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More Driver Drivel

One of the downsides of my ?job? (I use the term loosely) providing your peephole/telescopic/microscopic view into the wonderful world of discrimination (not to mention my filter/sieve service, separating the chaff from the really bad chaff) is that I have to read so much offensive, militant nonsense from know-nothings like Shanta Driver, national chairpersonwoman of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the battering ram used by the Democrats to do the dirty work of supporting racial preferences, such as disrupting meetings and sending out threatening ?blockers? to intimidate petition-signers.

She?s still in Arizona (where we encountered her only last week, here), and still spouting angry, duplicitous nonsense. One saving grace of having to read her, however, is being reminded that she?s so far around the bend that she doesn?t realize how offensive she sounds to most people, such as when she unblushingly reveals her disdain for democracy and the blighted, racist Americas who struggle to make it work.

The head of a group opposing an initiative to end affirmative action and other preferential programs said she wants to block the measure from getting on the ballot in part because she fears a majority of Arizonans will vote for it....

Driver said putting this measure before Arizona voters, even in 2008, would be like asking Alabama residents in the 1950s to vote on equal rights for blacks.

I?m sure Arizonans will appreciate being compared to racist white Alabamians in 1950, but that comparison makes as much sense as describing a measure that would prohibit discrimination as discriminatory.

Nor does Driver seem to recognize that her opposition to colorblind equality depends upon a definition of ?civil rights? that is distorted beyond all recognition.

Shanta Driver, national chair of By Any Means Necessary, said it is improper to push the measure as a ?civil rights? initiative. She said that term connotes something to help minorities

There is no control over what ?connotes? what to Ms. Driver, but ?civil rights? denotes the right to be free from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc.

As if Driver?s distorted connotions weren?t enough, for some reason she thinks a supporter who admits that she didn?t read the petition she signed strengthens her case.

?Civil rights applies to all people, regardless of their race or their sex,? [director of the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative Max] McPhail said. ?To give someone preference based on something like a characteristic like race goes against what civil rights really means.?

But Pamela Brown, one of the people who signed the petition, said there is no question that the use of the words ?civil rights? was designed to mislead.

Brown, who is black, said she grew up in the 1950s and 1960s watching TV coverage of fire hoses being turned on civil rights protestors in the South.
?When you say ?civil rights? to a person of my era, that?s what we go back to,? she said.

McPhail said anyone who actually read the text of the initiative, which legally must be attached to the petition, would see that it bans preferential treatment.

Brown, who signed the initiative, conceded that she did not look at the language.

Driver and her un-reading supporter, Brown, thus believe that discriminating against many Asians and a few whites to help blacks and Hispanics is what ?civil rights? is all about.

Well, that must be the case, since that?s what Brown learned watching TV.

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 03, 2008 (boomark / email).