‘Super Tuesday for Equal Rights’
| AR Articles on Racial Preferences in Education |
|---|
| The Hollow Debate on Race Preferences (Jun. 2003) |
| The Cost of Affirmative Action (Dec. 1996) |
| More Blows to Affirmative Action (Jun. 1997) |
| Search AmRen.com for Racial Preferences |
| More news stories on Racial Preferences in Education |
With race looming as a key issue in the fall elections—perhaps a pivotal one, assuming that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee—diehard defenders of the racial status quo are going to unprecedented lengths to prevent voters from having their say on government-sponsored racial preferences. Leftist activists are lining up to fight four state ballot initiatives that, if passed on Nov. 4, will outlaw preferential treatment based on race, sex and national origin in public university admissions as well as government hiring and contracting. Knowing that such antipreference initiatives enjoy strong public support—in fact, they have already passed overwhelmingly in three blue states—the activists have zero interest in waging these fights on the merits. Rather, their goal is to keep the initiatives off the ballot by any means necessary, up to and including political chicanery and outright physical intimidation.
{snip}
In fact, so powerfully does the issue resonate with voters as a matter of elementary fairness that its support everywhere cuts across traditional party lines. In liberal Washington state, for example, the antipreference initiative was backed not only by 80% of Republicans and 62% of independents, but by 41% of Democrats; this in the face of liberal opposition that—abetted by such local corporate behemoths as Eddie Bauer, Microsoft and Starbucks—massively outspent supporters of the measure. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative similarly passed despite the fierce opposition of a liberal-left coalition of 180 groups, ranging from the League of Women Voters and the United Auto Workers to the Arab-American Institute. After the Michigan initiative’s passage, the leader of the most radical of the opposition groups, By Any Means Necessary, declared that the only way to stop antipreference measures was to ensure that they never reached the voters.
* * *
While Mr. Connerly’s troops have gone about the difficult and costly process of placing the state initiatives on the ballot this November, preference defenders have seized on unprincipled strategies to block them, focusing in particular on two swing states with large minority populations: Colorado and Missouri. {snip}
When these arguments failed to pass muster with the electoral commission and state courts, preference defenders tried an even more novel approach, deceptive in intent yet heavy-handed in execution: a ballot initiative of their own, a shadow version of the antipreference measure clearly intended to confuse voters. {snip}
After considerable back-and-forth, the state’s title board disallowed the language in the shadow amendment, and preference supporters are currently trying to come up with alternative wording. But given the need to submit upward of 76,000 valid signatures to place an initiative on the state ballot, the clock is running out. Meanwhile, CCRI supporters have already submitted 50,000 more signatures than required, so the genuine antipreferences initiative will definitely be on the ballot.
{snip} [Missouri’s] Democratic secretary of state Robin Carnahan, charged with what is normally the routine certification of ballot measures, instead went to work on this one, eliminating its straightforward language, derived from that of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and substituting wording that pleads the other side’s case. The question, as she wanted to pose it to voters, was whether to amend the state’s constitution to “ban affirmative action programs designed to eliminate discrimination against, and improve opportunities for, women and minorities in public contracting, employment and education.” So egregious was this subterfuge that a liberal county circuit judge took the unprecedented step of throwing out Ms. Carnahan’s rewrite and reinstating the original language almost intact.
Still, as Mr. Connerly observes, “all the forces of the Left are converging in Missouri—Acorn and the rest of the race industry, the feminists, the unions, the contractors who feed off this stuff—and George Soros is providing a lot of the funding. They’re enlisting the whole vast left-wing conspiracy—and, believe me, it’s a lot vaster than the supposed right-wing one.” The ugliness is most evident on the streets, where supporters of the ballot initiative are busy gathering signatures. Opponents’ chief tactic is to use “blockers”—often burly union men—to shadow signature gatherers and scare off potential signers by charging not only that the initiative is racist and has the support of the Ku Klux Klan, but also that the signers risk identity theft. In addition, the pro-preferences sources have dispatched their people to sign petitions with false names and addresses, so that they will be invalidated later.
Earlier this year, such methods took their toll in Oklahoma, which was to be the fifth state holding such an initiative and where, with the measure polling at close to 90%, it would surely have won. In the end, though, the number of signatures gathered exceeded the required number by only a few thousand. {snip}
{snip}
* * *
Though the racial-preference ballot measures are officially nonpartisan, they stand to make a dramatic impact on the fall campaign. With the question of racial preferences effectively nationalized by its presence on multiple state ballots, neither party’s presidential candidate will be able to evade the issue. While this might pose a dilemma for Mr. McCain—who, like most Republicans, has long shied away from the topic and might worry about jeopardizing Hispanic support—it could be catastrophic for Mr. Obama. As Mr. Connerly says, “This is a guy who’s tried awfully hard for a long time not to appear what he is—just another left-winger who supports preferences.”
(Posted on April 25, 2008)
Comments
Every last White supporter of race quotas is a believer in collective, inherited guilt. They are also believers in aristocratic privilege, since they excuse their own White selves and their own children from that collective guilt. Ever see a liberal give up their job so that a Black can have it? They have thereby placed themselves outside the protection of the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. Liberals are collectively guilty of treason, not against the State, but against the people, and their children have inherited that guilt. They do not much fear the end of affirmative action, which has never really harmed or helped them individually, but they do fear the prospect of a awakened White racial consciousness. A race that throws off its chains will have scores to settle with those who forged the chains. And should European Whites see America break its racial shackles, the Human Rights Committees of that continent will soon be running for shelter too. But where could they then go? Russia? China? Who will want people who’s only skill is betrayal? The Left is rightly terrified of justice, and will go to any extreme to stall it.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 7:09 PM on April 25
Non-white children are much more likely to grow up in poverty, and the solution to this has been to discriminate against white men. The problem with the multicult viewpoint on this is that it conveniently overlooks the fact that non-white children grow up in poverty in the first place because of discrimination against white men.
These ballot initiative aren’t really being enforced where they pass and none of them extend the anti-discrimination laws (anti affirmative action laws) to the private sector. If anything calls for ‘tolerance’ are only increasing and becoming more entrenched and universal and generational. The grandchildren of affirmative action beneficiaries are now receiving these benefits. I think it will only be when white men are denied, ‘affirmative action’, too, that the whole hate-whitey train will seriously begin to slow down in earnest.
Posted by LHathaway at 7:54 PM on April 25
Ward Connerly is most certainly one of those rare Black men you cannot help but have the utmost respect for. Very courageously he’s fighting the wrathful forces of the left, he rightfully see’s their forces merging from every nook and cranny to do what they can to stop the will of the people. The Big wigs of corporations are even getting in on the defense, such a stalwart phalanx , supported by more money you can imagine, all to keep dark skin privilege, and keep Asians and Whites from getting the positions they rightfully deserve.
The fear is most obvious, these loathsome fellows reek of it. Like an injured and cornered wolverine, baring its fangs. And just like any other beast, the left is using even the most despicable of tactics to gain an edge.
The end is near for this pillar of Political Correctness, and not just any Pillar, one of the most heavily fortified and crucial pillars for the leftist horde, which ironically, may very well tumble to a black man.
God Speed Connerly
Posted by Stuck in No Mans Land at 9:41 PM on April 25
The desperate, sleazy, and dishonest tactics of the Left which are mentioned in this article are truly disgusting.
Look for these people to crawl out of the woodwork this year in large numbers— they will see the election of a Black as a form of personal validation and the fulfillment of a mission in life.
Prediction: The theme that “Republicans are racists” will be stronger this year than in any previous election.
Posted by Reader-1 at 10:54 PM on April 25
Surprisingly many Amren posters still insist on describing leftism/liberalism as merely a lack of intelligence and even a lack of sanity; thus implying that leftism is almost benign, at worse just negligent.
No.
Leftist are the architects of a novel form of death camp:
They long ago realized that they could never force the American or European populous to march into interim/execution camps of their own volition, so instead they build a death camp around us, incrementally.
They surround us with people whom are then instilled with the utmost resentment towards everything European, and then give them cause to feel justified in whatever violent act they commit against us, and in the same stroke, disallow us, the victims, the capability to even speak out against our abuse and displacement through hate speech and hate crime laws.
One would think this is purgatory.
They are slowly but surely eroding the Second Amendment, what then?! Hell, I suppose…
Posted by Joe Z at 11:12 PM on April 25
The more Whites become aware of the discrimination against them, the closer we are to having a movement. That is the fear of the elites and why they never give an honest picture of minority on White crime and privlege.
As soon as the averge joe thinks his neighbor approves of him being a White Nationalist, he will be one openly.
Posted by True Resistance at 11:17 PM on April 25
Nonprivileged whites-particularly those of Scots-Irish descent, were, after 10 or more generations in America, finally about to obtain long overdue economic and status advancement at the end of World War 2, due to the advent of VA loans for homes and the GI Bill for college educations, when their prospects were sabotaged by the advent of the Civil Rights Movement and the inevitable affirmative action regime that followed. Their estate was stolen just as they were about to inherit! The thieves were the white elite who would rather see blacks advance than their own kinsmen!
Posted by Boethius at 11:50 PM on April 25
”..These ballot initiatives aren’t really being enforced where they pass…”
Posted by LHathaway at 7:54 PM on April 25
In California, The Pacific Legal Foundation is doing a yeoman’s job bringing case after case to the state’s courts defending Prop 209 which bans the use of race, sex, and ethnicity as factors in decisions regarding public education, contracting, and employment.
For example:
”..In Hi Voltage Works v. City of San Jose, California Supreme Court strikes down San Jose’s government contracting program as unconstitutional under Prop. 209. Since the passage of Prop. 209, PLF has been the key watchdog enforcing the prohibition of sex and race preference programs approved by voters in 1996…”
The Pacific Legal Foundation, unfortunately, has not won all of its cases and must fight the likes of the well-funded ACLU in court but I know of no other legal entity fighting for the rights of White Californians.
http://community.pacificlegal.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=272&srcid=258
BTW: This is also a group worthy of donations.
Bon
Posted by BonBon at 1:23 AM on April 26
#1 Poster Schoolteacher is SO on the money with his/her assessment of the situation. I find two things very heartening here. First that such an article would come out in The Wall St. Journal and second, that a schoolteacher would post such commentary in this venue. I also hope that schoolteacher is busy molding minds under the table in a public school system somewhere.
Posted by underdog at 7:38 AM on April 26
The left doesn’t want equal rights. They want special privileges for all but White male Christians.
Posted by at 10:02 AM on April 26
Again, the Federal government will just withhold highway funds until states conform with federal AA guidelines as with California who long ago passed such a ballot initiative.
Posted by Amsterdamsky at 10:24 AM on April 26
I am a white minority now in the city, county, and state I live in. The government forms, at least, have changed to reflect that. But that’s all that has changed. The Latinos (the majority race here) continues to enjoy all the perks of being a minority race even though they are now the majority race. Crazy and unfair no?
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 12:14 PM on April 26
Ward Connerly is a rare exception among California’s educational elite who, like nearly all of the rest of America’s university administrators and faculty, have debased higher education into nothing more than leftist indoctrination camps.
The encouraging news is the sheer success this one man has achieved in reestablishing equality under the law, in spite of the embittered counter-efforts of small-spirit socialist conformity.
Posted by Gary at 12:54 PM on April 26
I once got hired by GM claiming to be American Indian, which is barely truthful, but claim away until the law changes. BTW blue eyes and blond hair will pass for hispanic too.
Posted by Lars at 1:36 PM on April 26
“With race looming as a key issue in the fall elections —perhaps a pivotal one — diehard defenders of the racial status quo are going to unprecedented lengths to prevent voters from having their say …. Leftist activists are lining up to fight state ballot initiatives ….. Knowing that such initiatives enjoy strong public support,the activists have zero interest in waging these fights on the merits. Rather, their goal is to keep the initiatives off the ballot by any means necessary, up to and including political chicanery and outright physical intimidation.
— — — — — — — —
They’re all for “democracy” so long as it serves their purpose. The moment it ceases to do so, they have no further patience with it.
In any number of recent newspapers articles discussing Obama, I have noticed the common theme: “Is it really possible that voters in this advanced day and age could be swayed by the subject of race? Could that really be happening? Oh, isn’t that awful!”
Well, isn’t race really what Obama and his candidacy are all about? To the blacks it is. And to the whites who are trying to pretend that race is irrelevant, race is the very reason that they support him. If he were white, he would be unknown.
The papers do not gasp and say, “How awful!” when blacks express their black pride and black solidarity. Nor Chicanos , or Indians, or anyone else. It’s only whites who should be ashamed of themselves if ever a racial thought crosses our minds. How could we “crackers” and “knuckledraggers” ever let such a thought occur to us? Primitives! For shame!
For others, it’s quite OK though.
Posted by browser at 2:31 PM on April 26
In Pennsylvania, 93% of black men and 88% of black women voted Obama. Conversely, 43% of white men and 32% of white women voted Obama. As you can clearly see, whites are willing to vote on a black candidate, but the blacks are willing to vote on racial lines only. This is proof that whites have “gotten over” the race issue and blacks have not. Information from liberal CNN exit polls:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#PADEM
Things will be EQUAL when blacks are willing to see Obama for the racist that he is and vote for a white candidate.
Posted by Imperial Crusader at 8:42 PM on April 26
“diehard defenders of the racial status quo are going to unprecedented lengths to prevent voters from having their say on government-sponsored racial preferences. Leftist activists are lining up to fight four state ballot initiatives that, if passed on Nov. 4, will outlaw preferential treatment based on race, sex and national origin in public university admissions as well as government hiring and contracting. “
What about freedom of speech? Oh yea, that belongs to a FREE society…..
Posted by Fr. John at 8:05 AM on April 27
They sure don’t like people of even having the option of voting on racial preferences do they? I think our establishment (elite bankers, corporate heads and honest wholesome media bosses) should re-recruit their retired military leaders, you know the SHILLS who filed the “green brief” in favor of affirmative action in the University of Michigan affirmative action case. They could come out and lecture us on the joys of “diversity” and how we need it to enhance our national security. That’s what the generals said in their Amicus Curiae. I’m not kidding either. Of course our very well controlled supreme court would have still played along anyway.
Posted by ChiefofClanFearghus at 11:49 AM on April 27
“Race” as an issue in the American election…what a concept. For the first time, Americans are thinking about race and even the news channels like “Fair & Balanced” Fox News and CNN are squirming having to cover this apsect of it.
Hillary and that good’ ol’ boob she married already had their crack at it and made the Presidency a laughing stock. At least with Obama you know where you stand — and that’s why the new move is on to discredit and ridicule him in favour of Hillary Clinton. It’s about time America came to terms with the truth about race, now that they truly have a man in line for the
job of President who truly reflects what the USA has become.
So who cares if he doesn’t know the secret handshake? Only those who want to keep him out of the White House.
Posted by Bob Smith www.natparty.com/bobsbeat.htm at 12:26 PM on April 27
It takes a curious bit of mental acrobatics to call racially-based priviledges, quotas and set-asides “equal rights.” Do they have any idea how silly this makes them look to thinking people?
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 9:23 PM on April 27
Nothing scares the egalitarians more than a level playing field for it means they would then have to eventually accept that their cherished myth about racial equality was just that, an unsupported myth.
Posted by Robert at 4:42 PM on April 28
“Knowing that such antipreference initiatives enjoy strong public support—in fact, they have already passed overwhelmingly in three blue states—the activists have zero interest in waging these fights on the merits. Rather, their goal is to keep the initiatives off the ballot by any means necessary, up to and including political chicanery and outright physical intimidation.”
One aspect that some have touched on here, but not dealt with directly is the fact that the above paragraph is a glowing example of a sign of hope. The tactics that these Reds have to use to are so hysterical and intimidating, that they simply lose sympathy from large swaths of the population who are suddenly awakened to just how arrogantly truculent and irrational they are. In short, because they know that they will be beaten like feral cur dogs at the polls, they simply revert to being the same in the streets, but also gone rabid as well.
So let them shout, beat their chests, bang on pots, and set things afire, it only strengthens our cause and slowly wins small battles for our cause, that could also be victory in this wider war that is being fought for white survival both in this country and the world.
As Jared Taylor and many other authors who write regularly here at AR have observed in the past, whites will vote for their interests when those interests are allowed to be represented in a ballot or a particular candidate.
Posted by John PM at 7:40 PM on April 28