Paying Attention

In its continuing, activist judicial war against all the progress liberalism made since the 1960s, the Supreme Court will soon reconsider affirmative action.  In their previous decision in this Texas case, they left standing the principle of affirmative action to redress racial injustice while disallowing many of the remedies.  Now they’re poised to strike down the principle altogether.

Affirmative action.  Racial preferences. UnAmerican.  Let’s review… from the beginning.

Citizenship reserved for whites.  Homestead grants.  Access to land grant colleges.  Jim Crow segregation gives whites daily advantages.  After World War II, GI Bill college loans and low-cost mortgages — for white veterans only.  Racially restrictive covenants in the suburbs for whites only.

Finally, after centuries of racial preference, the civil rights movement becomes strong enough to redress at least somewhat the historical denial of opportunities.  Students of color begin going to white colleges.  People of color start showing up in jobs and neighborhoods previously off-limits to them.  America starts acknowledging that today’s society is shaped by generations of racial preference — to whites.

At that precise moment, our courts decide we are a “color blind” society.  At the very moment white people start losing their MONOPOLY on privilege, they decide that race shouldn’t be a factor at all. I don’t know whether to laugh bitterly or puke.

Irony of ironies?  The main beneficiaries of affirmative action have actually been white women.  The mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of those right-wingers who want to keep “those people” in their place.  Well “those people” are also “your people.” 

Let’s see how that works out.