Sometimes politicians, even slick ones like Michgan Governor Jennifer Granholm, slip up and say what they actually think.
After opposing the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative repeatedly primarily because it would take away preferences for women, Granholm has just been captured on tape (watch it here, starting about 45:20 and ending about 46:14) making the following remarkable statement:
My position on reparations has been clear that we need to repair the vestiges of slavery and affirmative action is one way to do it.
Granholm’s position, of course, has been anything but clear on this point. (For a few samples, see here, here, and here.) On the other hand, she was born in Canada, after all, and perhaps doesn’t know that neither blacks, nor Hispanics, nor women were ever enslaved in Michigan.
The “vestiges of slavery” were certainly felt in the the State of Michigan.
Examples:
>>>”Barred slavery:
1789 Statute Slavery and involuntary servitude were outlawed in the Michigan territory, other than for the punishment of a crime. Enslaved persons who had escaped could be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor.
Certificates of freedom 1833 Statute:
Blacks or mulattos desiring to settle in Michigan were required to produce a certificate of freedom issued by a court within the United States.
Fugitive slaves:
1833 Statute Persons claiming a black or mulatto in the State as their property were to apply to any justice of the county court. After the application was filed, a sheriff or constable was to arrest such black or mulatto and deliver the person to the claimant.
Free blacks:
1833 Statute Blacks or mulattos emigrating into the State were to post a $500 bond within 20 days after their arrival to guarantee their good behavior or to pay for their support if unable to do so. Persons who failed to comply with the statute were to be removed immediately in the same manner as required in the case of paupers.
Free blacks:
1833 Statute Persons found guilty of counseling blacks contrary to the above statute were to be fined $100, and they were to be liable for the support of such black if they were unable to provide for themselves.
Kidnapping:
1833 Statute Persons found guilty of seizing, detaining, and attempting to kidnap free blacks from the State were to be sentenced to hard labor in the penitentiary for between one and ten years.
Kidnapping:
1838 Statute Persons who unlawfully sold or transferred, for any term of service, the labor of a black, mulatto, or other person of color and kidnapped them from the State of Michigan were to be punished by imprisonment in the State prison up to ten years, or by a fine of up to $1,000, or both.
Fugitive slaves:
1855 Statute Passed “personal liberty” law prohibiting State officials from aiding in the enforcement of the fugitive slave laws of 1793 and 1850.
Miscegenation:
1857 Statute No white person shall intermarry with a black, “and no insane person or idiot shall be capable of contracting marriage.”
Fugitive slaves:
1857 Statute No person arrested as a fugitive slave was to be imprisoned. Those who jailed such a person were subject to a fine of between $500 and $1,000. Any person who falsely declared that a free person was a slave, or assisted in procuring the forcible removal of such free person from Michigan was to be imprisoned between three and five years in the State prison. Persons who wrongfully seized any free person with the intent to enslave him were to pay a fine of between $500 and $1,000 and be imprisoned for five years in the State prison.
Kidnapping:
1857 Statute Any person who sold the service or labor of any black, mulatto, or other person of color and unlawfully kidnapped them from the State of Michigan was to be imprisoned.”
http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/geography/slave_laws_MI.htm
Now, John, If African-Americans had to post a $500 bond in (1833 dollars) in order to emigrate into the state for a “guarantee of good behavior” and European-Americans did NOT, would that qualify as state sponsored racial discrimination in your opinion? It was in effect, a “skin tax”, because not even “mulattos” were exempt.
This history may be ignored by the MCRI crowd, but the VESTIGES of slavery and racism in America were INDEED pronounced in the State of Michigan, and Governor Granholm is absolutely correct.
–Cobra
Interesting history. And its relevance to allowing black students into the University of Michigan with lower grades and test scores than whites, Asians, Arabs, Aleuts (oh wait, maybe they qualify for preferences) is … ?
P.S. I should have added that the relevance is obvious if, like Cobra and Gov. Granholm, one views affirmative action as reparations. But if one rejects the affirmative action as reparations argument — as the courts have consistently since Bakke, and as almost everyone else does (well, not Sen. candidate Webb in Virginia) — the leap from the obnoxious Fugitive Slave laws of the 19th century to preferential admissions in the 21st century is too long for most of us to make.
Unless you are 150 years old, Cobra, none of these things happened during your lifetime.
My family suffered, too.
What in the world makes you think you are the only one in the world who suffers? Who told you that blacks are supposed to be immune from suffering?
This is supreme arrogance on your part.
Get over it. Quit wasting your time with fighting over the past. None of that stuff you are obsessing about is of any importance. I don’t care. When you start worrying about the sufferings and injustices my family endured, I’ll start worrying about your family. What makes you think you are more important than anybody else… just because you’re black?
“None of that stuff you are obsessing about is of any importance. ”
WRONG. It has tremendous importance if it can continue to be used to keep whitey feeling guilty, and especially so if it can be used to continue to extort preferences and checks.
Cobra,
Since you find a “skin tax” abhorrant, how can you support reparation? Reparations, AA, quotas, etc are nothing, if not a “skin tax.” Reparations would make the next tax rates for whites and blacks different.
Also, the only method of enforcing such “mullatto” laws is the government had to have an enforcement mechanism of defining and recording an individuals race. Isn’t that something that the current pro-AA crowd supports.
At least it is nice to know that the pro-AA crowd really does not believe that nonsense about the benefits of diversity and really believe in a racial spoils system.
I often try to understand why a young person like Cobra would want to focus on these distant issues.
I’ve seen his website, and he has some good skills in illustration and design.
Cobra, are you aware that you can earn very good money if you combine these skills with advanced programming skills in a variety of multimedia packages? I just worked with a young black man in an advertising agency. He’s doing it.
There are no academic qualifications for this. The School of Visual Arts and New York University both offer multimedia certificate programs in their continuing education schools. You don’t even have to present a high school diploma. You just have to enroll before the courses fill up.
This certificate can solve any financial and job problems you might have.
And you will be given preference in a your job search.
Why not take this path?
Wow.
John disagrees with a post by Governor Granholm about the vestigal effect of slavery on the state of Michigan. I provide a detailed factual history of how Michigan dealt with slavery issues to substantiate Governor Granholm, and then I’m:
1) Accused by John of being essentially out of the mainstream (perhaps, outside of the white conservative male position), based upon the decisions of a Supreme Court, that has been from its enception, a predominantly white male body.
2. Accused by Stephen of first being selectively selfish and segregatory about suffering, and second, of being underemployed. Both accusations of course, without fact or merit.
3.Accused by Staghound of extorting guilt, preferences and checks from white people, in a white-controlled nation where most of the checks go to white hands, and the preferred skin-color just happens to be…well, you know. :-)
4. Accused by Superdestroyer of supporting reparations, even though I made no direct statement as such. I do agree with Governor Granholm that Affirmative Action is needed in 2006 Michigan, and 2006 America, not ONLY because of white racism in the 19th Century, but white racism in the 21st, something many of my anti-affirmative action type friends here are loathe to admit even exists.
Like I said…
Wow.
–Cobra
Cobra, I’ve noticed that you never actually answer my questions.
Try for once.
First, why should I care about your family if you don’t care about mine?
Second, if this occupational route is available to anybody, even without a high school diploma, why are you concerning yourself with this nonsense? If you aren’t underemployed, why especially are you concering yourself with this nonsense?
No, you didn’t prove anything, except that you are a one trick pony.
Skip the theatrics for once and give me a straight answer, if you can.
I wonder how many white Michigan residents died freeing the slaves during the civil war? Maybe the relatives of these people should recieve reperations from the Govt or from black americans.
I made no accusations about you, Cobra. Aprevious poster said the history was of “no importance”, which is nonsense on its face, history is what it is and always important.
I said specifically that these 150+ year old events retain current importance if they can be used to obtain current guilt advantage.
The straw man deal isn’t very effective.
Stephen writes:
>>>”Skip the theatrics for once and give me a straight answer, if you can.”
I respond to you all the time here, Stephen. They just aren’t the responses you want to hear.
RC writes:
>>>”I wonder how many white Michigan residents died freeing the slaves during the civil war?”
Significantly LESS than the number of whites who died fighting for the Confederacy, and by your argument, FOR slavery.
Staghounds writes:
>>>”I said specifically that these 150+ year old events retain current importance if they can be used to obtain current guilt advantage.”
No, your EXACT QUOTE was:
>>>”It has tremendous importance if it can continue to be used to keep whitey feeling guilty, and especially so if it can be used to continue to extort preferences and checks.”
The opposite of guilt is innocence. Are you claiming here that white America is INNOCENT as far as history regarding race?
Please cite your supporting facts on that one.
–Cobra
The opposite of guilt is innocence. Are you claiming here that white America is INNOCENT as far as history regarding race?
Colors can’t be guilty, Cobra. Only people can be. Some white Americans are guilty, some are innocent.
It’s pretty safe to assume nobody applying to college now is guilty, although I suppose there may be some 150 year olds who are going back to college.
Pretty ancient stuff, Cobra. Is there anything even remotely contemporary that you might want us to consider?
David writes:
>>>”It’s pretty safe to assume nobody applying to college now is guilty, although I suppose there may be some 150 year olds who are going back to college.”
There are some Americans who acknowlege the benefits of being white, and there ae many who remain in denial.
As Professor Robert Jensen at the University of Texas puts it:
>>>”What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don’t look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me–they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I’m white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I am white. Some complain that affirmative action has meant the university is saddled with mediocre minority professors. I have no doubt there are minority faculty who are mediocre, though I don’t know very many. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action policies were in place for the next hundred years, it’s possible that at the end of that time the university could have as many mediocre minority professors as it has mediocre white professors. That isn’t meant as an insult to anyone, but is a simple observation that white privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United States is still a bitterly racist society and that the racism has real effects on real people. But white folks have long cut other white folks a break. I know, because I am one of them.”
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/whiteprivilege.htm
Hear, Hear, Professor.
Federal Dog writes:
>>>”Pretty ancient stuff, Cobra. Is there anything even remotely contemporary that you might want us to consider?”
In the past on this blog, I’ve posted some very contemporary facts about the state of Michigan in regards to race.
>>”According to the U.S. Census, Michigan is the most segregated state in the nation. Five of the 25 most racially segregated metropolitan regions in America — Detroit, Saginaw, Flint, Benton Harbor, and Muskegon — are in Michigan. The next closest state is New York, with four. Two more Michigan metropolitan regions — Grand Rapids and Jackson — almost made the top 25.
Census figures also show that Michigan has the most segregated public school systems in the nation. For example, 613,000 students attend public schools in 83 school districts in Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland counties, according to an analysis by the National School Boards Association. Roughly 180,000 of those students are black and 82 percent of black students are enrolled in just three districts — Detroit, Highland Park, and Inkster. Some 90 percent of white students — 540,000 kids — are enrolled in Detroit-region schools where 10 percent or less of the students are black.
The fact is that the University of Michigan is a rare outpost of social equity in a landscape dominated by a racial divide that is much larger today than it was in 1960. Almost all of the state’s black residents — 96 percent of 1.4 million people — live in just 11 metropolitan regions in Michigan. That means that roughly 70 of the state’s 83 counties are overwhelmingly white, many with minority populations of less than 3 percent. Not even Mississippi in the depths of the Jim Crow era was as segregated as Michigan is today.”
http://www.mlui.org/reportarticle.asp?fileid=16480
Now, the argument has been made by some anti-affirmative action types that segregation isn’t “bad” in and of itself. Some even believe that racial segregation is the “natural state” of mankind. My argument, Fed, is that if one employs segregatory thinking for decisions on living and education, decisions on hiring, promotion, and government contracts can’t be held above suspicion either.
Hiring? I posted data from a comprehensive EEOC report specifically on the state of Michigan:
>>>”Minority and Female workers in metropolitan Michigan faced substantial
likelihood of intentional job discrimination when seeking an employment
opportunity in 1999. Minorities faced this risk 34% of the time they sought job
opportunities; Women faced this risk more than 23% of the time they sought job
opportunities.”
http://www.eeo1.com/1999_NR/MI1999.pdf
Now, perhaps you, John, Jennifer Gratz, Carl Cohen or Ward Connerly himself could enlighten me on how the MCRI will address any of the above issues. If it doesn’t, I would like anyone to answer if:
a) you believe these facts are troubling to you
b) if you think these facts are troubling enough for you to endorse a multi-million dollar political action movement attempting to correct these troubling facts with as much vigor as the one you currently endorse.
–Cobra
There are some Americans who acknowlege the benefits of being white, and there ae many who remain in denial.
This is a horrible situation. I think we should identify all those deniers, sentence the worst of them to a semester or two with Prof. Jensen, and send the rest to conventiently located re-education centers around the country. However, since requiring even such heinously retrogressive elements as these deniers to spend time in a state facility without benefit of the educational and healing power of “diversity” would be cruel and unusual punishment, perhaps those camps could also be provided with a “critical mass” of blacks who deny the benefits of being black in a country that insists on bestowing preferences on them. Perhaps the guards would have to all be Asians or Hispanics of indeterminate racial identity, since all the whites in the country are bitterly racist and all the blacks deny the benefits of being black….
John writes:
>>>”However, since requiring even such heinously retrogressive elements as these deniers to spend time in a state facility without benefit of the educational and healing power of “diversity,” perhaps those camps could also be provided with a “critical mass” of blacks who deny the benefits of being black in a country that insists on bestowing preferences on them.”
Ah…so you DO believe that there are “benefits” to being black in America, which you define as racial preferences. You, Jennifer Gratz, Carl Cohen, Ward Connerly and the rest of the MCRI support team want to eliminate the “benefits” of being black in America.
Okay.
What is your proposal on eliminating the “benefits” of being white in America?
–Cobra
What is your proposal on eliminating the “benefits” of being white in
America?
Vigorously enforcing civil rights laws that require everyone to be treated without regard to their race.
Cobra, I read your very interesting breakdown of slavery-related laws in Michigan. I’m not sure they make the point you want to make.
The 1833 stuff isn’t very nice, except for the last one, but it was reversed in 1857. The one about miscegenation reminds me of the fact that until very recently, white families in Tennessee were barred from adopting black children. It still isn’t easy. And it’s not white people behind that. There are provisions for jailing and fining people who try to enslave black folks. I’m not sure what your point here is, really.
John writes:
>>>”Vigorously enforcing civil rights laws that require everyone to be treated without regard to their race.”
Hmmm…There’s an interesting piece about that VERY subject by William Yeomans you might be interested in reading.
Here’s some highlights:
>>>””MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT, MY NAME IS WILLIAM YEOMANS, and I represent the United States.” With those words, I began my first presentation in court for the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice some 23 years ago. In the years that followed, as a career attorney at Justice, I used that opening on many occasions and always with pride, as did my career colleagues.
We shared in a tradition of public service that included attorneys who had successfully prosecuted Deputy Sheriff Cecil Ray Price and others for conspiring to kill Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Cheney in Mississippi, but failed to persuade a jury there to convict Ray Killen (a failure recently corrected); risked life and limb and suffered untold insults to bring desegregation to schools across the South and to metropolitan areas of the North; and prosecuted racists who burned crosses, churches, and homes. This tradition of public service and its attorneys brought to justice hundreds of abusive police officers, including those who beat Rodney King; challenged egregious conditions of confinement in prisons and psychiatric hospitals; and helped win passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act enforcing it in ways that made the daily activities of life easier for millions of people. As a trial lawyer and a manager, I was humbled every day to be a part of this tradition.
During the change from the Clinton to Bush administrations, however, the tradition began to be undermined. Political appointees who arrived in the division lacked experience in enforcement of the nation’s civil rights laws or in managing a large organization, yet they were convinced that the career attorneys greeting them could not be trusted. As a result, the political leadership embarked on a very different path from the one marked by past Republican and Democratic administrations…”
And there’s a statement that SHOULD be quite alarming to you, being one endorsing a “vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws” policy:
>>>”In 2003, the assistant attorney general abolished the hiring committee. Since then, only political appointees have reviewed incoming resumes and interviewed applicants for the honors program. Gradually, this process has largely taken over the hiring of experienced attorneys as well. Political officials screen resumes and interview applicants. Section chiefs are told that attorneys they have never met will report for work in their sections. Increasingly, experienced hires have been identified because they are friends or former associates of political appointees. Few bring any experience in enforcing civil rights laws. Most bring an ideological commitment that is INCONSISTENT WITH VIGOROUS ENFORCEMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS. Overall, career managers say, their records and preparation do not compare well with the hires made when career attorneys were more involved.”
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/September-October-2005/argument_yeomans_sepoct05.msp
Well now, if you TRULY support the policy of “vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws”, you would certainly be aghast at the state of the USDOJ under President Bush, right?
Yet somehow, that feeling never seems shine through in your posts. Could this be yet ANOTHER example of Cobra Argument #2…
Selective Outrage?
I wonder what Professor Jensen would say?
–Cobra
Laura writes:
>>>”Cobra, I read your very interesting breakdown of slavery-related laws in Michigan. I’m not sure they make the point you want to make.”
It does, IMHO. Governor Granholm wants to “repair the vesitges of slavery.”
John attempts to refute her statement here:
>>>”On the other hand, she was born in Canada, after all, and perhaps doesn’t know that neither blacks, nor Hispanics, nor women were ever enslaved in Michigan.”
I added a list of Michigan laws specifically related to slavery to amplify the Governor’s point that Michigan was indeed affected by the vestiges of slavery.
–Cobra
But except for fugitive slaves from other states who escaped to MI (I agree that the fugitive slave laws were horrible, of course) slavery never was legal in MI. And they overturned that fugitive slave law just a few years later.
All of these are at least 150 years old. No one now living was affected by these, nor their parents. How much time has to pass before the vestiges are gone? Especially pretty benign vestiges as most of these? I wouldn’t think that this: “1855 Statute Passed ‘personal liberty’ law prohibiting State officials from aiding in the enforcement of the fugitive slave laws of 1793 and 1850.” could really be used to show that black people in Michigan today suffer the vestiges of slavery.
I know we have far more serious vestiges of slavery where I live. I wonder why, WHY, when the subject was being talked up and the moment had come, our black city and county mayors didn’t try to get Nathan Bedford Forrest park renamed and the statue moved. I seriously doubt that they have anything remotely like that in Michigan.
Laura,
I agree with you on the Nathan Bedford Forrest issue in Memphis. (I saw on the news that church fire, it looked horrible, BTW)
I believe that America still suffers from racism, sexism, classism and religious intolerance. Indeed the vestiges of slavery are far more obvious in many southern states, but Michigan, was affected by it as well, something John may not have taken into account when he made that post.
The data on the EEOC and segregation in Michigan are still issues I would love to hear MCRI officials address.
–Cobra