Ward Connerly: Election Validates Faith in Americans’ Fairness
Writing in the Sacramento Bee, the American Civil Rights Institute’s Ward Connerly reflects on Barack Obama’s election, what it means for black Americans, and what it means for the entire country.
Obama’s win serves as validation for blacks who’ve had to endure demeaning treatment and discrimination in America. Connerly believes his victory “represents a potentially profound changing of the guard about the direction of our country.” An excerpt:
It would be naïve and wrong-headed to suggest that all racism, from whatever source, has ended because of the symbolism of this one election. Yet what a symbol it is upon which we can have a new racial beginning, a beginning that accepts the dignity of every individual! For my fellow blacks, this is a time not just to celebrate, but to reflect upon where we go from here.
Throughout our history, we have allowed ourselves to be depicted as helpless and subject to the mercy of what others would do for us. “Affirmative action” is a classic example of that way of thinking. I consider that self-defeating and a betrayal of the enormous contributions that we have made to our country and to the considerable talents that reside within us. Liberation from this debilitating paradigm is now possible. Indeed, it is essential.
Current laws and practices that allow lowered standards for blacks are just as demeaning as laws and practices designed to keep blacks “in their place” back in the day. So-called affirmative action, as practiced in 2008, is, as Connerly writes, self-defeating. It says to future generations that our contributions of the past don’t count and the talents we possess don’t matter.
A majority of voters chose Barack Obama to run the country for the next four years. Connerly says his faith in Americans’ fairness has been validated with the election of a biracial candidate. Like Connerly, I hope Obama will help all Americans understand that focusing on race should reside where it belongs: in the past.
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Sylvia Wasson
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
It has long been the position of fair-minded Americans that race and ethnicity should NOT determine an individual’s opportunity for advancement. This fairness accounts for the success of colorblind ballot initiatives in four out of five states where such referenda were put to a vote. This egalitarian spirit of the citizenry was further confirmed by the election of a multi-racial candidate, Barack Obama, to the highest office of the land, if not the world. The latter should signal the end of race preferences in college admissions and public employment. It should signal that the “bad check” once given to blacks in this country, and held up to the conscience of the nation in Martin Luther King’s Dream Speech, has been cashed. But does it?
As long as the absurd notion that race preferences bring about equal opportunity holds sway in public employment, King’s dream has not been fulfilled. As long as those who work for race-neutral, genuine equality can be silenced, intimidated and punished, the “bad check” is issued again and again.
Whether Barack Obama will have the courage to say that granting preferences on the basis of color equals discrimination, and that neither “diversity” nor “reparations for past wrongs” justify government-sanctioned inequality, remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen whether this new president will understand that race preferences are demeaning and damaging to the very individuals whom they purport to help.
Like Mr. Connerly, and so many fair-minded Americans, I am optimistic. Yet I am also prepared to continue the struggle for a colorblind and genuinely just America.