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More On Ms. Hillary And Civil Rights

In his excellent column this morning Charles Krauthammer reminds us that the initial cause of the Democrats? recent race riot was Hillary?s Jan. 7 comment, ?Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ... It took a president to get it done.?

Krauthammer discusses the poetic justice of political correctness coming back to bite the Democrats, a point made by others but then, as is his wont, he also makes an original point:

In my view, the real problem with Clinton?s statement was the implied historical analogy -- that the subordinate position King held in relation to Johnson, a function of the discrimination and disenfranchisement of the time, somehow needs recapitulation today when none of those conditions apply.

The analogy Clinton was implying was obvious: I?m Lyndon Johnson, unlovely doer; he?s Martin Luther King, charismatic dreamer. Vote for me if you want results.

Forty years ago, that arrangement -- white president enacting African-American dreams -- was necessary because discrimination denied blacks their own autonomous political options. Today, that arrangement -- white liberals acting as tribune for blacks in return for their political loyalty -- is a demeaning anachronism. That?s what the fury at Hillary was all about, although no one was willing to say so explicitly.

The King-Johnson analogy is dead because the times are radically different. Today an African-American can be in a position to wield the emancipation pen -- and everything else that goes along with the presidency: from making foreign policy to renting out the Lincoln Bedroom (if one is so inclined). Why should African-American dreams still have to go through white liberals?

Krauthammer hits the poetic justice point dead center:

Clinton is no doubt shocked that a simple argument about experience versus inspiration becomes the basis for a charge of racial insensitivity. She is surprised that the very use of ?fairy tale? in reference to Obama?s position on Iraq is taken as a sign of insensitivity, or that any reference to his self-confessed teenage drug use is immediately given racial overtones.

But where, I ask you, do such studied and/or sincere expressions of racial offense come from? From a decades-long campaign of enforced political correctness by an alliance of white liberals and the black civil rights establishment intended to delegitimize and marginalize as racist any criticism of their post-civil rights-era agenda.

Anyone who has ever made a principled argument against affirmative action only to be accused of racism knows exactly how these tactics work. Or anyone who has merely opposed a more recent agenda item -- hate crimes legislation -- on the grounds that murder is murder and that the laws against it are both venerable and severe.

There remains, however, one point that hasn?t yet been made in this context, and it concerns the content and meaning of the seemingly applauded Civil Rights Act of 1964 that King inspired and Johnson signed. Here are two of the central provisions of that Act:

Title VI

No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Note well: no person, not no minority person.

Title VII

SEC. 2000e-2. [Section 703]

(a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer ?

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Note well: any individual, not any minority individual.

When will some intrepid reporter ask Senator Clinton and Senator Obama whether, if they so venerate the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they

• support the Bush Administration?s Dept. of Education in its effort to force colleges and universities to eliminate all programs that are racially exclusive;

• believe that federal funds should cut off to any educational institution that awards preferential treatment based on race in admissions or hiring;

• if elected, would appoint officials to the EEOC and Dept. of Justice who would pledge to prosecute all employers who ?classify? their applicants and employees by race and then and then procede to award employment opportunities to any degree based on that classification;

• support proposed constitutional amendments, based on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that may be on the ballots of five states in Nov. 2008 that would bar the states from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual based on race, ethnicity, or sex.

• If the answer to any or all of these questions is no, can they explain how they can square that answer, or those answers, with their professed veneration of the Civil Rights Act?
  

We are still awaiting that intrepid reporter and those answers.

Full post as published by Discriminations on January 18, 2008 (boomark / email).