Affirmative Action: What to do when there's no window dressing mandated!!!

Last night, when I watched a story about Ward Connerly coming to the Show-Me state in order to further his agenda and possibly repeal affirmative action laws in Missouri I have to admit I was a little peeved. But it's not what you think.

Of course, an old Black guy (multi-racial = non-white) degrading himself and begging for a pat on the head by conservatives is never a pleasant sight but then I got to thinking about worst case scenarios if he gets his way . . . What's going to change? . . . For me at least.

But first, here's what the anti-affirmative action activists are up to according to the Star:

An anti-affirmative-action group wants to have Missouri voters decide on an initiative banning what it calls state-level race-based “preferential treatment” in public contracting, education and employment . . . they wanted to follow the lead of California, Washington and Michigan, which passed similar initiatives banning racial preferences in state-sponsored programs . . . Organized by Tim Asher, a former admissions director at a Missouri community college. He said he complained about a diversity scholarship the college offered for underrepresented minorities, and the college has changed the scholarship.

Yeah . . . The fact that somebody who opposed all "special preferences" for minority college students was already working in admissions probably says a lot about who had "preference" to gain access into the ivory towers of whatever Missouri institution for which he worked . . . And I know the popular thing for me to do here is to say how little I've relied on affirmative action or racial preferences in my life . . . That's the standard line of any minority on the topic and while I never received one of those groovy Latino scholarships, I'm sure I would have gladly taken it, IF they weren't reserved for poster kids and the various cousins and offspring of higher ranking politicos than mi familia.

But let's look at the bigger picture, as far as I'm concerned. KC is a place where the so-called "downtown renaissance" has basically cut out all minorities from the recent building boom. After a ton of yelling, screaming and complaining only then did some of the bigger construction companies working downtown begrudgingly do the bare minimum required to meet low ball government requirements. Even better, take a walk and look at who's working downtown . . . All I see, everyday, is white guys in really big trucks helping to build the place. In fact, the reaction to Latinos protesting their exclusion in helping to build downtown last year was met with what could only be described as a lukewarm response.

And when we're talking about college admissions, the first stat that comes to mind is the standard line related to higher ed and the Black community which happens to be true and reveals that there are more young, Black guys in prison than in college . . . So I wonder why anybody would be up in arms about giving a guy a break if he belonged to the one and only ethic group in the world that is more (most?) likely to be in the lockup.

And yet while I think that there should be more Black people in Missouri colleges, it's worth pointing out that Latinos are (even more) overwhelmingly underrepresented in higher ed not only because so many drop out years earlier in order to have babies and mow lawns but also because nearly every Latino I've met (including me) already knows everything anyway so more schooling would just be redundant.

Anyway . . . Apparently, what Ward Connerly and other anti-affirmative action advocates believe is that minorities should trust the white people in power to be fair . . . It requires a lot of faith and that strategy didn't exactly work out for the Native Americans or the Jews ("this train is going where?") . . . However, I wouldn't count on the topic to raise a lot of ire in minority communities because nobody likes being thought of as a token even if it's part of their job description and/or reason for admission.

I'm guessing that the truth is that there will always be place for "affirmative action" hires and access even if its goes by another name . . . But the lesson here isn't that we've come so far as a society that there's no need to redact or offset the centuries systemic genocide, discrimination, enslavement, rape and oppression that have brought white people to power in the Western World . . . The point is that this kinder, gentler nation thinks that it no longer needs rules to guarantee a level playing field. And who knows? Maybe the absence of racial preferences just might bring about a new day in which so many Asian students can finally throw off the shackles of quotas that have held them back over the years and can be turned loose and allowed to garner record breaking achievements on college campuses here in Missouri.