Julian Bond Sees “Right Wing Conspiracy” But No Stigma

Julian Bond, speaking at Franklin & Marshall College:

The quest for political and economic equality is still unfulfilled, Bond said. Citing a recent movement to end affirmative action, Bond warned of the “right-wing conspiracy” that “controls the administration, both houses of Congress, a majority of the judiciary and much of the media.”

Those trying to abolish affirmative action claim there’s a stigma attached to all African-Americans because of the program, Bond said.

“Why don’t they say that about white people who get into Harvard or Yale because Dad was an alumnus? Why don’t they say that about people who got a job because Dad was president of the company? Or president of the United States?”

Er, they do.

Say What? (19)

  1. Stephen January 28, 2005 at 6:33 am | | Reply

    Bond’s statements in the final paragraph attack the right of families to build an estate and pass on their wealth to their children. I know that I am attempting to build an estate, and I do intend for my children to be the beneficiaries of whatever wealth I can create.

    Decoded, Bond is arguing that all wealth is a possession of the state. Nothing new here, is there? Just the same old, discredited and dead commie ideology.

    Yes, the children of the wealthy have advantages over the children of the poor. Ought to be easy to fix that, right? No problema. I’ll get on it right after lunch.

  2. Andrew P. Connors January 28, 2005 at 8:58 am | | Reply

    Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson, et. al. have an important question to answer: when should affirmative action end?

  3. John Rosenberg January 28, 2005 at 10:15 am | | Reply

    Andrew – Actually, I think Justice O’Connor has an even more interesting question to answer: Why should affirmative action end in 25 years, or ever? If “diversity” is a compelling interest that trumps the right (or rather, former right) of individuals to be free from racial discrimination, why should we ever stop the racial regulation by the state that produces it?

  4. sc January 28, 2005 at 1:28 pm | | Reply

    ‘when should affirmative action end?’

    quick answer: never.

    much longer answer: never, because

    1) it’s not enough that basically all of the original aims of the civil rights movement have been achieved, in that it’s illegal to discriminate against minorities in hiring practices, etc. Then, any individual act of discrimination becomes a matter for specific legal action. But this equal-seat-at-the-table justifiably demanded by a color-blind society has morphed into a combination of legislative payback for past discrimination and the supposed ‘need’ to continue AA until the last vestige of prejudice has been removed from the collective hearts and minds.

    Preferentialists might argue, and have a valid point, that it’s not legislative payback, but rather the rightful return of all opportunity that was lost because of the original discrimination. But it’s still discrimination, it’s still wrong, and might take nearly as long to rectify as the original problem, certainly longer than the 25 years O’Connor stated. As for the ‘hearts and minds’ angle, this is just silly. Humans are imperfect creatures and will always identify with some groups, usually the ones most like themselves, and consider others ‘different’, perhaps even to the point of havings pre-conceived ideas about them, or ‘prejudices’. We just can’t allow these tendencies to result in discrimination against anyone, ever.

    2) even in cases where courts have allowed discrimination for specific aims (community policing ratios, etc.) preferentialists have demanded their continued use. Take the case in my hometown of Boston. When the courts ruled that the correct ratios had been reached and the programs must be dismantled, the outcry was loud and immediate. So it doesn’t matter how long AA continues or what goals are reached, it can never be ended lest we return to the ‘bad old days’.

  5. Chetly Zarko January 28, 2005 at 11:24 pm | | Reply

    Stephen,

    I don’t think Bond’s point has to be interpreted as an attack on property rights and inheritance. Of course, he may very likely believe that too.

    John’s point in the original post was that we do stigmatize people who are born with silver spoons in their mouths, or that we stigmatize those that get preferential admission into Harvard etc. because of their Daddy’s power or wealth. The irony is that we rightly do so – whereas someone who stigmatizes a minority, who, may unknowingly, receives a preference is not as morally justified in such assigning of stigma. Another irony is that the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which requires UNIVERSAL (not preferential) outreach, actually helped to start break down the “old boys network.” Sure, it didn’t, and could never, destroy such networking – – but it put a serious crimp in it. Such policies, because they are universal, help everyone. The poor white guy in the deep south is helped as much by requirements that jobs be posted widely as is the poor black or hispanic.

    The next step, obviously, is to make UNIVERSAL improvements in educational quality.

    Truly,

    Chet

  6. leo cruz January 29, 2005 at 3:03 am | | Reply

    Chetly ,

    REad all my commentaries in this blogsite,I am tired of telling people that all preferences are the same, be they racial or alumni legacy preferences or geographical They are all rotten, vile and evil, sick , demented and depraved. WE can continue destroying this “old boy network ” by witholding public tax money from the private schools that practice alumni preferences like NOrthwestern University, U of Chicago, Notre dAme etc. which is right in your backyard.

  7. Jason January 29, 2005 at 11:04 am | | Reply

    Chet, the stimga attaches in both cases because there is a belief that some people were admitted to the university on a basis other than merit.

    You used the word “unknowingly” when mentioning race preferences. I’d argue that a legacy preference is not necessarily aware that he/she received a preference either. I’d also argue that in many cases, legacies do not receive any preference because they already meet the minimum requirements for admission.

    If I follow your logic correctly, then it is not morally right to stimatize individual legacy students either as you cannot tell which received preferential treatment and which did not.

    I’d like to see schools be more honest with any student that receives preferential treatment (athletes, legacies etc.)

    The admissions office should inform the student that his/her academic record suggests that they may lack the skills required to succeed at the school. The school should provide data of success rates of similarly situated students.

    Then allow the student to decide whether to accept the preferential treatment and be admitted to the university.

  8. Cobra January 29, 2005 at 8:56 pm | | Reply

    Of course, the problem with the stigma issue is that it doesn’t just apply to school admissions. There are stigmas alive against women and minorities in a multitude of non-subserviant roles and positions.

    The old right winged hustles still plays out…

    “Would you want an Affirmative Action doctor to operate on you or an Affirmative Action fireman to come to your burning house?”

    As Julian Bond states aptly, you don’t hear the same kind of commentary about legacy doctors or firemen. There is an IMPLICATION that every white male, untill proven otherwise, is qualified for whatever position or title he holds.

    It just brings up “selective outrage” again to this discussion, unfortunately.

    –Cobra

  9. John Rosenberg January 29, 2005 at 10:37 pm | | Reply

    There is an IMPLICATION that every white male, untill proven otherwise, is qualified for whatever position or title he holds.

    Insofar as this is true, a good part of the reason is that everyone knows there are no positions where the qualifications demanded of whites is significantly lower than for everyone else. Stigma, in short, is a double-edged sword: not only do the recipients of arbitrary preferences suffer the stigma of not having earned what they achieve, but those who don’t receive the preferences are viewed with the IMPLICATION of which cobra complains. Finally, none of the legacy preferences at elite schools with which I am familiar are as great as the racial preferences those schools award (often over a 200 point differential on average SAT scores). And really finally, I don’t think professionals schools even give legacy preferences, and if they do the amount of preference would be small enough that the question of the qualifications of a “legacy doctor” would never arise.

  10. Cobra January 31, 2005 at 1:32 am | | Reply

    John writes:

    >>>Stigma, in short, is a double-edged sword: not only do the recipients of arbitrary preferences suffer the stigma of not having earned what they achieve, but those who don’t receive the preferences are viewed with the IMPLICATION of which cobra complains.”

    Of course, the problem with your theory is that the implication that a white male is qualified for any position he holds pre-dates affirmative action…by centuries.

    As far as professional schools go, I will concede, but only to the point that Affirmative Action in academia is an “entry level” issue. That minority student still has to pass the same exams, tests and procedures as the rest of the students. A black law student still has to pass the bar exam, and as far as I know, there aren’t “affirmative action versions” available.

    –Cobra

  11. Stephen January 31, 2005 at 4:23 pm | | Reply

    “Of course, the problem with your theory is that the implication that a white male is qualified for any position he holds pre-dates affirmative action…by centuries.”

    This statement, Cobra, is pure BS. First, it really has no meaning. It’s incoherent. It is pure, unalloyed nonsense.

    My ancestors came to New York City to find signs that said: “Niggers and Irish need not apply.”

    Sometimes, I wonder what you are talking about. I don’t think you know either.

  12. Cobra January 31, 2005 at 6:33 pm | | Reply

    Stephen writes:

    >>>My ancestors came to New York City to find signs that said: “Niggers and Irish need not apply.”

    Since you are older than me, we can safely assume, that despite all of your accusations of gang affiliation on my part, I certainly wasn’t around to hang up discriminatory signs for your ancestors. Since your favorite boogey-man wasn’t there, exactly WHO DID HANG UP THOSE SIGNS?

    Psst…I’ll give you a hint, Stevie…they were probably, in all likelihood…white males. If your ancestors didn’t mask their accents and drop their ethnic last names like MANY European immigrants did to assimilate, they probably had a helluva time with the white anglo saxon protestant males who were (and still are) running this country.

    Now, unless your argument is that African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, or darker skinned Hispanic Americans controlled America at any given point and time…you’ve done nothing to refute my statement.

    Hmmm….another warm feeling of deja vu wafts over me as I typed that last line…

    –Cobra

  13. Stephen February 1, 2005 at 10:05 am | | Reply

    You have for once Cobra come up with a coherent thought.

    However, you don’t seem to know that at one time, not too long ago, a white person of English descent who was a Lutheran or Methodist was thought to be completely different from one who was Irish and of Catholic descent. You are simply indulging in “white people all look alike to me” thinking.

    I’ve destroyed your statement. Your notion that some sort of conspiratorial cabal runs this country is symptomatic of paranoia, and your own racism, of which you have copious amounts.

    Your notion that all white males form a conspiratorial gang is pure racism, of a form which would demand societal ostracism if a white person were to say it about blacks. And, oddly, you aren’t even embarassed to express these notions.

    No single group “runs this country.” It’s wide open for you, if you want to abandon your racism, get an education and focus on your job. In fact, as I’ve told you, you would earn 25% more than a white man at any comparable executive or tech job. I gather you are just too lazy to do the work, and prefer the bloviating.

  14. Stephen February 1, 2005 at 10:12 am | | Reply

    And, please tell me, how does changing one’s name conceal an Irish brogue?

    And, I will remind you again the next time you want to weep about your family and the travails of blacks, that you simply dismiss the problems of my family and the travails of whites.

    Has it ever occurred to you that this declaration of total disinterest in the plight of any but your own might be reciprocated? Once again, you don’t give a damn about me… I don’t give a damn about you. It’s just going to get more and more that way, Cobra. I am equally uninterested in the historic problems of you and your kind.

  15. Cobra February 1, 2005 at 11:09 pm | | Reply

    Stephen writes:

    >>>I don’t give a damn about you.”

    What??!? I would’ve NEVER guessed that was the case from the volumes you’ve written about me over the months.

    >>>And, please tell me, how does changing one’s name conceal an Irish brogue?”

    One could simply keep one’s mouth shut, though I can’t imagine some posters here putting that theory into practice. :)

    >>>No single group “runs this country.”

    Let me give you a little lesson in statistics, Stephen.

    There have been only five black senators…ever.

    There have been only two black USSC justices…ever.

    There have been NO black Presidents…ever.

    That’s your three branches of government; legislative, judicial and executive. I could heap on statistics on wealth distribution, corporate executive demographics, etc…but that would bore people here. They already know the numbers, as do you, I suspect.

    SC writes:

    >>>2) even in cases where courts have allowed discrimination for specific aims (community policing ratios, etc.) preferentialists have demanded their continued use. Take the case in my hometown of Boston. When the courts ruled that the correct ratios had been reached and the programs must be dismantled, the outcry was loud and immediate. So it doesn’t matter how long AA continues or what goals are reached, it can never be ended lest we return to the ‘bad old days’.”

    Preferentialists (I kinda like the ring of that) like myself understand that the bad old days are only a few court decisions away from returning. As much as the anti-affirmative action types claim that it’s safe to go into the water, that shark fin of anti-minority discrimination keeps popping up on the horizon. Your situation in Boston is precisely what I’m talking about. Affirmative Action policies may have created what some consider a “goal” in minority hiring, it doesn’t do much to change the territorial segregationist mindset of the population.

    >>>In Boston, an analysis by census tract showed that the degree of segregation declined somewhat, on a scale of segregation from 0 to 100 (with 100 denoting complete segregation) from 72.90 in 1990 to 68.45 in 2000 for non-Hispanic blacks, and from 52.66 to 51.84 for Latinos. In contrast, indices for all of the other Metropolitan Area Planning Council communities combined showed a slight increase in the degree of racial segregation

  16. Stephen February 2, 2005 at 9:03 am | | Reply

    This reminds me of the feminist saw that women are not proportionately represented in Congress.

    Well… people vote on these issues don’t they?

    In other words, people don’t agree with you and they vote in ways you don’t like.

    I’ll get busy and fix that.

  17. sc February 2, 2005 at 11:10 am | | Reply

    Cobra,

    your post was so depressing, and we’re so different, I don’t even know where to start. I look around my neighborhood and see that it’s different. It used to be nearly all white; now there are more blacks, Vietnamese, some Latinos, a growing Cape Verdean population, etc. And you know what? It’s still the same neigborhood it always was, a great place to live. You would pore over some data like that in your post (that might look good on paper but doesn’t begin to tell the real story) and rail that the percentages aren’t blah blah … You’re missing the point. To use your beach analogy, the waters aren’t completely clear but they’re a long way from shark-infested. I don’t see standing on the beach in a never-ending quest for the great white as part of the solution, but part of the problem.

  18. Laura February 2, 2005 at 1:47 pm | | Reply

    “Preferentialists (I kinda like the ring of that) like myself understand that the bad old days are only a few court decisions away from returning.”

    Yeah, without the eternal vigilance of preferentialists like yourselves, those “White Only” signs would sneak right back over the water fountains. We’re just waiting until you blink.

  19. Cobra February 2, 2005 at 6:57 pm | | Reply

    SC,

    Didn’t mean to depress you, but I’m kinda of the unelected provider of facts in rebuttal to the anti-affirmative action types. The AAA-types would have you believe the best way to treat people who’ve been thrown overboard is to ban lifeboats. I respond to these notions with facts and statistics. Of course, the AAA-types can’t refute them, and resort to ad hominem attacks on me, and my mindset. I know I have truth on my side, and as I watch power and wealth in this nation quickly concentrate into fewer and fewer hands, I begin to appreciate the rights my ancestors fought and died for, and how FRAGILE those rights truly are. I don’t trust human nature any more than the average beat cop, and those who oppose me here have NEVER provided any legitimate reason for me to do so.

    –Cobra

Say What?