Recall This Firestone!

When last heard from here, David Firestone of the New York Times was reporting that “G.O.P. Senators See No Need For Altered Stance on Race.” I commented at the time that his article was “odd” because he never said what that stance was.

Now here he comes again, after only one week, reporting in today’s NYT Week in Review that “The Republicans Try to Redefine Civil Rights.” I like to think I watch these issues pretty closely, but I haven’t seen any turnabout in Republican civil rights policy in the last week. Have you?

This week’s article does share one important feature with last week’s: like the previous one, this one also never says what the Republican definition is, either old or new. At one point Firestone does refer to “the race-neutral goals of Republicans,” but he doesn’t say whether he thinks this is the old view or the newly redefined view.

In fact, perhaps the oddest thing about this week’s odd article is that the text of the quite long piece has next to nothing to do with the title. There is virtually no discussion of Republicans trying to “redefine” civil rights, although he does mention Sen. Olympia Snowe’s desire for more “sensitivity,” by which she seems to mean doing nothing that would produce opposition from the traditional civil rights organizations. The title notwithstanding, the article spends all its time airing the views of those traditional civil rights leaders and organizations, and in the process, unwittingly, revealing the great confusion in their ranks.

Firestone begins by recognizing that the

issues championed today by traditional civil rights groups, from affirmative action to ending racial profiling, have become virtually identical to the Democratic Party platform…. The most egregious forms of discrimination were essentially dealt with in the sweeping legislation of the 1960’s and 70’s, supported by mainstream members of both parties.

Does this mean that the civil rights movement has moved on to confront less egregious forms of discrimination? Good question, if I do say so myself, but the answer isn’t in the article.

Next, Firestone says there “are those on both sides of the aisle who argue that extending unemployment benefits, which ran out for many people on Saturday, is also a matter of civil rights, because so many minorities are unemployed.”

So, “civil rights” is whatever benefits minorities? It would be nice if some of “those” who believe this were quoted, and even nicer, in an interpretive piece, if their arguments were analyzed. Nothing doing. Well, that’s not completely fair. One person on one side of the aisle was quoted.

“I would argue that unemployment benefits are a form of civil rights,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democratic delegate who represents the District of Columbia in the House. “Because of the great work of the 1960’s, there are only a few clear-cut issues left, like hate crimes and racial profiling. Now we’re following the bread-and-butter issues that we share with a broader array of Americans, because issues like health insurance and unemployment affect us so disproportionately.”

As the great Calvin Trillin once said (approximately), barbecue not made in Kansas City may be very good indeed … but it’s not barbecue. Similarly, the policies Ms. Norton and “those” who agree with her favor may be very well advised … but they’re not civil rights, or at least they don’t become civil rights simply by virtue of being desired by minorities.

Firestone also quotes a letter the leaders of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (an umbrella organization of 180 or so traditional civil rights groups) sent to President Bush stating their concern that “many individuals who you have nominated to serve on the federal bench have records of deep hostility to core civil rights principles and to Congress’s historic role in protecting the civil rights of all Americans.”

What are those “core civil rights principles”? If one of them is preferences based on race, when did that become “core”? Not a clue in Firestone’s article. It was clearly later than 1964, when the determination to outlaw all discrimination based on race was written into the Civil Rights Act of that year.

In fact, “clueless” is not a bad word to describe much of the NYT’s coverage of civil rights. Do the editors of the NYT really believe that civil rights no longer means a right to be free from racial discrimination but has come to mean whatever groups that claim to speak for minorities demand?

If so, then this article should have not have been titled “The Republicans Try to Redefine Civil Rights” but rather “The Liberals HAVE Redefined Civil Rights.”

SEE ALSO – Tony Hooker of Trojan Horseshoes makes some of these and other points.