Roger Clegg: Race Preferences Foster Resentment
The Center for Equal Opportunity’s Roger Clegg has an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer on race preferences. He identifies at least two impediments to improving race relations: racial bias and discrimination, and the disproportionate number of blacks at the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder.
For the most part, America has dealt with bias and discrimination through laws and by making blatant bigotry socially unacceptable. Another type of bigotry may exist among those who believe the disproportionate number of blacks at the bottom is proof that blacks are somehow inferior. Clegg writes:
“[B]igotry today exists not because it is taught by the government or in school, but principally because bigots observe the disproportionate number of African Americans who are jobless or in prison or whatever, and predictably but unfortunately conclude that there is something wrong with the whole race.”
As race preference opponents have been saying for years, preferences foster racial resentment and likely reinforce bigotry. If the government says a whole race of people needs extra help and short-cuts and do-overs and entitlement programs, what message is it sending?
To address disparities between blacks and everyone else, we must look to culture. We must deal with the “acting white” attitude that makes it difficult for children to value education. We must be willing to talk about the outrageously high out-of-wedlock birth rate in the black community. Fatherlessness is correlated with higher rates of incarceration, juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and high school drop outs. Fatherless children are more likely to be poor. And the cycle continues
As Clegg notes, President Barack Obama, married to his children’s mother and living with his children, can serve as a role model. As far as race preferences are concerned, the president has gone on record to say his daughters shouldn’t receive preferences, considering they are not disadvantaged.
Perhaps Obama will use his influence to encourage people to marry before having children and to be an advocate for socioeconomic affirmative action, which would benefit people of all races.
