Who’s Confused?

The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative would amend the state constitution by commanding that state agencies “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

Some people find this “confusing.” According to Ingrid Scott-Weekly, the Equal Opportunity Director of Grand Rapids, the language “makes suspecting [sic] voters think they are signing a petition that supports civil rights.”

Can you believe it? Those sneaky conservatives, whose “wording of the petition takes advantage of unsuspecting citizens,” are trying to hoodwink good Michiganders into believing they will be supporting civil rights if they ban the state from discriminating against or granting preference to anyone on the basis of race!

In an attempt (feeble, as we shall see) to determine how confusing MCRI really is, “24 Hour News 8” in Grand Rapids took to the streets.

24 Hour News 8 wanted to find out just how confusing the language actually is, so we hit the streets with the petition in hand. We showed the petition to five people chosen at random in downtown Grand Rapids. Two of the people confirmed what critics had to say. “They’re trying to end affirmative action? I’m really confused,” said one woman. We asked another person if he think it supports Affirmative Action or is against it. “I think it supports it,” the man answered. Two other people found little confusion in the language. “I don’t think so,” one of them answered. “No…if you read the first sentence. But you have to read it,” said the other.

And then there was this response – “Typically, you’d think somebody who’s banning it…the language would be a little stronger. This makes it look like it’s pretty even handed.”

All this shows is how confused “24 Hour News 8” is. It assumes that “affirmative action” and “civil rights” are one and the same thing. With messengers like this, it’s no wonder that there is some confusion over the message.

Of course, the command that “Thou Shalt Not Discriminate On The Basis Of Race” cannot be clear when so many people believe that engaging in discrimination is the only way not to discriminate.

ADDENDUM

There’s actually something that almost qualifies as an irony at work here. For over a generation liberals have tried — and to a large extent succeeded — in redefining civil rights so that it now means, in polite conversation, “affirmative action” and, in actual practice, racial preference, even though polls and surveys have consistently shown the public rejects preferences by large majorities. So now they profess with shock and outrage that the only reason decent people would sign a petition to outlaw preferences is that they’ve been fooled into thinking that doing so supports civil rights, that the petition is misleading.

Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell and other civic and religious leaders expressed strong opposition this morning to a petition drive aimed at putting affirmative action before Michigan voters.

They say the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative petition is misleading and that those who sign think they are supporting affirmative action.

It was what affirmative action supporters feared. Heartwell and others say people who support affirmative action are signing a state petition against it, lured in by the name: the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

No, mayor. The signers think they are supporting civil rights, which in their view (unlike yours) does not allow racial preference. If there’s any misleading here, it’s what you and your ideological co-conspirators have been doing for the past generation.