Post by Tamrin on Nov 29, 2008 18:49:54 GMT 10
GENEROUS OLD LADY, OR REVERSE RACIST?
[Excerpts - Article by Michael Kinsley Monday, Time, Aug. 28, 1995 - Linked above]
[Excerpts - Article by Michael Kinsley Monday, Time, Aug. 28, 1995 - Linked above]
There was a wonderful story in the newspapers this month about an 87-year-old black woman in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, named Oseola McCarty. Working all her life as a laundress, never marrying, living very plainly, McCarty managed to save an astounding $150,000. Facing life's end, she has decided to give the money to a scholarship fund for black students to attend the University of Southern Mississippi. Inspired by her example, Hattiesburg business leaders have pitched in an additional $150,000. The first beneficiary of McCarty's largess as "adopted" her, and vows to help the heroine through her frail and lonely old age.
But wait a minute. Is this story inspiring? Or dismaying? For what McCarty is practicing, after all, is reverse discrimination, sometimes even called reverse racism. Indeed, McCarty has even set up a quota--a 100% quota. No whites need apply for one of her scholarships. It is closed to them because of the color of their skin. Is this not the very thing that all the Republican presidential candidates, and sundry moral scolds upholding the alleged "true meaning" of civil rights, have been clamoring to denounce? Where is Pete Wilson while this woman proposes to travesty the principles of racial equality that our country holds dear? Why is Pat Buchanan not out there on the stump denouncing this elitist exercise in anti-white social engineering?
But wait a minute. Is this story inspiring? Or dismaying? For what McCarty is practicing, after all, is reverse discrimination, sometimes even called reverse racism. Indeed, McCarty has even set up a quota--a 100% quota. No whites need apply for one of her scholarships. It is closed to them because of the color of their skin. Is this not the very thing that all the Republican presidential candidates, and sundry moral scolds upholding the alleged "true meaning" of civil rights, have been clamoring to denounce? Where is Pete Wilson while this woman proposes to travesty the principles of racial equality that our country holds dear? Why is Pat Buchanan not out there on the stump denouncing this elitist exercise in anti-white social engineering?
The only sensible escape from this logical dilemma is to acknowledge that--pending the arrival of perfect and universal racial justice--the true meaning of civil rights principles does not require either individuals or the government to act in ways that are strictly race neutral. Specifically, and to be crude about it, it is O.K. to favor blacks in ways it is not O.K. to favor whites. To be sure, this is a troubling and potentially perilous conclusion. It does not provide carte blanche for all forms of reverse discrimination. But it is the beginning of any honest debate on the subject.