limaohio.com
March 22, 2012 6:11 PM
Beth L. Jokinen
“They say this is a post-racial society, but the reality is discrimination still exists. That's why we still need affirmative action.” — Shirley Wilcher, American Association for Affirmative Action
LIMA — Shirley Wilcher has heard she now lives in a “colorblind” society, but she is not buying it.
To prove it Thursday in Lima, she told a personal story of trying to hail a taxi in Chicago only to have the driver speed off when realizing it wasn't the nearby white woman who waited for him.
“Still in the 21st century you have to face the indignity of not even getting a cab without feeling like a second- or third-class citizen. ... This society is still not colorblind,” the executive director of the American Association for Affirmative Action said during the Equity, Opportunity and Diversity annual State of the State Conference.
Full Story:
http://www.limaohio.com/news/affirmative-81146-conference-action.html
Showing posts with label colorblind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colorblind. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Friday, September 24, 2010
Colorblind views detrimental to affirmative action debate
The Miscellany News
By Ocasio Willson
Guest Columnist
Published: Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Updated: Thursday, September 23, 2010 18:09
After reading "Socioeconomic diversity, lacking on college campuses, must be supported" (09.08.10) by Joshua Rosen '13 in The Miscellany News, which discusses socioeconomic affirmative action, I felt compelled to bring a new understanding of race-based affirmative action to this debate. This is intended for proponents and opponents alike who subscribe to Rosen's view on colorblindness and view affirmative action as racial preferences or quotas.
While Rosen says he is not a proponent of race-based affirmative action, he thinks the best version of affirmative action should be based on socioeconomic background. He argues, "since, in colleges, the ‘underrepresentation of low-income students is even greater' than that of racial minorities, it would be better, in the interest of greater equality, for socioeconomic affirmative action, which does not discriminate based on race." Rosen goes a step further and condemns affirmative action, through his quoting of Justice Lewis Powell's opinion in the Supreme Court case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), as "aiding victims at the expense of the innocent."
Full Story: http://www.miscellanynews.com/2.1577/colorblind-views-detrimental-to-affirmative-action-debate-1.2338630
By Ocasio Willson
Guest Columnist
Published: Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Updated: Thursday, September 23, 2010 18:09
After reading "Socioeconomic diversity, lacking on college campuses, must be supported" (09.08.10) by Joshua Rosen '13 in The Miscellany News, which discusses socioeconomic affirmative action, I felt compelled to bring a new understanding of race-based affirmative action to this debate. This is intended for proponents and opponents alike who subscribe to Rosen's view on colorblindness and view affirmative action as racial preferences or quotas.
While Rosen says he is not a proponent of race-based affirmative action, he thinks the best version of affirmative action should be based on socioeconomic background. He argues, "since, in colleges, the ‘underrepresentation of low-income students is even greater' than that of racial minorities, it would be better, in the interest of greater equality, for socioeconomic affirmative action, which does not discriminate based on race." Rosen goes a step further and condemns affirmative action, through his quoting of Justice Lewis Powell's opinion in the Supreme Court case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), as "aiding victims at the expense of the innocent."
Full Story: http://www.miscellanynews.com/2.1577/colorblind-views-detrimental-to-affirmative-action-debate-1.2338630
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Justice Thomas Says Constitution Forbids Racial Preference
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sep 10, 2008, 21:08
WASHINGTON
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Tuesday that African-Americans are better served by colorblind programs than affirmative action.
Thomas, addressing leaders of historically Black colleges, said affirmative action "has become this mantra and there almost has become this secular religiosity about it. I think it almost trumps thinking."
A longtime opponent of race-based preferences in hiring and school admissions, Thomas said, "Just from a constitutional standpoint, I think we're going to run into problems if we say the Constitution says we can consider race sometimes."
Thomas, 60, has voted on the court to outlaw the use of race in college admissions and in determining which public schools students will attend. He wrote with evident resentment in his autobiography "My Grandfather's Son" that he felt he was allowed to attend Yale Law School in the 1970s because of his race and took a tough course load to prove he was as able as his White classmates.
"My suggestion would be to stop the buzz words and to focus more on the practical effect of what we're doing," he said Tuesday.
"I can tell you when you have fudge words, it leaves a lot of room for mischief," he said. "People have a tendency to read their personal opinions into fudge words. You want, when it comes to the issue of race, absolute words." [To read the entire story, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11663.shtml ]
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sep 10, 2008, 21:08
WASHINGTON
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Tuesday that African-Americans are better served by colorblind programs than affirmative action.
Thomas, addressing leaders of historically Black colleges, said affirmative action "has become this mantra and there almost has become this secular religiosity about it. I think it almost trumps thinking."
A longtime opponent of race-based preferences in hiring and school admissions, Thomas said, "Just from a constitutional standpoint, I think we're going to run into problems if we say the Constitution says we can consider race sometimes."
Thomas, 60, has voted on the court to outlaw the use of race in college admissions and in determining which public schools students will attend. He wrote with evident resentment in his autobiography "My Grandfather's Son" that he felt he was allowed to attend Yale Law School in the 1970s because of his race and took a tough course load to prove he was as able as his White classmates.
"My suggestion would be to stop the buzz words and to focus more on the practical effect of what we're doing," he said Tuesday.
"I can tell you when you have fudge words, it leaves a lot of room for mischief," he said. "People have a tendency to read their personal opinions into fudge words. You want, when it comes to the issue of race, absolute words." [To read the entire story, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11663.shtml ]
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Obama in a New Era of Race Politics
AlterNet
By Roberto Lovato, New America Media. Posted January 4, 2008.
Is color blindness the model we want for diversity?
As news broke of Barack Obama's victory in Iowa, one of the country's whitest states, political pundits of all stripes quickly told us that we were witnessing a historic shift: the end of race and racism as campaign issues. Even CNN's dour conservative political analyst Bill Bennett waxed multiculti as he proclaimed that Obama "taught" African Americans that race wasn't an issue they needed inorder to succeed in politics. Though enthusiastic about the Obama victory, Bennett's more jocular colleague Jack Cafferty was not quite ready to intone a full-throated Kumbaya. But he did declare that the Illinois senator's win "gives him currency in a state where the color of his skin may be an issue."
NBC's Tom Brokaw credited the Mike Huckabee victory in the Republican caucus to "his defense against illegal immigration," an issue not viewed in racial terms by white voters. On all parts of the political and media spectrum, pundits and politicos are interpreting the Iowa results to mean that we inhabit a color-blind electoral system.
While watching a black man win the vote of an overwhelmingly white electorate is especially welcome in such racially-charged times as ours,
and while the victory of a poor (at least in terms of electoral cash) populist preacher over the preferred Republican candidates of corporate America is refreshing, we are hardly entering the age of race invisibility in politics.
Instead, Iowa points us towards the age of invisible race politics.
To his credit, Barack Obama has carefully cultivated an image as a "change" candidate who takes the higher ground, one that talks about race -- but not racism. Iowa confirms that, in doing so, he can make even the whitest electorate feel like it's voting to overcome the catastrophic legacy of racial discrimination, like the Oprah viewer that gives himself or herself a racial pat on the back for really, truly liking her show.
"[Obama] is being consumed as the embodiment of color blindness," political theorist Angela Davis told the Nation magazine recently, adding that "it's the notion that we have moved beyond racism by not taking race into account. That's what makes him conceivable as a presidential candidate. He's become the model of diversity in this period ... a model of diversity as the difference that makes no difference. The change that brings no change."
It was interesting to watch Obama deliver the most memorable and moving caucus victory speech in memory, one that included King-like intonations and references to the activists who "marched through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause" in the 1960s. Such inspired, impassioned pleas follow a campaign trail-tested rhetoric in which racism such as that surrounding the Jena Six case remains a largely unspoken part of Obama's speeches and policy platforms. He appears to be more comfortable getting choked up when speaking about the fight against the racist past than he does during those few times he talks about the racist present.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee also did his part to promote invisible race politics. The GOP underdog did so in no small part thanks to the issue of immigration, a very racial electoral wedge that many voters believe has nothing to do with race.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.alternet.org/stories/72713/]
By Roberto Lovato, New America Media. Posted January 4, 2008.
Is color blindness the model we want for diversity?
As news broke of Barack Obama's victory in Iowa, one of the country's whitest states, political pundits of all stripes quickly told us that we were witnessing a historic shift: the end of race and racism as campaign issues. Even CNN's dour conservative political analyst Bill Bennett waxed multiculti as he proclaimed that Obama "taught" African Americans that race wasn't an issue they needed inorder to succeed in politics. Though enthusiastic about the Obama victory, Bennett's more jocular colleague Jack Cafferty was not quite ready to intone a full-throated Kumbaya. But he did declare that the Illinois senator's win "gives him currency in a state where the color of his skin may be an issue."
NBC's Tom Brokaw credited the Mike Huckabee victory in the Republican caucus to "his defense against illegal immigration," an issue not viewed in racial terms by white voters. On all parts of the political and media spectrum, pundits and politicos are interpreting the Iowa results to mean that we inhabit a color-blind electoral system.
While watching a black man win the vote of an overwhelmingly white electorate is especially welcome in such racially-charged times as ours,
and while the victory of a poor (at least in terms of electoral cash) populist preacher over the preferred Republican candidates of corporate America is refreshing, we are hardly entering the age of race invisibility in politics.
Instead, Iowa points us towards the age of invisible race politics.
To his credit, Barack Obama has carefully cultivated an image as a "change" candidate who takes the higher ground, one that talks about race -- but not racism. Iowa confirms that, in doing so, he can make even the whitest electorate feel like it's voting to overcome the catastrophic legacy of racial discrimination, like the Oprah viewer that gives himself or herself a racial pat on the back for really, truly liking her show.
"[Obama] is being consumed as the embodiment of color blindness," political theorist Angela Davis told the Nation magazine recently, adding that "it's the notion that we have moved beyond racism by not taking race into account. That's what makes him conceivable as a presidential candidate. He's become the model of diversity in this period ... a model of diversity as the difference that makes no difference. The change that brings no change."
It was interesting to watch Obama deliver the most memorable and moving caucus victory speech in memory, one that included King-like intonations and references to the activists who "marched through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause" in the 1960s. Such inspired, impassioned pleas follow a campaign trail-tested rhetoric in which racism such as that surrounding the Jena Six case remains a largely unspoken part of Obama's speeches and policy platforms. He appears to be more comfortable getting choked up when speaking about the fight against the racist past than he does during those few times he talks about the racist present.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee also did his part to promote invisible race politics. The GOP underdog did so in no small part thanks to the issue of immigration, a very racial electoral wedge that many voters believe has nothing to do with race.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.alternet.org/stories/72713/]
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