Please Take A Look At…

Since I’m not sure how religiously all (any?) of you read comments, please allow me to call your attention to the comments on this post (“The Degradation of American Liberalism”) below. Although I regard this blog as fortunate in having several regular reader/commenters who are not members of the choir (so that I am not always preaching only to myself and like-minded friends), the two three extensive comments by Hull are especially welcome because they present the opposing argument so well and in such a civil tone. I would be less than honest with you, however, if I didn’t add that I regard my two three replies to him, as well as several other comments, as more persuasive.

And as long as I’m pointing to the arguments of critics, I am appending below (with permission) an email I received from a critical reader (identifying information removed):

Hi,

How are you?

I am very curious. I’ve visited your site a number of times and perused through your archives at some length and I can’t understand your hostility to affirmative action other that the mantra that you feel that giving preferential treatment to a certain group of people is wrong and you seem to feel that the laws that are in place currently (such as the civil rights act of 1964) provide adequate protection and provide opportunity for a person to seek remedy should they feel they have been wronged. Now of course this is my impressions from what I have read and I have no problems with clarifications or corrections on your part.

My other assumption is that you are white from what I can tell by reading your site. In the interest of full disclosure I am a black woman, with a MBA who currently works in finance in Texas.

Since you feel affirmative action is so wrong, and I’m quite sure you would want it abolished/discontinued, how would you fix the problem and/or perception that many minorities feel that they aren’t getting a fair shake in housing or gaining employment? Or do you really care?

I don’t have much faith in persons to just do the “right” thing and deliberately set out to hire from a wide pool of applicants or select a tenant from a wide pool of potential renters. Truth be told I feel a lot of people wouldn’t make the extra effort because they […] prefer to hire/rent to someone who looks and acts like them. (I’m just using this as example)

Can you honestly tell me that a white man wouldn’t rather hire a white man over a black women with all things being equal in terms of the prospective candidates educational backgrounds and relative experiences?

As you have probably surmised I am a proponent of affirmative action however I feel it needs to tweaked to address issues of class and socio-economic background as well. I am just so curious about people who hold views similar to yourselves (this is based on other bogs I’ve read as, which tend to lean toward the conservative). In particular, white men intrigue me because the running though process seems to be that they are being marginalized, when stats clearly show that whites being the majority in this country, still clearly are the majority of power brokers in this country.

I would appreciate your insights as to why you feel as you do, though I doubt we would persuade either to consider the other’s belief system..:)

Kind regards,

I replied:

First, I really appreciate your taking the time to write, and to write in such a thoughtful and un-hostile manner. Most of what I hear from people who disagree with me is not nearly so polite or engaging, and hence I don’t usually engage it. Although in one sense your curiosity makes me feel something like a specimen — in effect, “How could you think such strange and unappealing things?” — in another sense I take your questions as at least an implicit compliment of sorts: you must think I’m at least marginally reasonable, or you presumably wouldn’t have written because you wouldn’t care what I think!

That said, let me begin my reply by making a distinction that you may regard as semantic (or even pedantic) but that I think is important: I actually don’t oppose “affirmative action”; I oppose racial preferences. You mentioned perusing DISCRIMINATIONS and so you may have run across one of my several references to the two presidential executive orders, by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, that established affirmative action in the federal government, but if not here’s one of the places where I quote them:

http://www.discriminations.us/2003/01/martin_luther_king_and_affirma.html

Both executive orders are based on the same principle and have the same central command: government contractors must

take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. [Emphasis added]

I supported that then and support it now. Affirmative action, in my view, can and should comprise a whole range of steps such as energetic recruitment, trumpeting non-discriminatory policies, policing of work forces to ensure compliance, etc., etc. I believe it — and virtually entire civil rights movement, the Democratic party, and liberalism in general — went off the rails in abandoning the “without regard” principle of colorblind equality that was at the core of the presidential executive orders and the Civil Rights Acts (1964 and 1965). Not only was it wrong, in my view, to do so; it was also highly impolitic, since it threw away the success that had been achieved in, finally, persuading the American people to embrace the “without regard” principle in law, not just in theory and lip service.

Continuing on my semantic/pedantic course, let me say that it’s also not quite precise to say that I “feel that giving preferential treatment to a certain group of people is wrong.” All sorts of preferences to all sorts of groups, while perhaps dumb (to tobacco farmers, children of alumni, athletes, oboe players, etc.), raise no legal or constitutional problems. I do believe, however, that our society should place certain categories off limits to official favor or disfavor. These protected categories — race, religion, national origin — I believe are special, and that the principle that the state is not allowed to distribute burdens or benefits based on them is, or should be, a fundamental right, meaning that preferences to any of them (which inevitably involves disfavoring others of them) is fundamentally wrong. The civil rights movement was based on that principle from its origins in the 1830s through the 1960s, and should not have tossed it overboard for the slim reward of preferential hiring and admissions until the backlash arrived, a backlash that was eminently predictable because of the very success of the civil rights movement in articulating the colorblind ideal.

Your assumption that I am white is correct (if Jewish counts) but, in my view, irrelevant. There are now too many minorities who support official colorblindness to write it off as simply sour grapes from angry white men. (For what it’s worth, I’m also not angry and don’t feel marginalized. Indeed, that description fits none of the people I know, and know of, who’ve been campaigning for colorblind equality.)

Can you honestly tell me that a white man wouldn’t rather hire a white man over a black women with all things being equal in terms of the prospective candidates educational backgrounds and relative experiences?

Since you seem to mean “all white men” when you say “a white man,” yes, I can honestly tell you that I do not believe that is true. If you mean “some white men,” then I fear you may be right. But then you would also be right if you said “some white women” would rather hire a white woman, or any woman; some blacks would rather hire a black; etc., etc. As you noted, I think that sort of behavior is and should be illegal, and those laws should be vigorously enforced, reinforced by “affirmative action” (as originally understood) to see that they are enforced. I certainly do not believe that some people should be given an advantage because of their race as some sort of corrective, perhaps even pre-emptive corrective, for the fact that some other people illegally give preferences to other people based on their race.

In fact, one of the worst effects of the argument in favor of racial preferences is that it undermines the principle that racial discrimination is wrong.

Finally, ask yourself this: since racial preferences are incompatible with the principle animating the civil rights acts, i.e., that every individual has a right to be treated “without regard” to race, creed, or color, would you be willing to repeal the civil rights laws in order to make racial preferences indisputably legal?

Again, I appreciate the tone and civility of your questions, and I hope you will find my answers useful (though I doubt persuasive!).

Best wishes,

John Rosenberg

….

Since you mentioned that you’ve been looking at the blog you may have already seen this, but if not you may be interested in something I’ve just posted that also speaks, at least indirectly, to your questions:

“How Far We’ve Traveled …”

http://www.discriminations.us/2006/02/how_far_weve_traveled.html

24 Feb.