the bench (i.e. abortion, affirmative action, death penalty, etc.). This works well for white candidates, but when a Black man is evasive, he comes off as being dumb! This label of being not as well-versed on the issues has dogged Justice Thomas since he took his seat on the bench. To this day, it has been implied (and explicitly expressed) that Thomas is a dim-witted right-wing puppet with no original ideas.

The Character Issue Thomas was held up as a clean, obedient, yes-man for the Republican party, he had a "mentor" in Senator John Danforth who had to vouch for Thomas's impeccable credentials as a lawyer and judge. Although, Thomas had a career outside his short time clerking for Danforth, it was essential that he had a white man who could stand for him and "assure" the Senate Committee that this was "a good one"!

The Abortion Issue Thomas was asked almost 100 times to explain what his legal and political opinions would be on any upcoming abortion case. Since no Supreme Court nominee would touch that question with a ten foot pole, Thomas ended up taking the Fifth over 100 times... see the Art of Evasion above!

Anita Hill The article states that Thomas's favorite book is Richard Wright's Native Son, the story of Bigger Thomas, a young Black man who is wrongly accused of the rape and murder of a white woman in the South in the 1940's. The biggest fear of any Black man during that time was to be accused of even looking a white person in the eye, much less, being accused of a sex crime and murder against a white woman! Any Black man was a dead man. Fast forward to 1991 and imagine the horror (and irony) of Clarence Thomas being accused of a sex crime (harassment), a "he said-she said" crime where he could never ever prove his innocence. As with Bigger Thomas, Clarence Thomas was subjected to a "high tech lynching."

Black-on-Black Blacks were turned against Clarence Thomas on Day One and he was NEVER given the opportunity of redemption. He was introduced as a conservative, Black Republican, a devotee of Ronald Reagan and everything liberal, Black Democrats were against... so he has carried that House Nigger title without ever being given the benefit of the doubt. To my way of thinking, this is probably the most damning and most egregious form of racism... turning one Black man against another because of politics. This has divided us and conquered us at every turn since our shackled ancestors walked off that very first slave ship.

Another article of note is from the Washington Post. As a result of a hard life, Justice Thomas lashes out at just about everyone in his new book. The article states that "Justice Clarence Thomas settles scores in an angry and vivid forthcoming memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the "mob" of liberal elites and activist groups that he says desecrated his life." The article (and 60 Minutes interview) shed some light on why he is so bitter:

Family Life Abandoned by his parents and raised by a stern and authoritarian grandfather, it appears that Thomas never felt loved or wanted by anyone. When he dropped out of seminary school, his grandfather kicked him out.

The Segregated South The blatant racism with which he was raised always looms over his relationships with Blacks and whites.

Religion Thomas had plans on becoming a priest, but disparaging remarks by priests concerning the MLK assassination made him question his religion and was the impetus of him dropping out of the seminary.

Law Degree Although, he received a law degree from Yale, he credits affirmative action for diminishing the value of the degree thus making it difficult for him to find a job after graduation, more than anything, this appears to be the reason why he is against affirmative action and quotas. To this day, people talk about how he was the benefactor of affirmative action, but his counter is the double edged sword that casts doubts on the value or worth of those who benefit from it.

Senate Confirmation Hearings Everyone is familiar with him lashing out at the Senators with his "high tech lynching" comment. The process left such a bad taste in his mouth that he credits that process with ruining his life and he frankly hoped that he did not get confirmed.

Self Hate It appears that he doesn't understand why every Black person does not get up and work like HELL to uplift the race like the grandfather who raised him. I think he looks out at Black America and sees (by and large) a group of lazy and shiftless niggers! It seems to me that he is ashamed to be a member of this race.

View and read the transcript of the 60 Minutes interview here.

plez sez:I watched 60 Minutes on Sunday evening and discussed the Clarence Thomas interview with my wife. We both agreed that he has to be the most bitter man alive. He is so filled with disgust about his life and how that shred of a life that he had was utterly destroyed during his Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings.

As a moderate, plezWorld has taken a vastly different approach to Clarence Thomas as evidenced in my Clarence Thomas: American Hero post. For some reason, I've been able to muster up some empathy for the misunderstood and sad man who is Clarence Thomas, only the second Black Supreme Court Justice.

In his book, Thomas writes of his Senate Confirmation Hearings, "The mob I now faced carried no ropes or guns. Its weapons were smooth-tongued lies spoken into microphones and printed on the front pages of America's newspapers. But it was a mob all the same, and its purpose -- to keep the black man in his place -- was unchanged." It is obvious that he understands that he was a victim of racism, I don't think he understands that the Republicans who propped him up where as racist as the Democrats who attacked him.

Clarence Thomas is a sad and bitter man who appears to find no joy in being a member of the highest court in the land. In the television interview, he had a difficult time even referring to himself as a Black man. To me that was the saddest revelation of all: he hates life, he hates what life has done to him, and above all, he hates himself. That is sad...

A Christmas Carol from Tufts University

I found this little ditty posted on Nat Turner's Revenge.

This update of "O Come O Ye Faithful" was written by some supposedly smart Tufts University college students in their conservative rag called The Primary Source. Of course, the little twits have already removed the offensive "carol", but some of the comments written by the papers' readers are just as eye-opening and revealing.

O Come All Ye Black Folk
Boisterous yet desirable
O come ye, O come ye to our university
Come and we will admit you
Born into oppression
O come let us accept them
O come let us accept them
O come let us accept them

Fifty-two black freshmen
O sing gospel choirs
We will accept your children
No matter what your grades are F's, D's, or C's
Give them privileged status
We will welcome all
O come let us accept them
O come let us accept them
O come let us accept them

Fifty-two black freshmen
All come!
Blacks we need you
Born into the ghetto
O Jesus we need you now to fill our racial quotas
Descendants of Africa with brown skin arriving
O come let us accept them
O come let us accept them
O come let us accept them

Fifty-two black freshmen

plez sez: I would be too ashamed to admit that a child of mine could be so filled with racism and hate to write such a thing. What's sadder still, is that this wasn't the only "carol" that they came up with... all of them are equally offensive and lacking in creativity.

I also feel sorry for Tufts University, as I'm sure they will have a difficult time next fall trying to find even 5 Black students who will want to enroll in a university that harbors students with such a racist and crazy view of Black people.

WOW! This kind of stuff really puts me in the Christmas Spirit!

Clarence Thomas - An American Hero

I stumbled upon a National Review article, by John A. Foster-Bey from a few years ago which gave me a different perspective from the mainstream Black liberal view of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. We know that he is Yale Law graduate and spent close to a decade heading up the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before becoming a judge. There have only been two Black men who have ascended to the highest court in the land, and both of them viewed the use of the federal government in starkly contrasting ways. Justice Marshall followed an unabashed liberal agenda on the bench and was one of the lawyers who argued before the Supreme Court for the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. Justice Thomas follows an unabashed conservative agenda on the bench and is a staunch opponent to affirmative action.

In the article, Foster-Bey writes:

The question that this raises is: Are the efforts to vilify Justice Thomas really in the best interests of the black community — or the nation as a whole? Because he is a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas is arguably one of the most, if not the most powerful blacks in the country. In addition, he represents the cutting edge of an emerging debate between the traditional black liberal leadership (and its white liberal allies) and a new black conservative alternative about how best to address the future development of the African-American community. If discourse and debate is central to a healthy, well-functioning democracy, there should be a least some concern that the political development of the black community is being limited by the attempts of many black liberals to silence black conservatives, such as Justice Thomas, with name-calling ("Uncle Tom") and marginalizing.

Another excerpt from the article states:

The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act brought the longstanding debate in the black community between self-reliance versus reliance on government effectively to an end — at least among the African-American leadership class. The debate was embodied in the early-20th-century positions of Booker T. Washington — who argued for self-reliance and internal development — and W. E. B. Dubois — who argued for massive political and systemic change. With the enactment of the new law, advancement for the African-American community was henceforth primarily tied to increasing the federal government's role in promoting opportunity for blacks. This meant not only reducing and eliminating illegal forms of discrimination, but also finding ways to make up for past injustices. While in the past African Americans argued that eliminating barriers and unfair, unjust, and illegal constraints were all that was needed, the new orthodoxy argued that the black community needed a progressive, activist government committed to promoting the rights of African Americans and redressing the wrongs of the past. Thus was the foundation for affirmative action and a variety of other race-based programs born.

plez sez: It seemed like only yesterday that I watched with rapt attention as Clarence Thomas withstood his "high tech lynching" on the way to becoming only the second Black person to occupy a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Having never heard of him and never having seen a confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court justice, the melodrama that played out with Anita Hill and pubic hairs on a Pepsi can was quite interesting. I admit that I was a bit torn as I read and researched for this post, as I am a beneficiary of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and affirmative action programs of the 1970's. I can't say that I'd be where I am without those vehicles of government intervention and their redress of wholesale past wrongs done to Black people. I feel strongly that the Movement was instrumental in creating a viable and sizeable Black Middle Class. The affirmative action movement has turned the corner on 30 years and has me questioning its effectiveness today.

I find a few issues with many affirmative action programs (and any program that includes government intervention). I have an issue with accountability: there is no such thing as a free lunch, you should have to pay something to receive something, and to my way of thinking, ancestry (skin color, religion, etc.) isn't enough. Without putting "skin in the game," one will not appreciate their rewards. You will readily throw away something that you got for free before you part with something that you worked your behind off for!

Another issue that I have is the lack of measurable results from these "solutions." Do you set goals (or quotas) to measure success? Is there a timetable for when these goals should be met? Do we know that children who are bussed from the inner city to the suburbs have better grades than the one who do not? When dealing with human capital, it is usually very difficult to measure the success or failure of a program. Social engineering is a tricky business wrought with unintended consequences. When enacted, a program should have measurable goals within a specific time frame, without these things in place; any affirmative action program will more than likely be viewed as a failure.

As the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there is no doubt that Clarence Thomas saw more failure than success with affirmative action programs, thus coloring his judgment as to the effectiveness of these programs. I would like to see programs that prepare more Blacks for inclusion and opportunity (training programs, low interest loans, etc.), rather than programs that seek redress for past discrimination. It is possible that by tearing down the traditional 40 year old Civil Rights paradigm, we (as Black folk) may be able to move forward in a more inclusive and less divisive manner.

He may be right (and only time will tell if he is wrong), but I have to give kudos to Justice Thomas for giving it a shot!