I don't know whether you were involved in the peace movement back in the 60s -- I suspect you were still in your cradle, if that, at the time. But there was a saying we had -- "There is no way to peace; peace IS the way."
I believe the same thing is true about equality. There is no way to equality; equality IS the way. That's the failing of all these PC remedies, affirmative action and the rest. All they do is perpetuate the concept that it is appropriate to treat people unequally on the basis of their race. Prejudice is prejudice, and it doesn't become any less prejudice because you switch teams.
That's why we need MLK back. He understood this perfectly well. He sought mere equality, not preference.
But the problem is that certain minority leaders have gain power from inequality. So they have no incentive to reach equality, because when they do their power dissipates. And power is the number one value after which anybody in the political realm strives. Number one. Period. It subsumes any primciples they might have had when they entered the political realm.
I have seen too many people, some of them good friends of mine, enter politics with the best intentions. People of honesty, honor, and integrity. But the process is inevitably and inexorably corrupting. Eventually even the best of them lay their principles aside to pursue power. Initially they justify it with the thought that they need the power to carry out the goals which their principles brought them into politics for in the first place. But that only lasts for a time. After a while -- usually two to four years, IME, the drive to continue to hold onto and to increase their power becomes the primary, and eventually the sold goal, of their lives.
So it is with those who have made careers of trying to address racial, sexual, and other disfunctionalities in society. However pure their motives in getting into the struggle, it is not long before power subsumes all else.
That is why any attempt to gain equality through the promotion of inequality is doomed to failure.
There is no way to equality; equality IS the way. |
