More From The Pitts

I have written about columnist Leonard Pitts more than a few times (such as here, here, here, and here). He is a big supporter of racial preferences, but these remarks in an interview at Ohio University suggest that he hasn’t a clue how racial preferences actually work:

I am insulted by the idea that you have to lower standards to recruit minorities. The problem is that affirmative action is being defined as a way of increasing diversity. We need to remember that affirmative action was not originally defined in that sense; it was first defined as a way to redress years of systemic exclusion of people on account of gender and race. Now, should schools continue to broaden their reach, and attempt to recruit minorities? Yes. Should they consider factors other than, but including, scholarship? Yes, because that’s done racially and nonracially. To lower entrance requirements, however, in the name of better representing a certain culture, is problematic and insulting.

And speaking of things that “we need to remember,” Pitts should himself be reminded that affirmative action began in Executive Orders signed by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, both of which made it clear that their purpose was to ensure that people should be treated “without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”

Say What? (15)

  1. Anonymous March 10, 2005 at 1:54 pm | | Reply

    “PETERS: Isn’t there a tendency for some minorities to see a racial bias where one might not exist?

    “PITTS: Yes. Blacks tend to talk about race too much, and whites tend to talk about it too little. In a way, minorities are victims of the civil-rights movement. Before that, nobody hid feelings of prejudice; people wore Klan hats, erected white-supremacy signs, and so forth. Naturally, these outward signs faded from glory following the movement, and political correctness swept the country, forcing people to adopt tolerant language, and to express bias through subterfuge and secrecy. Therefore, if you’re a minority, you don’t know outright when someone is treating you differently because of color, creed, etc. This gives many African Americans a hair-trigger, a reluctance to give white people the benefit of the doubt.”

    Hmmmm. I’ll take issue, though, with “forcing people to … express bias through subterfuge and secrecy.” Maybe he didn’t mean it this way: but nobody is forced to express bias at all. The reason I say this is that you could take this to an extreme and say white people can’t win. If I wear a KKK hat and say the “n” word that’s wrong. If I don’t do those things, but am careful to be sensitive in my speech and actions, I am merely hiding my bias. People get to the point that they give up on all of it, say what they think and do what they do, and to heck with anybody’s opinion of it; which would be OK except that we do need to err a little on the side of sensitivity for a while yet. It would be easier to do that if we got a little more positive feedback for it. I’m speaking in generalities, not in regard to anyone who comments here.

  2. Laura March 10, 2005 at 1:55 pm | | Reply

    Sorry, that was me.

  3. John Rosenberg March 10, 2005 at 2:06 pm | | Reply

    Laura, quoting Pitts from elsewhere in the cited article:

    “… if you’re a minority, you don’t know outright when someone is treating you differently because of color, creed, etc. This gives many African Americans a hair-trigger, a reluctance to give white people the benefit of the doubt.”

    Yes, but note the ambiguity of what Pitts is saying here: do blacks want to be treated differently because of their race? The implication is no, but the fact is yes, at least for all of those, including Pitts, who support racial preferences.

  4. Laura March 10, 2005 at 8:32 pm | | Reply

    I think the idea is that if someone treats you differently it’s either negative or patronizing. Of course, AA strikes some of us, minorities included, as patronizing. Perhaps Pitts hasn’t thought it through.

  5. John Rosenberg March 10, 2005 at 8:41 pm | | Reply

    I think the idea is that if someone treats you differently it’s either negative or patronizing.

    Laura – That’s the clear import of what Pitts says here, but then he supports preferential admissions etc., which requuires treating people differently because of race.

  6. Cobra March 10, 2005 at 11:26 pm | | Reply

    Human experience often dictates these thought patterns. I have met many Jewish people in my lifetime who to this day refuse to purchase a German made car, even though we’re half a century removed from the Holocaust.

    There is an EXPECTATION of discrimination in America amongst many minorities, because by and large, the evidence shows that it’s WARRANTED.

    I may have told an anecdote here about my being told an apartment is available via phone call, only to get “Sorry, it was just rented out” from the older, white landlord when I went to see it person, only to find it still available the following Monday. NOW, to many in this blog, there may be a plausible theory as to why this might have occurred. For myself, as an African American who knows the research on housing discrimination and decades of similiar slights, it’s case closed.

    I lock my doors at night, not because I’m paranoid about crime, but because it’s a reasonable practice given the nature of today’s society. Ultimate Principles like “Thou Shalt Not Steal” are wonderful, but are no consolation when you come home and find your DVD player missing.

    I believe in Affirmative Action, not because I’m paranoid about white racists, but because it TOO is a reasonable practice given the nature of today’s society.

    –Cobra

  7. John Rosenberg March 10, 2005 at 11:47 pm | | Reply

    i>I may have told an anecdote here about my being told an apartment is available via phone call, only to get “Sorry, it was just rented out” from the older, white landlord when I went to see it person, only to find it still available the following Monday. NOW, to many in this blog, there may be a plausible theory as to why this might have occurred. For myself, as an African American who knows the research on housing discrimination and decades of similiar slights, it’s case closed.

    I doubt that many readers here deny that discrimination still exists, but as you know I certainly don’t. But you also know that I don’t believe “affirmative action” is a remedy for it, or usually even relevant to it. How, for example, would it apply to the apartment building where you experienced discrimination? Should the owners be required to rent only to black applicant until a proper proportion of the apartments were occupied blacks, or perhaps to apply a lower standard of credit worthiness to black applicants, or what?

    Enforcing laws against discrimination, on the other hand, would seem to fit your unfortunate experience perfectly. I’d even be happy to see proven acts of racial discrimination made a criminal offense.

  8. superdestroyer March 11, 2005 at 8:25 am | | Reply

    Cobra,

    Why does Mr. Pitts create a definition of discrimination that leaves out blacks discriminiating against non-blacks as something that is bad. Have not blacks targeted asian and white owned business for arson, assaults, or protest? Have you never listen to a group of black teenagers at the mall talking about Koreans.

    Just last week, during a meeting on group health in_surance coverage, the african-american female who was telling us about the HMO we use said “You use the company homepage to find a doctor near your home or work who you can pronounce the name of.” Is that not a sign of bias and bigotry? I guess she felt comfortable saying that since there were a large number of blacks in the room but no Asians.

  9. John Rosenberg March 11, 2005 at 4:57 pm | | Reply

    The more I think about it, the more I think that cobra’s unfortunate experience with apartment-seeking discrimination provides a very good example of why his johnny-one-note justification for racial preferences — because racial discrimination STILL EXISTS! (his caps) — is so weak and inappropriate.

    Let’s see, he was a victim of discrimination in seeking an apt. to rent. And giving an advantage to a black applicant to, say, Yale or the University of Virginia over another qualified but non-black applicant with SATs that are around 200 points higher is supposed to therefore be justified as some sort of remedy? This just doesn’t compute.

    Let’s dig a bit deeper into this example. I assume cobra thought his treatment by the apt. manager was unfair and that it made him angry. (It makes me angry just hearing about it.) But what, exactly, was it about the manager’s “being conscious” of cobra’s race and “taking it into account” in rejecting him that was unfair and made him justifiably angry? I assume it must have had at least something to do with not treating him as an individual, with stereotyping him, with rejecting him because of some literally superficial, skin-deep quality. At least that’s what would make me angry in his shoes.

    But wait! That couldn’t be it, because we all know that cobra supports being “conscious” of race, of “taking race into account” in making all sorts of decisions, of giving some people benefits and others burdens based on nothing more than their superficial, skin-deep characteristcs. Cobra, in other words, has no objection in principle to distributing burdens and benefits based on race, it must be that his criterion is simply that he supports people taking his race into account when it works to his benefit and he opposes it when it doesn’t.

    But wait again! That still couldn’t be it, because he also applauds people being “conscious” of race and “taking into account” even when it doesn’t benefit him, when it only benefits (or he thinks it benefits) someone who look like him. (Remember, diversity preferences are not intended to benefit the recipient but rather those who will profit from being exposed the recipient’s “difference,” but cobra is shrewd enough to see through that flim-flam.)

    In short, cobra seems to see himself not so much as an individual who is black (among, presumably, other things, since when his race is considered in ways of which he approves it is, in the officially approved mantra, only one of many things about him that is being considered), but rather as a subset of black, as primarily a member of a group defined in large part by the response of others to their skin color. Thus whatever benefits him benefits the group (“What’s good for General Motors” on a small scale), and whatever benefits another member of the group benefits him. Only with such an attitude can he regard a racial preference being extended to an applicant for Harvard or a job as a fireman as justifed because of the discrimination he experienced in trying to rent an apt.

  10. Cobra March 11, 2005 at 6:01 pm | | Reply

    John writes:

    >>>Let’s see, he was a victim of discrimination in seeking an apt. to rent. And giving an advantage to a black applicant to, say, Yale or the University of Virginia over another qualified but non-black applicant with SATs that are around 200 points higher is supposed to therefore be justified as some sort of remedy? This just doesn’t compute.”

    Here’s one place where you’d be surprised to hear my answer. I agree that on it’s face, if a prospective white student was told that he or she was SPECIFICALLY DENIED admission to a school because a black kid who scored 200 points less on his SAT’s usurped the spot he or she was entitled to, I wouldn’t be surprised if that white student got mad as hell. Hey, that’s the Jennifer Gratz story, right?

    >>>But wait! That couldn’t be it, because we all know that cobra supports being “conscious” of race, of “taking race into account” in making all sorts of decisions, of giving some people benefits and others burdens based on nothing more than their superficial, skin-deep characteristcs.”

    I didn’t create America, John. I just live in it. And I live with the RACIALLY CONSCIOUS REALITY that IS America. Now, if I were to take the advice you seem to imply…that I should IGNORE the racist reality of America, that would be akin to crossing the street without looking both ways. I might survive a few trips at first, but sooner or later I will feel the sudden impact of a high speed vehicle called “race.”

    >>>Only with such an attitude can he regard a racial preference being extended to an applicant for Harvard or a job as a fireman as justifed because of the discrimination he experienced in trying to rent an apt.”

    I justify “AFFIRMATIVE ACTION” (whites have enjoyed “racial preference” in this nation since day one) because I believe the landlord who discriminated against me is one of MILLIONS of other like minded Americans. It’s a pandemic viral infection with no known cure.

    Now, there are some blog readers out there who are saying to themselves, “Geez, this Cobra-guy is paranoid! He thinks there are racists around every corner.”

    Well…you yourself concede my facts, figures, and documentation on the existance of discrimination against African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans. You agree it exists. You would also have to agree that there are people out there PERPETRATING this discrimination. You seem to suggest that retaliation via legal resources is a solution for discrimination. I prefer the “Bush Doctrine-Style” of fighting discrimination: The Pre-emptive Strike of Affirmative Action.

    –Cobra

  11. John Rosenberg March 11, 2005 at 6:20 pm | | Reply

    Now, if I were to take the advice you seem to imply…that I should IGNORE the racist reality of America, that would be akin to crossing the street without looking both ways.

    I’ve never given or even implied any such advice. What I have said is that there a whole bunch of remedies for discrimination, and consequently actions individuals can take, that are more relevent and work better than justifying the discrimination against unknown third parties to benefit unknown fourth parties.

    I justify “AFFIRMATIVE ACTION” (whites have enjoyed “racial preference” in this nation since day one) because I believe the landlord who discriminated against me is one of MILLIONS of other like minded Americans. It’s a pandemic viral infection with no known cure.

    Affirmative action (whether in all caps or not) without racial preferences is nothing. But if you think there is such a thing as preference-less affirmative action then we have a basis for a grand compromise: I hereby pledge to support any and all affirmative action programs that involve neither benefits nor burdens based on race. (I suspect there will be about as many such programs as there are varieties of ham sandwiches in a kosher deli.)

    Of course if I believed that this country suffered from an incurable, virulent infection of hatred and discrimination against a group with which I was identified, I’d buy a ticket to someplace else. For if that analysis is right, no conceivable program of any conceivable preferences would ever cure it, and me and mine would be condemned to victimhood for generations yet uncounted. I wouldn’t hang around for that.

  12. Cobra March 12, 2005 at 9:35 am | | Reply

    John writes:

    >>>Affirmative action (whether in all caps or not) without racial preferences is nothing. But if you think there is such a thing as preference-less affirmative action then we have a basis for a grand compromise: I hereby pledge to support any and all affirmative action programs that involve neither benefits nor burdens based on race. (I suspect there will be about as many such programs as there are varieties of ham sandwiches in a kosher deli.)”

    According to studies, WHITE WOMEN should be more determined to support Affirmative Action than African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans.

    >>>Myth 2: Affirmative action has not succeeded in increasing female and minority representation.

    Several studies have documented important gains in racial and gender equality as a direct result of affirmative action (Bowen & Bok, 1998; Murrell & Jones, 1996). For example, according to a report from the U.S. Labor Department, affirmative action has helped 5 million minority members and 6 million White and minority women move up in the workforce (“Reverse Discrimination,” 1995). Likewise, a study sponsored by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs showed that between 1974 and 1980 federal contractors (who were required to adopt affirmative action goals) added Black and female officials and managers at twice the rate of noncontractors (Citizens’ Commission, 1984). There have also been a number of well-publicized cases in which large companies (e.g., AT&T, IBM, Sears Roebuck) increased minority employment as a result of adopting affirmative action policies.”

    http://www.understandingprejudice.org/readroom/articles/affirm.htm

    So you see, John, Affirmative Action doesn’t just include race, but also gender. I must express my doubts that you would embrace a “class based” Affirmative Action program, because that doesn’t represent the current GOP agenda and conservative movement you clearly endorse in many of your posts. If anything, the Conservatives you celebrate are doing everything in their power to concentrate wealth, access and power into the fewest possible hands while simultaneously hamstringing social safety net programs that assist the poor.

    Recently, a pack of conservatives got together at a Hudson Institute round table and that was one of the topics discussed:

    >>>The symposium also addressed the moral dimensions of poverty. Robert Woodson Sr., founder of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, challenged the gathering:

    “Let’s suppose that the nation totally embraced the conservative vision. How would it affect, in practical ways, the plight of the least of God’s children?”

    Liberals, Woodson said, look on poor people as “victims,” while conservatives look on them as “aliens. . . . In order for people to participate in an economy, they require information, they require training, and conservatives seem to be less enthusiastic about coming close to poor people.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38440-2005Feb19.html

    You also write:

    >>>Of course if I believed that this country suffered from an incurable, virulent infection of hatred and discrimination against a group with which I was identified, I’d buy a ticket to someplace else.”

    If my home has a hole in the roof, I wouldn’t give up and move. I would work to fix the hole. My belief in Affirmative Action indicates that I’m willing to stand and FIGHT those who feel I’m inferior, not run and hide from them.

    –Cobra

  13. John Rosenberg March 12, 2005 at 10:43 am | | Reply

    Cobra writes:

    John writes:

    >>>

    Affirmative action (whether in all caps or not) without racial preferences is nothing. But if you think there is such a thing as preference-less affirmative action then we have a basis for a grand compromise: I hereby pledge to support any and all affirmative action programs that involve neither benefits nor burdens based on race. (I suspect there will be about as many such programs as there are varieties of ham sandwiches in a kosher deli.)”

    According to studies, WHITE WOMEN should be more determined to support Affirmative Action than African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans.

    And what, exactly, do studies of WHITE WOMEN have to do with my challenge to you to some up with some affirmative action programs that do not involve discriminatory preferences? Oh, wait a minute. You mean some involve gender preferences, not racial preferences, and you think I should support those, presumably because it’s only blacks I want to hold down?

    Do you really think I don’t know that women are the beneficiaries of preferences, and do you really think I don’t care about that as long as they’re white?

    I assumed I had said often enough here what my position is, but apparently not so let me spell it out, again: I oppose discrimination based on race, religion, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity. Did I leave anything out? “Affirmative action” without preferences is nothing. If you disagree, show me an affirmative action without a discriminatory preference and I’ll support it.

    Myth 2: Affirmative action has not succeeded in increasing female and minority representation.

    Are you responding to me here? Where have I ever said that preferences don’t work, “work” being defined to mean produce more goodies for minorities than they would have without them? I have said that Richard Sander said that with regard to lawyers, but I haven’t taken a position on that. You seem to have a habit of responding to challenges by replying to things that were never said, at least here.

    I must express my doubts that you would embrace a “class based” Affirmative Action program, because that doesn’t represent the current GOP agenda and conservative movement you clearly endorse in many of your posts

    Unless you want to continue sounding silly, you should stop assuming what I do or don’t support, and I must say that I find your assumption that I’m a shil for the GOP offensive.

    If anything, the Conservatives you celebrate are doing everything in their power to concentrate wealth, access and power into the fewest possible hands while simultaneously hamstringing social safety net programs that assist the poor

    I also find this sort of soapbox oratory out of place here, and especially so when it attempts to mask the fact that you’re not responding to the post on which you are ostensibly commenting.

    If my home has a hole in the roof, I wouldn’t give up and move. I would work to fix the hole. My belief in Affirmative Action indicates that I’m willing to stand and FIGHT those who feel I’m inferior, not run and hide from them

    Yes, and Stalin said you can’t make an omlette without breaking eggs, to which George Orwell replied, “Yes, but where is the omlette?” On the evidence that I’ve seen here you’re not fixing any hole any roof but constantly complaining — or, in your style, CONSTANTLY COMPLAINING — about all those bad whites over all those years who kept putting holes in your roof, and are still doing so. As I’ve now said a number of times, giving an unknown person a racial advantage over someone who did him or you no harm will do nothing to fix whatever hole may be in your roof.

  14. David Nieporent March 16, 2005 at 4:32 am | | Reply

    I justify “AFFIRMATIVE ACTION” (whites have enjoyed “racial preference” in this nation since day one) because I believe the landlord who discriminated against me is one of MILLIONS of other like minded Americans. It’s a pandemic viral infection with no known cure.

    That doesn’t make any sense. Problem X “justifies” policy Y to the extent that policy Y is intended to address, and in fact does address, problem X.

    This landlord who allegedly discriminated against you — “allegedly” not because I think you’re lying, but because you don’t really know that the landlord discriminated against you (maybe it was taken, but then the person backed out), or that the landlord did so based on your race (maybe the landlord just didn’t like you personally) — may have been racist.

    But how do the racially discriminatory college admissions which you support solve that?

    If this landlord did what you think, he broke the law. Enforce that law — but don’t give an entirely different minority a college admissions spot she hasn’t earned. What will that solve?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    If my home has a hole in the roof, I wouldn’t give up and move. I would work to fix the hole.

    You claimed it couldn’t be fixed, Cobra. “No known cure,” remember?

    My belief in Affirmative Action indicates that I’m willing to stand and FIGHT those who feel I’m inferior, not run and hide from them.

    Not really; if anything, it indicates you agree with them on many levels. Racial preferences don’t “fight” these people. These hypothetical racists say, “Black people can’t succeed because they’re inferior.” You say, “Black people can’t succeed because the man is holding them down.” You both share the underlying assumption that black people can’t succeed.

  15. Cobra March 16, 2005 at 7:29 am | | Reply

    If birds pecking causes the hole in my roof, I can still fix the roof, which actually does nothing to prevent birds from pecking again.

    –Cobra

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