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Commentary
Opposing Affirmative Action Repeats History
By Kimberle W. Crenshaw
Special to The NorthStar Network
The decision by President
Bush to file a brief in the
United States Supreme Court
opposing the University of
Michigan’s admissions
program illustrates just how
superficial the president’s
repudiation of Senator Trent
Lott was during that sordid
episode several weeks ago.
It’s also consistent with a
formula that is tried and true
for Republicans in our
nation’s capital: give lip
service to outreach, to equal
opportunity, and now
repudiate segregation from
the past, while at the same
time, tie the hands of the very
institutions that are most
effective in dismantling the
consequences of that history.
Repudiating segregation
requires more than singing
“We Shall Overcome.” It
requires real efforts now to
integrate institutions of higher
learning.
The Preference of White
Privilege
Affirmative Action is often
misunderstood as a
preference, while the real
preferences that happen
every day are virtually
ignored in a discourse that
uses stereotypes and race
baiting to do its work.
Consider the experiences of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
and George Bush, two names
that will certainly come up in
the conservative assault on
affirmative action.
We know that tests tend
to under-predict the
performance of certain
members of the population,
especially people of color.
Dr. King’s score on the
GRE placed him in the
bottom percentile of all test
takers, yet he is probably the
most gifted orator and one of
the most brilliant visionaries
of the 20th century. Think
about all the other would be
gifted orators, surgeons,
lawyers, teachers, and
business people whose
potential remain tragically
wasted by unwarranted
reliance on such an artificial
benchmark of merit as a test
score.
One the other hand, when
we think about preferences,
let’s consider our president,
whose SAT score was 150
points below the average Yale
matriculate. And who no
doubt benefited from his
pedigree. This form of
privileging constitutes a
preference, the kind that is
most responsible for
excluding the wealth of talent
that would otherwise gain
access to higher education
while maintaining white
hegemony.
This simply shows the
hypocrisy of the argument
against affirmative action; it’s
really not about equal
opportunity or merit at all. It
is largely a racially coded,
and delimited diatribe that
trains attention on those
aspects of educational policy
that are least responsible for
the current state of
educational mis-opportunity.
The Unfinished Business
of the Civil Rights
Movement
Our society is anxious to
get over race, but not anxious
to dig down deep, suck it up,
and do what it takes to really
make a racially egalitarian
society.
Equality doesn’t come
cheap, and it does not come
without costs, especially to
expectations, and ways of
doing business.
At every stage in
American history, there has
been a major debate about
who will pay for equality.
This is just another one of
those episodes.
One would have thought
that the end of legally
sanctioned white supremacy
might have brought about a
fundamentally different way
of doing business, a full
review of all the ways that
racial exclusion become
ingrained in our nation’s
social order.
And how these practices
have influenced the way we
do things, the principles that
our institutions value, the
indicia of merit and desert.
Unfortunately, the primary
things that changed were the
removal of “whites only”
signs.
How these institutions
were administered, their core
values and missions, and how
they determined quality,
success and the like never
really changed.
And now, modest efforts
to ensure some sort of
equality have come under a
blistering attack.
Are Blacks Their Own Worst Enemy?
By Garrett N. James
Why is it that we are the
only race in this country that
truly “hates” on each other?
If we make it to the
boardrooms and get a little
money, we end up thinking
that we are better than those
below us on the
socioeconomic scale, just
because we think we have
made it into the white man’s
world. If we never make it
out of the “ hood,” and many
of us do not, we are
constantly killing each other
and pumping drugs into the
streets.
The thing we have to
understand is that we live in
a society of systematic
racism that is set up for our
destruction. One hundred
and forty years ago, before
the end of slavery,
Americans had a successfiil
formula for keeping slaves in
captivity. They kept the
slaves ignorant and fighting
amongst themselves.
The harsh reality is that
the same formula is being
used to keep us in MENTAL
SLAVERY today. They are
keeping us ignorant and
fighting amongst ourselves.
Today, America no longer
has to lynch, rape, and
degrade us. The system is
now set up for us to destroy
ourselves.
Black people, we need to
rise above this ignorance and
realize that every time we
decide to deal drugs rather
than go to college, take a life
rather than raise one, hate on
our brothers and sisters for
trying to make it rather than
give them the support and
encouragement that they
need, we are helping
America in its plan to
destroy us.
We had great leaders in
King, X, Douglass, Garvey,
and Tubman, who gave their
lives so that we would have
the opportunities we need to
one day really and truly
become free. However, until
this point, all we have done
is let their deaths go in vain.
Do not get the message
wrong. I am not advocating or
trying to perpetuate hate in any
way. This is not about going
See Blacks Next Page
A March To Save
Affirmative Action
\isha Brooks
\keshia Hudson
\ndria L. Harris
The Broncos’ Voice Staff
HOW TO REACH US
The Broncos’Voice
1200 Murchison Road
Fayetteville, NC 28301
(910)672-1279
(910)672-2029
Eric Moore, Advisor
Garrett N. James, Editor in Chief
Lisa Augustine, Assistant Editor
Kantrell Shelton
Kenyatta Raeford
LaVonntra Porter
It is with a great deal of urgency
that I am writing this letter. Almost
50 years ago at Howard
University, Thurgood Marshall
prepared his arguments for the
landmark case Brown v. The
Board of Education. This
monumental victory overturned
the “Separate But Equal” clause
established by Plessy v. Furgeson,
overcame segregation and paved
the way for Affirmative Action. As
a result of Affirmative Action a
record number of educational and
employment opportunities have
opened up for all minorities.
On April 1, 2003, the US
Supreme Court heard Grutter v.
Bollinger: a case questioning
Affirmative Action, specifically at
the University of Michigan. The
decision of the court could
ultimately outlaw Affirmative
Action throughout the nation and
reverse much of the progress of
the Civil-Rights Movement.
On January 15, 2003 (the day
we celebrate the Birthday and life
accomplishments of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.), in a public
announcement President George
W. Bush urged the US Supreme
Court to outlaw Affirmative
Action. We must not and we
cannot be silent as the work of the
movement is placed in jeopardy.
It is with great anticipation and
high expectations that I extend this
invitation to all students to
continue the fight. We have
recently participated in “Black
Tuesday”. Black Tuesday was a
day of unity for all minorities and
people in support of Affirmative
Action. On April 1 students from
HBCU’s, Black Student Unions,
and other minority organizations
across the nation, dressed in all
black to signify unity, marched
from Howard University to the
U.S. Supreme Court, in an attempt
to save Affirmative Action.
Deon Winchester, SGA President
-w—r