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?The Louis Farrakhan Of The Midwest?

The Nebraska legislature has only chamber, and, fortunately for all concerned, that one chamber has only one Chambers ? Sen. Ernie Chambers, described by someone as ?the angriest black man in Nebraska? and by someone else as ?the Louis Farrakhan of the midwest.?

We encountered Sen. Chambers here, where I discussed his plan, as described in this article in the New York Times, for

dividing the Omaha public schools into three racially identifiable districts, one largely black, one white and one mostly Hispanic.

The law, which opponents are calling state-sponsored segregation, has thrown Nebraska into an uproar, prompting fierce debate about the value of integration versus what Mr. Chambers calls a desire by blacks to control a school district in which their children are a majority.

Nebraska is one of the five states where organizers are attempting to pass an initiative next November to bar the state discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual based on race, ethnicity, or gender. There are two ways this initiative could be placed on the ballot: 1) Supporters could gather signatures on a petition from 10% of the state?s registered voters, about 114,000 names, or 2) with the support of two-thirds of its members, the unicameral state senate could place the matter on the ballot directly.

Signatures are being gathered, and Sen. Mark Christensen has introduced a measure in the senate.

The proposed amendment to the Nebraska Constitution would bar ?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.?

According to Sen. Christensen,

?All it?s doing is trying to let everyone hire the best person,? said Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial, who brought the measure on Wednesday. ?It just puts everyone on the same playing field.?

The ?angriest black man in Nebraska,? in his typical calm and restrained tone, had already denounced Ward Connerly, the architect of the various state civil rights initiatives, as ?a tool of Jim Crowism.? Not surprisingly, Sen. Chambers had a similarly calm and restrained response to the bill introduced by his colleague:

Chambers said Christensen thinks it?s all right to do things for white people, who make up 92 percent of the state?s population. But when groups that have been discriminated against and prevented from getting an education are given compensation, he said, ?Here comes old Christian Christensen saying, ?I want the constitution to say, by god, them people haven?t had no rights and they ain?t gonna get no rights if I can ? have it my way.??

Chambers said he had yet to see Christensen help any group with one of his bills.

?When these narrow-minded people come here with their narrow-minded religious views, they?re going to be counteracted by me,? he said.

And Christensen will have the fight of his life.

?I?m going to call it like I see it,? Chambers said. ?It is racism, racism and hatred of black people.?

Someone should tell Sen. Chambers that if the state of Nebraska has created racial preference programs in order to provide ?compensation? for past discrimination, they are already presumptively illegal. Also, if anyone is speaking to him, someone should ask him to explain why it is ?racism, racism and hatred of black people? to bar discrimination based on race.

Full post as published by Discriminations on January 24, 2008 (boomark / email).