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February 01, 2007
"But which ship did your ancestors arrive on?"
Lately I seem plagued by definitions. First I wanted to know what "morality" was. Then I wanted to know what the word "better" meant. Well, as long as I find myself slouching towards a better morality, I might as well ask a question on a lot of people's minds lately. What is racism? On its face, the answer would seem easy. For me, racism has always meant believing in race as a factor in measuring the inherent worth of a person, particularly when that is coupled with discrimination. But times have altered the meaning of the word, to the point where in many circles, racism requires a "power differential" which means "people of color" cannot be racist: ....a person of color cannot be racist, by definition, because racism also defines a power differential that is not usually present when a person or color is speaking.If you think that's bad, recall the Seattle Public School system's definition of racism as a belief in individualism. While I shouldn't take pleasure in the misfortunes of others, it nonetheless seems like fitting retribution to see the purveyors of crackpot standards held to the the standards they would impose on others, and I was much amused by Ann Althouse's discussion of the "racism implicit in the excessive praise we've been hearing for Obama." This may tie in with the struggle between "purists" and "diversity purists." "Diversity purist" was another new term for me, but not to worry! Ann Althouse quotes a Penn professor on the subject: Selective colleges have expanded their enrollments of black students by "increasing the number of immigrant and multiracial black students," Camille Z. Charles, an associate professor of sociology at Penn who is one of the study's authors, said in an interview on Wednesday.To be fair, there is a difference between affirmative action and diversity. Ridiculous and unfair as I think affirmative action is, the theory is that there are "historically disadvantaged groups" who have been held back by "historically privileged groups." In order to remedy the wrongs of the past, the former must be given certain advantages. I suppose that according to the "diversity purists," someone like Barack Obama would, because he is of black African and not black American descent, not be a proper beneficiary of affirmative action, although hiring or promoting him would be laudable under the "diversity purity" theory. This gets really crazy, because if black Americans are to be judged that way, shouldn't Chinese Americans whose ancestors were historically disadvantaged and worked to death building railroads back in the "yellow peril" era be entitled to specialized treatment not accorded to recent immigrants from China? But even if we use historical disadvantage as a criteria, can that really be determined by skin color? Can it even be determined with reference to the period of time of ancestry in the United States? Black Americans who are descended from blacks who were free citizens at the time of the founding (there were many in the North) cannot be said to have been descended from people who suffered under slavery in the United States, nor can it be assumed that Chinese who immigrated to the East Coast have ancestors who were worked to death on the railroads. It seems that there's a poorly understood mechanism governing the interaction between race, affirmative action, diversity, and the periods of ancestry in the United States. It is more subjective than objective. But apparently, there are a lot of non-native black students at leading American universities. Enough to cause those who fret about the purity of essence to issue veiled threats of new discrimination: At the most selective of the 28 schools, the ratios for non-native black students were even higher. The study included four Ivy League universities -- Columbia, Penn, Princeton, and Yale -- and at those universities, 41 percent of black students were first- or second-generation immigrants.How are we to determine who does and who does not "identify strongly with an African-American identity"? Isn't that more ideological than racial? Unless they cross examine individual students for ideological deviation of the Tiger Woods/Whoopi Goldberg variety, I see only one way to parcel this out: DISCRIMINATION against immigrants! In other words, to preserve and protect the purity of affirmative action against the growing threat posed by diversity purity, immigrants and their recent descendants must be penalized. How? Thinking through the unthinkable parceling that's required to follow this out, it would seem that the social engineers might have to be so cruel as to put recent immigrants in a separate category -- maybe even treat them like white people! It reminds me of the old days when snooty white people used to brag that their ancestors came over on the Mayflower. I used to think such elitist thinking was behind us. But there's a new elite along the lines of "My ancestors suffered more than yours!" Nyaah Nyaah! posted by Eric on 02.01.07 at 07:15 PM |
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