It’s late, and I’m having trouble figuring out whether this is funny or sad.
With Arctic-like winds whipping across campus, nearly 200 Eastern Michigan University students and their backers marched in support of affirmative action Thursday afternoon….
While EMU doesn’t have an affirmative action policy – its total minority enrollment is 22.5 percent without one – it’s important for the campus and its students to support the practice and back the University of Michigan, said Brandon Jessup, president of the NAACP student chapter at Eastern who organized the march.
I think they’re looking to transfer.
The best line in the article, of course:
>>>On the U-M campus, some students also supported affirmative action. The Michigan Student Assembly earlier this week voted 22 to 9, with one student abstaining, to support a resolution condemning the MCRI campaign.”
Oops. I guess there are people who are willing to stand up to the white male advocacy campaign of Gratz, Zarko and the MCRI. God bless those EMU students, and the right thinking members of the Michigan Student Assembly.
–Cobra
Thanks, Cobra, for the unprovoked ad hominem, and recognizing the work we’ve done. Perhaps you could defend your attack that we’re part of some “white male” campaign with some facts. Ward isn’t “white,” Jennifer isn’t “male,” and what difference does it make anyway if race preferences harm both “blacks” and “whites.”?
I was quite surprised that 9 members of the MSA voted against the resolution. Given my understanding of the organization, that’s a show of strength for our side.
Chetly Zarko writes:
>>>”Ward isn’t “white”
Are you sure, Chetly? You’d better check with Ward on that one, because based on his interviews, I’m still not sure what he defines himself to be. Like, this one with the “Interracial Voice”…
“IV: In a New York Times article from July 27, 1997 you stated that you are one-quarter “black,” three-eighths Irish, one-quarter French and one-eighth Choctaw. Aren’t you therefore, Mr. Connerly, a “black” or Negro only after an extremely liberal — no pun intended — application of the one-drop rule? Aren’t you, in effect, of mixed-race or multiracial?
WC: Absolutely, and that’s part of the reason why I’m fighting this stupid, I mean absolutely stupid race regime and this race mentality that we have in America. There are very few pure African-Americans, very few. On a recent trip to Louisiana where I gave a lecture at Tulane, I saw black people who were all shades of the rainbow. Black is a generic term; I’ll accept that. It’s a generic term just like white is.
IV: Is it easier for you to say that as opposed to delineating all of your background?
WC: Yes. We’re lazy communicators; all of us are. So, if we need some shorthand to kind of describe somebody, even though they may be cream-colored or pink or whatever, it is acceptable I suppose to call them white. If you want to call fair-skinned people who are, for all intents and purposes white, if you want to call them black because they they somehow self-identify as black, go ahead. I don’t care, but African-American is a term that I don’t like. In fact, I hate that term, because it presumes my ethnic background or my national origin, and when you say that I’m African-American, especially when my African ancestry is less than all the rest of me, you’re embracing that one-drop rule mentality. So, I fight the one-drop rule, because I am of mixed origin. My wife is white, and my grandkids are all of me, all of my wife. Their mother is half-Vietnamese. For us, these silly little boxes on these application forms have got to go. Implicit in all that I do and say is my personal agenda of getting rid of those friggin’ boxes and getting the nation beyond the point at which you demand that I identify myself as a black man or an African-American. I won’t argue the point right now, because I don’t have enough time in my lifetime to to do so. But eye is constantly on the ball of getting rid of that mindset in America.”
http://www.interracialvoice.com/interv6.html
Maybe that’s what Ward was trying to do with Prop 54 in California. Too bad it got voted down, huh?
–Cobra
I think I was both very precise, and even though I don’t need to “check” with him I believe that what I said would be correct in his view. I said “Ward is not ‘white,” I did not say the converse, that he “is black.” Given that the possibilities are not binary, you’re point is either meaningless (as Ward would suggest the labels “white” and “black” should be), or you’re cynically trying to take me out of context again.
The fact that you are “still not sure what he (Ward) defines himself to be” means you simply don’t get it. I don’t speak for him, but I believe he defines himself as a: human, individual, person, and American.
I had an interesting discussion just the other day who asked me to self-identify (even in European circles, there is a residual tendency to identify with each of the separate European national origins). I responded with American, and got the “No, where you really from?”. I actually have fun with this every time it happens (a few times a year). I repeated it, but asked “Do you mean what nations my grandparents and other ancestors were born in?” Then I listed the nations that I’m aware of.