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Ron Jackson's Perspective
The Sunday Journal -
Think
Kankakee, Illinois
July 6, 2003
Court says
non-whites need help |
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A suggestion for
a sign to be posted in all federal buildings: “Great
Expectations…for Whites Only.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has decided by a 5-4 ruling that
affirmative action in some form is a legal necessity. For
another 25 years we will be debating race-based versus effort-based
opportunities. Although the court was ruling on the University
of Michigan graduate school case, there will be a trickle-down
effect. It won’t be limited to just education and government.
Every industry will eventually have to subscribe to the court’s
mistake.
Could there be anyone happier with the court’s ruling
than Chicago Cubs superstar Sammy Sosa? We now know the only reason
Sammy Sosa was hounded so much because of his cheating, oops, make
that his mistake, was because he is a minority. Speaking of
the corked bat scandal, Sosa says it is over and the public should
let it go. It’s no big deal. I think he meant for a
minority to cheat is no big deal.
Sammy can now do his home run hop all over town. The
Supreme Court’s decision to keep affirmative action alive has given
some credence to Sosa’s claim. It shouldn’t be a big deal if a
minority baseball player has a little cork in his bat. After
all, isn’t that what affirmative action is -- a little extra
something for non-whites only. Will history someday tell us
that Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby and Hank Aaron all needed a little
something extra because they were black? Is there any way they
were as qualified as the great white players of their day? Was
that possible in America a half century ago but not today?
If it walks like a quota, smells like a quota, and
works like a quota, it is a quota. Affirmative action is a
quota system. To deny any deserving person an opportunity,
regardless of race, to give a less-than-deserving person an
opportunity to meet a numerical goal is a quota. Nothing more.
However, believing government mandated diversity makes better
citizens, our Supreme Court has stated otherwise. Thank
goodness they have no authority over the jungle. Our whole
animal kingdom would be destroyed.
Attempting to justify her vote for affirmative action,
Justice Sandra O’Connor said, “We expect that 25 years from now, the
use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.” I wonder if
she considers the millions of minorities who have succeeded on their
own merit mere aberrations.
Furthermore, it’s interesting that she could render a
date when minorities will suddenly be able to compete fairly with
whites. Martin Luther King, Jr. could offer only some day as
the goal to end black dependency on quotas and set-asides. Either
she is psychic, very optimistic, or she is giving minorities a goal
or deadline. If minorities can meet expectations in 2025, they
can meet them now.
The Supreme Court has ruled that in order to achieve
goals and compete with white America, minorities need a little
“cork” on their college admission exams and employment applications.
In America it seems making your way through life “the old fashioned
way” is a “white thing.
Maybe Sammy Sosa is right. It’s no big deal for
minorities to cheat. He went from being a poor shoeshine boy in his
homeland to being the most popular baseball player America.
A scary thought just hit me. In 25 years, Sosa
could become a Supreme Court justice. Who knows, with a few
extra affirmative action points thrown in, he might be able to make
it in 15 years. |
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