Victor Davis Hanson on Race and Resentment
At National Review’s The Corner blog, Victor David Hanson writes about a phenomenon most of us probably have experienced. “Beneficiaries” of racial preferences, those whose race was a factor in their admissions to colleges and universities, complain when others stigmatize them because race was a factor in their admissions.
Hanson writes:
“So Michelle Obama describes the fear that Sotomayor felt at Princeton — and its lasting effects to this day — and then compares it, of course, to Michelle’s own ambiguous feelings toward the same Princeton campus (cf. Michelle’s thesis for the details), that one is willing to put up with for the education and prestige it gave, but does not really like for the presence of apparently so many stuck-up, rich, preppy kids and their ubiquitous exclusive campus culture.”
It’s sad that minorities tend to see everything through a racial lens. As Hanson points out, the first year of college is often terrifying for everyone, but people like Michelle Obama and Sonia Sotomayor reduce it race. I went to an historically black college, and I was scared and uncertain about what to expect. I spent the next four years dealing with “stuck-up” kids and others who didn’t like me for whatever reason. Regardless of race, we all go through uncertainty and feelings of exclusion. But at a black college, I couldn’t play the race card the way minorites like Michelle Obama and Sonia Sotomayor can.
An inevitable consequence of feeling separate from others, as Hanson points out, is separatism and identification with the “tribe.” Such students may end up joining race- or ethnicity-focused groups, defeating the whole “diversity” effort in the process.
