Necessary Distortion

Hypocrisy, the saying goes, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. I have a corollary: Distortion is the tribute preferentialists pay to proponents of colorblind racial equality.

The first distortion is their refusal to use the accurate and descriptive term, “racial preferences,” to describe the policy they defend, preferring instead the fuzzily amorphous “affirmative action.”

The second is the constant misrepresentation of what their “affirmative action” actually is. Consider this example from an article by Lynne Martinez, a former Ingham County (Michigan) commissioner, state representative and Michigan children’s ombudsman who works with One United Michigan, an organization leading the fight to defend racial preferences in Michigan.

Affirmative action helps ensure that qualified women and minorities are considered in college admissions and in public employment and contracting. Affirmative action helps qualified individuals get an equal chance at job opportunities, college scholarships and youth training programs that help them succeed.

If that’s all “affirmative action” did there would be no Michigan Civil Rights Initiative on the ballot in Michigan, and if MCRI passes next November nothing mentioned in the above paragraph will be proscribed. Nothing.

Ms. Martinez continues:

In fact, [MCRI] would immediately end all affirmative action based on race, ethnicity and gender in college recruiting and admissions, and in state and local government hiring and contracting. This anti-affirmative action proposal would prevent qualified individuals from having a fair shot at college admissions and state and city jobs.

Again, nothing in this paragraph is true. MCRI would bar state agencies from giving preferences to anyone based on race or sex. Not only would it not “prevent qualified individuals from having a fair shot at college admissions and state and city jobs,” it would positively require that everyone have “a fair shot,” i.e., not penalized because of race, ethnicity, or gender. It leaves untouched any “affirmative action” program that does not employ preferential treatment.

Still more:

Programs that encourage young women to enter science and math would be prohibited at a time when we are still recruiting engineers from other countries. Programs to encourage men to enter teaching or nursing would be prohibited at a time these fields are hugely wanting. Government programs to eliminate health disparities would be forbidden.

And yet again, nothing in MCRI would prevent anyone, or any organization, from encouraging anyone to do anything. It would prevent discriminating against anyone because of race, ethnicity, or gender. Does Ms. Martinez really want Michigan taxpayers to discriminate against women nursing applicants? To lower the standards that women applicants to math and science programs must meet? If so, she seems afraid to say so.

One of the best arguments for MCRI is that its opponents routinely find it necessary to make transparently false criticisms of it, even as they steadfastly refuse to describe accurately the preferential policies they defend.

UPDATE [4 March]

On a lark, I sent this post to the Lansing City Pulse and suggested they publish it as a reply to Ms. Martinez’s pro-preferences screed.

To my surprise the managing editor wrote back, asking me to shorten it to 300 words.

I then replied, in effect, that 300 words hardly seemed fair, inasmuch as Ms. Martinez had 700 words of distortion. (I was implicitly echoing here what Mary McCarthy famously said to Dick Cavett about Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”)

The celebrity-conscious Managing Editor replied:

Lynne Martinez is a prominent figure — the very fact that she wrote a column is newsworthy. You are not a prominent figure, so no, I can’t give you equal space. If Ward Connerly or a well-known Michigan legislator wanted to chime in with 700 words, I’d certainly consider it.

So that being said, can you trim it back?

I sent him 296 words.

Stay tuned. Who knows? If he publishes it, there’s a chance that I, too, could become “prominent” and “newsworthy” … in Lansing.

Say What?