General

‘Talented 20′ Low Graduation Rates

December 8, 2009

The One Florida Initiative, a reaction to Ward Connerly’s campaign to end government racial preferences in the state, was an executive order issued by former Governor Jeb Bush barring race-based preferences in government hiring, contracting, and admissions. “Although generally sympathetic to Connerly’s campaign, Bush worried that Connerly’s constitutional proposal would sharply divide Floridians, create substantial [...]

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The Expansion of “White”

November 12, 2009

Some students at Columbia University are in a tizzy over ethnic cleansing of a sort. Schools are subject to a new federal survey that lumps people of North African and Middle Eastern descent into the “White” category. (Source) Students must choose among five race/ethnicity categories: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, black or African American, [...]

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Asian ‘Discrimination’ in Contracting

November 10, 2009

Last month I blogged about discrimination against Americans of Asian descent at elite colleges and universities. A Princeton study showed these students were much more likely to be rejected than other students. A black student with 1150s and a white student with 1460s had the same chances of getting in as an Asian student with [...]

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Reporter: ‘Our Neighborhood Schools’ Code for ‘White’

November 4, 2009

The assumptions some folks on the left make never cease to amaze. For instance, if whites leave loud, dirty, and expensive cities for quieter, cleaner, and cheaper suburbs, they’re racists. If they remove their children from mediocre government schools and send them to better government schools, they’re racists. If taxpayers in low-crime areas oppose Section [...]

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Ethnic Authenticity

October 28, 2009

What right-leaning “person of color” among us can’t relate to Ruben Navarrette’s latest column, Ugly Racial Litmus Test? I’ve noticed a phenomenon articulated by John McWhorter in Authentically Black: Essays for the Silent Black Majority. He wrote about a “double consciousness” whereby blacks speak of empowerment and individual responsibility in private, but they play the [...]

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John McWhorter on African American Studies

October 7, 2009

John McWhorter, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of such books as Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America and Authentically Black, has written a must-read article on Minding the Campus about the state of so-called African American studies departments. The first African American studies department was created forty years ago. McWhorter questions [...]

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Discriminatory Physical Abilities Tests?

October 7, 2009

The lead investigator on a show I watch is a woman. Although thin-boned and shorter than the men she supervises, she’s a tough gal. She chases down bad guys, who manage to trip at just the right moment, and she pounces on them, slapping on handcuffs. When she does encounter a man she can’t bring [...]

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Colorblindness Redux

October 6, 2009

I had to comment on a HuffPost blog post by David A. Wilson, founder of NBC Universal’s The Grio, a “video-centric news community site devoted to providing African Americans with stories and perspectives that appeal to them but are underrepresented in existing national news outlets,” if for no other reason than to clarify what most [...]

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Civil Rights-Era VRA Section 5

September 30, 2009

One problem with legislation created during the civil rights era to protect blacks from discrimination is that its present-day application typically is condescending. For example, Georgia tried to protect the integrity of the voting process by requiring voters to present state-issued identification. I was under the impression that this was standard practice, but groups cried [...]

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Racial Preferences Bake Sale as Symbolic Speech

September 25, 2009

The student newspaper for the University of California at Irvine published an editorial in 2003 about a racial preferences bake sale hosted by the College Republicans as a protest against racial preferences and to encourage students to vote for the Racial Privacy Initiative. The measure, which failed to pass, would have amended the California constitution [...]