Affirmative Action
In America in Black and White, Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom clearly show that the black middle class preceded affirmative action. Moreover, it insults the hardworking black men and women of this country who, since slavery, built the black middle class, day by day, brick by brick, backache by backache. The first black member of the Federal Reserve Board, Arthur Brimmer, studied affirmative action’s impact. By affirmative action, I mean preferences, the lowering of standards to achieve "diversity" or "multi-culturalism" or "inclusion." I do not include outreach, or using efforts to inform others, irrespective of race, gender, etc., of available opportunities. Brimmer concluded, "I would say that most blacks I know did not get [their jobs] because of affirmative action, but it’s impossible [to determine the exact number]."
In 1962, Ebony magazine ran a series of motivational articles called, "If I Were Young Today." Each month, they asked a black achiever—Federal District Judge Herman Moore, union leader A. Philip Randolph, famed Los Angeles architect Paul Williams—to provide advice to today’s youth. Each spoke of drive, vision, hard work, and preparation. Not one even implied the need or desire for preferential treatment.
In 1963, Whitney Young, then head of the Urban League, proposed a kind of a "Marshall Plan" for blacks. A member of the league, however, objected to what he called "the heart of it--the business of employing Negroes [because they are Negroes]." Moreover, Whitney Young suggested his "Marshall Plan" for a period of ten years. This means, if Young prevailed, affirmative action would have ended in 1973!
The Detroit News recently wrote that, at seven Michigan colleges and universities, blacks within six years graduate at a rate of 40% compared to 61% for whites and 74% for Asians. Blame lowered standards to achieve campus "diversity." This mismatching of students—placing someone in a major league school when he or she would have been better at Triple A ball—causes, according to one study a loss of $5 billion a year to the black community. Moreover, affirmative action, in the educational field, masked the real problems, substandard education K-12. Yet you, the Democratic Party, and the unions all resist many changes urban parents want, including vouchers.
Besides, hard work wins. Back in 1901, thirty-six years after slavery, Booker T. Washington said, "When a Negro girl learns to cook, to wash dishes, to sew, to write a book, or a Negro boy learns to groom horses, or to grow sweet potatoes, or to produce butter, or to build a house, or to be able to practise medicine, as well or better than some one else, they will be rewarded regardless of race or colour. In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not long keep the world from what it wants.
"I think that the whole future of my race hinges on the question as to whether or not it can make itself of such indispensable value that the people in the town and the state where we reside will feel that our presence is necessary to the happiness and well-being of the community. No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward. This is a great human law which cannot be permanently nullified."
Larry Elder (mortal enemy of Maxine Waters;)) |
