Now that Amos Williams, a black civil rights attorney who supports “diversity”-justified racial preferences, is the Democratic candidate for Attorney General in Michigan, he’s bothered because, he says, “I know people think I’m on the ticket because of diversity….”
University of Michigan philosophy professor Carl Cohen, a former chairman of the Michigan Civil Liberties Union, has the perfect solution to Williams’ problem:
The Democratic Party nominee for Michigan attorney general says, with painful wisdom, “I know that people think I’m on the ticket because of diversity’’ (The Ann Arbor News, Sept. 3).
He’s right. It is a cruel truth that black candidates are often viewed, unfairly, not on their merits but as the product of affirmative action. The injustice thus done to those candidates, and to all black citizens, is a consequence of the preferences often given to minorities in one context or another. Not the capacities of people, but their color, has too often been our concern.
To uproot this unfairness, to eliminate silent condescension for minority candidates and minority students, we must put an end to the practice of giving preference by race. We can do that by supporting the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative – Proposition 2 on the November ballot. It will prohibit the state, and all its agencies, from giving preference by national origin, or by sex or by race.
All citizens are entitled to equal treatment under the law. Equal means equal.
Carl Cohen’s welcome eloquence has been noted often here (and here, here, here, and here).
Carl Cohen writes:
>>>”To uproot this unfairness, to eliminate silent condescension for minority candidates and minority students, we must put an end to the practice of giving preference by race. We can do that by supporting the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative – Proposition 2 on the November ballot. It will prohibit the state, and all its agencies, from giving preference by national origin, or by sex or by race”
However in a state that has passed a similiar proposition:
>>>”Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger apologized yesterday for declaring during a closed-door meeting that Cubans and Puerto Ricans are “hot” because of their combination of “black” and “Latino blood.”
…”I mean Cuban, Puerto Rican, they are all very hot,” the governor says on the recording. “They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090800599.html
Now, whether Professor Cohen believes the ratification of Prop. 209 should have deterred Arnold from “vocal condescension” of minority officials remains to be seen.
–Cobra