You probably think, as I generally do, that our affirmative action president — an accurate description, I think, for two reasons: a white with his exact same ability and experience would not have been nominated and elected president; and he so fervently supports affirmative action — is a principled supporter of racial preference.
Experience teaches, however, that one must be extremely cautious in associating Obama too closely with any principle, even his apparently principled opposition to racially neutral colorblindness. The Miami Herald, for example, reports that he said the following yesterday to and about the Cuban community in Miami:
Today, Miami is often referred to as the capital of Latin America. But it is also a profoundly American city — a place that reminds us that ideals matter more than the color of our skin, or the circumstances of our birth; a demonstration of what the Cuban people can achieve, and the openness of the United States to our family to the South.
So far as I am aware, Obama has never met an affirmative action program — or indeed any race preference program — that he opposes (so long as it favors his preferred races). Can he or his supporters point to one where “ideals matter more than the color of our skin,” where the emphasis is on a “diversity” of ideas more than skin color?
Justifying his new Cuba policy is not the first time Obama has found it useful to appeal to colorblindness. As I discussed at some length in this 2010 post, on another occasion, defending a controversial position he had taken, Obama solemnly proclaimed with a straight face that “In this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion.” Indeed, on that occasion he was actually defending the notion that private property owners have rights that are protected by the original intent of the framers of a Constitution written in stone, i.e., not “living.”
That occasion concerned the controversy over the attempt to build a mosque near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.
Hmm. Perhaps Obama actually does believe in racial and religious neutrality — for Muslims and Cubans and any group except black Americans.
