Archive for Amendment 46
I’m sure Nathaniel Hedman, a member of a student group called the Roosevelt Institution at the University of Colorado, speaks for many of his peers.
Not only does he believe in lowered standards for certain groups to “redress harms,” he also believes the government should be allowed to discriminate against whites and Asians in favor of blacks, Hispanics, and other so-called racial minorities to achieve that end.
Our country’s history of race relations is messy, to put it mildly. America held blacks in bondage for centuries. Our collective conscience should never allow us to downplay or excuse slavery or the subsequent Black Codes and Jim Crow laws and policies designed to relegate black Americans to second class citizenship. The redressing-harms argument is often used by proponents of race preferences for such reasons.
No reasonable person would dispute that former slaves embarked on an arduous road to freedom littered with overwhelming disadvantages. But can the same be said of those slaves’ descendants in 2008? How closely correlated is the so-called legacy of slavery with black underachievement and disparities today?
»» Does Redressing Past Harms Justify Present Racial Discrimination?
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Shawn Coleman, a Democratic party precinct captain in Boulder County, Colorado, has endorsed Amendment 46, a measure that would bar state and local governments from discriminating against and granting preferential treatment to people based race and sex in hiring, contracting, and admissions. Coleman also was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
Coleman, who calls himself “a person of color,” said he’s voting “Yes” on Amendment 46 because he believes race and sex preferences (he uses the misnomer “affirmative action”) set low expectations, one of my main complaints against such policies. An except of the article:
[My mother] expected excellence from us, teaching us that reliance on assistance programs is not the same as success, and that to be truly free you must be judged worthy exclusively on your merits absent of pity. These teachings, the remnants of Dr. King and the leaders of “Black America’s greatest generation” have been lost to entitlement and confusing mediocrity with prosperity…The assumption that a person who is a minority can only achieve greatness with accommodations breeds a culture that expects us to fail.
Coleman gets to the heart of the issue when he notes that having certain values lift people out of poverty. Holding oneself to a lower standard undermines the value of hard work, pride, and personal responsibility. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe the world is out to get you, that you’ll get nowhere in life because people are biased against you for whatever reason, the perception manifests itself in a victim attitude.
“Economic inequity” is the bigger problem, says Coleman. Work on that issue, which affects men and women and people of different races, and put the government out of the business of using race and sex in hiring and admissions decisions.
I hope Colorado voters, no matter who they choose as president, will give serious thought to the promise of the Civil Rights Movement. It was not to uplift black Americans by lowering the performance bar. That turbulent time in our country’s history was supposed to usher in an era of colorblind government policy and equality before the law.
As long as our government is authorized to discriminate on the basis of race, no matter who benefits, that promise remains unfulfilled.
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Ward Connerly is right. John McCain, Republican presidential nominee, “tepidly endorsed” the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative (AzCRI), a measure that would have barred state and local governments from discriminating or granting preferences in hiring, contracting, and admissions in his home state.
“Although he supports the initiatives,” Connerly told the Associated Press, “I believe he would just as soon that it go away. He doesn’t want to come across as hostile to black people and Hispanics.”
Last summer, McCain reluctantly answered a direct question about whether he supported the AzCRI. “Yes, I do…I’ve always opposed quotas.”
Barack Obama, on the other hand, believes the government should be allowed to discriminate and grant preferential treatment based on skin color.
“I think in the past [McCain had] been opposed to these Ward Connerly initiatives as divisive,” he told the Associated Press. “And I think he’s right. These are not designed to solve a big problem, but they’re all too often designed to drive a wedge between people.”
Preferring one group of people over another based on race isn’t divisive, but advocating equal treatment for all is divisive? And this man may be our next president.
Unfortunately, AzCRI will not appear on the November ballot, but director Max McPhail said he’ll begin a new campaign for 2010. Residents of Colorado and Nebraska, do what the majority of voters in California, Washington, and Michigan did. Choose fairness and equality over political double-talk. And remember this, black voters: A government with the power to discriminate in favor of you has the power to discriminate against you.
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Rocky Mountain News has endorsed Amendment 46 (also know as the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative), which would ban the state from using preferences in hiring, contracting, and admissions. An excerpt:
“Amendment 46 opponents argue that after the passage of a similar measure two years ago in Michigan the percentage of minority contractors getting government work declined; they clearly believe discrimination accounts for the difference. Preferences are needed, they claim, to level the playing field and give women and minorities a fair shot at success.
“We think a wealth of evidence across contemporary America – in government agencies as clearly as anywhere – undercuts this pessimism. Bigotry has hardly been banished from America, of course, but it is no longer credible to maintain that it is a major obstacle to creating a diverse state work force, university student body or faculty, or a nondiscriminatory system of contracting.
“The man behind Amendment 46 – and similar initiatives this November in Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma – is Ward Connerly, a black businessman who served 12 years on the University of California Board of Regents. As Connerly frequently points out, an African-American is one step away from the presidency. Talk about the ultimate glass ceiling being busted to smithereens.
“Coloradans should take the cue to move beyond preferential treatment and embrace equal opportunity. Vote yes on Amendment 46.”
After all government preferences have been eradicated, let’s ban the term “African American” except when referring to Americans who were born in Africa. 
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Who would have thought in 2008, some 50 years after the country groaned under the strain of dismantling laws and practices that relegated blacks to second class citizenship, the government still would be discriminating against people on the basis of race?
Alive and well is the practice of assessing black job applicants, contract bidders, and prospective college students under standards lower than those used to assess others, all in the name of diversity. Euphemistically known as affirmative action, this practice is odious enough when done in the private sector. But when the government does it, it’s time to act.
Read the rest at Townhall.com.
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The AP is reporting that Democratic governor Bill Ritter plans to announce his opposition to Amendment 46, which would amend the state constitution to ban government preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Shocking, yes?
In March, the Secretary of State determined that the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative submitted enough signatures to appear on the November ballot.
We’ll link to Ritter’s statement when it’s available.
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Earlier this month, the Colorado Secretary of State announced that Initiative 82, which would preserve race and sex preferences in government hiring, contracting, and admissions, will not appear on the November ballot.
As you may recall, the secretary determined in March that the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative (CoCRI) submitted enough signatures to appear on the November ballot. CoCRI, known as Amendment 46, reads: “The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any group or individual on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public contracting, or public education.”
CoCRI director Jessica Peck Corry said, “We know that signature gathering campaigns are very difficult, but given the fact that this campaign was designed to confuse voters, we’re extremely pleased with the result.”
The Durango Herald Online features a story on race in the upcoming election as it pertains to preferences. People interviewed in the article include those who support Amendment 46. Proponent Kate Melvin said, “We’re saddling women and minorities with the notion that without assistance, they can’t get the job.”
Those who oppose the amendment say it would “end valuable programs” that help women and minorities in college programs like science and engineering. Typically, so-called affirmative action supporters misconstrue the meaning of the term.
There is nothing wrong with reaching out to a wide variety of people for hiring and admissions. That is affirmative action. It is wrong to implement a different standard (read: lower) of evaluation for women and minorities. That is preferential treatment.
Filed under: Amendment 46, CoCRI, Jessica Peck Corry | |Comments off
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