Shut Up and Dialogue
[Reprinted from Issues & Views Fall 1997]
Despite melodramatic calls for a national dialogue on race, we are also
being urged to stop talking about "affirmative action." A New York
Times reporter finds it curious that group preferences and quotas are seen
as such "a huge issue." A consultant on President Clinton's race
initiative asks, "Why are white folks making such a big deal about
it?"
A chorus of similar opinions in the media make it clear that you are in
danger of being considered a racist if you object to group preferences and
quotas. In fact, it is frowned upon even to use those words, since the
politically correct term is "affirmative action."
In other words, shut up about what you are interested in, and dialogue
about what the liberals are interested in. They want to harangue you about your
racism and have you confess your guilt. Otherwise, shut up!
The chairman of the National Commission on Race has refused to have anyone
who opposes group preferences on his commission as members, or even to let them
appear as witnesses before the commission. How is that for a dialogue?
Under a banner proclaiming "One Country," the race dialoguers are
splitting the country into numerous racial and ethnic groups and encouraging
people to define themselves and dialogue about themselves in those terms.
When a white man in the audience at a Virginia school pointed out what a
farce this was, when those represented on the stage included no one who was
white, he was ordered out of the room. He apparently did not understand that
"dialogue" means monologue in the Newspeak of race.
As for the liberals' bafflement as to why discussions of race center on
preferences and quotas, it is really very simple. White people object to being
discriminated against for the same reason that black people object to being
discriminated against. What some other white people did to some other black
people before they were born is not the issue--unless, of course, you buy the
Hitler notion of guilt inherited by blood.
Ask yourself: If some stranger walked up and punched you in the nose
because someone who looked like you once punched him in the nose, would it be
"curious" if you objected? Should people be puzzled if you made
"a big deal" about it?
As for the political correctness of the phrase "affirmative
action," it is popular with liberals for the simple reason that it allows
them to evade the questions raised about preferences and quotas by lumping them
together with outreach programs and other efforts to help disadvantaged people
that practically no one objects to.
There are well-known people who are considered to be "far right
conservatives" who have helped kids in ghetto schools, though they don't
usually make noise about it, as the liberals do. Yet these same people who
volunteer their own time and money to help minorities are totally opposed to
preferences and quotas. They want to help raise people up to meet standards,
not bring the standards down to them. That is what the argument is about. Why
should we dialogue about other things instead?
When it became too blatantly obvious that there was no real dialogue going
on, a group of conservative critics of the president's race initiative were
invited to the White House for a meeting with the president. Since this meeting
was held behind closed doors, as contrasted with the nationally televised
meetings to publicize the liberal party line, it provided no real opportunity
for the conservatives to take their case to the public.
The only net effect of the meeting was to allow Bill Clinton to claim to
have listened to all sides. Talk is cheap and both political parties are
playing the voting public cheap.
--Thomas Sowell is an economist and author of many books, including
Preferential Policies: An International Perspective (Morrow), Inside American
Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas (Free Press/Macmillan) and
Migrations and Cultures: A World View (Basic Books).
Copyright © 1997 Creators Syndicate,
Inc.
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