Content Of Their Characters
by digby
Come election time in November, voters in five states might have a decision to make as big as whom to elect president.
Ballot initiatives have been proposed in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma that would give voters the chance to decide whether they want to do away with affirmative action in government-funded projects and public schools.
Ward Connerly, who heads the American Civil Rights Coalition — a nonprofit organization working to end racial and gender preferences — and the main backer of the ballot initiatives, says the 37 word initiative would read: “The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.”
“It would forbid any state or local agency or special district from engaging in preferential treatment,” Connerly said.Video Watch what Connerly says about the initiative »
Connerly, who is of African-American and American Indian descent, said affirmative action causes resentment. He criticized cases in which a Caucasian student might be denied a college slot in favor of a black student with a lower grade-point average.
“It’s foolish not to think that the kid who is turned away is not going to … resent that,” Connerly said.
[…]
Shanta Driver, National Director of United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund — an organization dedicated to integrating minority students in educational institutions — said the ballot initiative is a mistake.
“It places us in the position of denying … equal opportunity to blacks and Latinos,” she said. Driver and other affirmative action supporters believe this movement would erase the progress made since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Arizona, Colorado and Missouri. Hmmm. Why do you suppose they chose those states? I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact they are big swing states with large minority populations aren’t you?
I wrote earlier about how the Republicans are going take advantage of the zeitgeist to position Maverick McCain as the real post-partisan. (The Democrats you see, are playing the same old tired identity politics of the past, while the rich, white, war hero Republican has risen above all that to reach across the aisle many times — often angering his own party — to put his country before petty partisan concerns.) By urging equality for all people instead of just the favored minorities, the conservatives are ones who are truly transformational. They don’t believe in divisive racist and sexist policies like affirmative action. As the great conservative hero Martin Luther King always said, they want Americans to be judged by the content of their characters. And nobody has more character than the straight talking, war hero, John McCain.
It would be wrong for anyone to say that they are trying to boost turnout among their racist, sexist, xenophobic base in major swing states. In fact it’s the opposite. By putting such issues on the ballot, they are giving people of good character a way to move past all these phony racial and partisan divisions and transform our politics. Yes they can.
h/t to Joe
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