I am prejudiced. I favor anything we do to assist black Americans. What I write here about Charles Krauthammer's opinion on the Affirmative Action law is based on my view that college entry is an extremely TINY part of HUGE debt America owes descendants of family surviving 200+ YEARS SLAVERY UNLIKE ANY EVER IN ITS LEVEL OF INHUMANITY, CRUELTY, AND DISHONSETY.!
Charles Krauthammer was wise, a good writer, eloquent thinker / speaker, and entertaining. He was sometimes fun to read and funny in what he wrote.
But he did not, as far as I know, apply White Privilege in his logic for change to Affirmative Action after it's "long run" of 40 years. Nor did Charles think to ask how kids of rich parents like Jared Kushner, a low "C"s student, got into Harvard, or even how Kush "succeeded."
I doubt Charles thought to analyze of how Kushner, and the "successful" kids at Berkeley "succeeded," hint: likely he had paid tutors. But I know Charles knows how universities work, and how some students "succeed" in spite of not actually getting credible passing grades. Could it be the Berkeley percentage on black kids who failed is a bit tilted somehow for white kids?
I wonder if Charles were to peel back the onion on the "statistics" he uses from Berkeley, if we'd find that the back kids who succeeded, the 14%, were the ones who knew how to get help like a free tutor or a study group or other available service.
My point is to ask whether Charles factored in variables like White Privilege, and hos rich parents use the financial and political power to help their kids? Read the news in 2019 to see how rich parents "help" their kids get into college.
Charles Affirmative Action critique is weak in many, many ways, so if he were to redo it today, I think he would say make it stronger, make changes, BUT KEEP IT STRONG.
A tiny little benefit like getting into college is really just one of a million things America owes to as compensation to the descendants of GENERATIONS who had to live and survive through 200 years of slavery.
Racism is real and iit is very strong in America.
Charles did not explain or address how participation trophies benefit ambition and experiential growth, while essentially suggesting that kind of university for black kids.
Charles did not seem to recognize how all of us, even black kids, can eventually succeed despite failures.
C. Krauthammer ignored White Privilege and how the power of being rich play in his ideas for changing Affirmative Action.
Charles Affirmative Action change, like improving lower level schools, are old ideas that have NEVER been done. If government improved those schools there would be no "White Flight" from those schools.
Krauthammer, may he rest in peace, wrote in "Ambiguity and Affirmative Action" that it was time to change after 40 years of the Civil Rights law.
I have to believe this otherwise very wise, and caring man meant well, but his reasons to change the Affirmative Action law, and his ideas for ways to "compensate" black Americans for 200 years of being treated like dogs and farm animals, were clearly disingenuous.
One idea Krauthammer offers was to improve "lower" levels of education for black people so they can be more competitive with whites. Krauthammer says this with no reference to White Privilege, BUT THATIS EXACTLY THE PROBKEM HE IMPLIES! White Privilege is the problem much more than lower level schools.
The point? White Privilege goes to school improvements. The US government has not kept u with appropriate changes for public schools for 100years, so we can be sure the US government, nor will state government do anything special for "lower" level schools to help black people. Charles is speaking through his hat on this idea.
So I say, really, we need to "help" black people by putting them in less challenging situations to allow them to succeed? Krauthammer says blackkids come from weak adademic backgrounds so we need to put them in weaker schools?
How does dumbing down the school help black kids learn to deal with challenges? How does failure guarantee a psychological scar? How do we teach white kids to deal with failure? Do we make sure they always get a competition trophy?
Krauthammer's logic is out of tune with an honest review of slavery and discrimination against people of color, but he was w white man, so I am not surproised.
I mean no disrespect to a man of great merit, great intellect, great popularity among conservatives, but how, after 200 years of slavery, is it long enough to do a relatively MINOR thing, a really MINOR thing to help people of color to push their limits, to challenge themselves the way white people are allowed all the time, to allow more people of color into universities where they might not otherwise be allowed, is 40 years on too long?
"Krauthammer: Why the Supreme Court got it right on affirmative action"
By Fox News 24 April2019
"GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: This week, the Supreme Court dealing a blow to affirmative action. The high court upholding a Michigan ban on affirmative action in higher education."
In his book, "Things That Matter," Krauthammer expresses wrong minded logic for a court view on Affirmative Action. While ignoring hw the rich get into universities by "donating" funds, the way athletes get into universities, and what is called the "back door," how legacy kids get preferential treatment, Charles reduces his credibility in my opinion.
"KRAUTHAMMER: After almost 40 years of rulings on affirmative action, there is finally a ray of light that the court can see its way out of the thicket. And that is it ruled that Michigan has the right and it did pass in a referendum the abolition of affirmative action. It basically restated what's in the Civil Rights Act, you may not discriminate on the basis of race, et cetera, which is pretty clear and stuff that I think the majority of Americans would support."
Charles Krauthammer find it useful to use Affirmative Action as your stalking horse when preferential treatment for entrance into universities is much broader? Krauthammer, for example, males NO use of the fact that slavery gave ALL people with white (brownish actually, since only albinos are "white") a 50-70 yard head start in a 100 meter race.
"And as Breyer said, the court is not saying you have to have affirmative action. The court isn't saying that you have to ban affirmative action. It's simply saying let the people decide. That, I think, is, for the first time, we have seen our way out of this. There will be some jurisdictions that will maintain affirmative action. And the court will have to rule from now until the end of time on exactly how much discrimination you are allowed and what kind of cases. But there are now eight states that have now outlawed affirmative action and they will leave this kind of race consciousness behind, which is a good thing for the country."
It is "good for the country" to continue to treat people of color as equals when they were treated a cows and worse, i.e., "chattel," for 200 years?
In Krauthammer's logic a minority of Americans in 2019 can decide what is right for a mostly white nation, when a majority voted against Tweety trump, BUT another American minority, when it is people of color, should not be allowed the same sort of protectin? The Electoral College, in my mind, is Affirmative Action for white people.
A minority elected a President who is immensely unpopular in 2016. Krauthammer's words read like, perhaps unintended, but he is white so the notion is not a stretch, that Krauthammer feels people of color get enough favoritism as it is, no more necessary = RACIST.
The interviewer tried to help Krauthammer get back to more reasonable, thoughtful, historically correct logic.
"VAN SUSTEREN: Well, the reason affirmative action was passed to begin with was to remedy past discrimination and also, at least I think, because so many of these schools in these areas that have concentrations of minorities are so dreadfully awful that the students, by the time they got through grade school and high school and got to college, that they needed a little extra help getting in, and that's where the different standards, and that's where the discrimination of people. Why in the world aren't we really fixing these schools so that, you know, we can sort of go beyond affirmative action and give everybody an equal chance, and equal shot?"
But Krauthammer goes off the deep end of what anyone with knowledge of what was gong on for 200 years of being treated like a farm animal, could call racist logic when responding. As I read his words, Krauthammer is racist. Krauthammer thinks people of color cannot succeed when put in very tough environments, they are too weak.
"KRAUTHAMMER: They can't read by eighth grade. Everybody understands that. And then as a kind of compensation, you allow a small number to get into college, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to. I can understand the rationale behind it, but, A, it goes against the very fundamental principle that the country arrived at 50 years ago: You do not discriminate on the basis of race. It is simply a bad principle. It's the wrong way to remedy this. As Thomas Sowell, Stuart Taylor and a lot of others [These two names are bad sources, even while one is a "black" man. I have read Sowell's perverted logic, it is crap. I find Sowell VERY disingenuous, and misleading in use of statistics, just as Krauthammer misuses statistics. Taylor is like Dershowitz as he twists legal jargon to serve a bad purpose. And "others?" are not listed so they do not exist; if the "others" exists, they are going to be selected because they match Sowell and Taylor. Krauthammer should list the names of those arguing FOR continuing Affirmative Action if he wishes to be "fair and balanced" like his favorite work site, Fox News.] have shown, when you artificially put students in institutions that are more competitive [True, the best universities are more competitive, but they have also been proven to give graduates a better chance to succeed. Why can't people of color get that opportunity?] than they are prepared for, you guarantee them failure. [I disagree. What about the kids that do not fail?] When, had you allowed them to go to institutions where they are prepared, they would be successes. Why -- for instance, the dropout rate among African-Americans at Berkeley was almost 50 percent [Think about it, sir, and maybe you can figure why they "fail." Is it possible the Berkeley leaders did not ensure a non-racist environment?] , whereas with whites, it was about 14 percent. Why would you condemn these bright young African-Americans to fail at Berkeley when they could be extremely successful at other schools in the system?"
Who says crap like this? Has any white kid failed, and come back for more? Apparently only white kids can fail and come back for mere!
Here's what Stuart Taylor thinks, even tho in 2019 racism is as stron as ever, and White Nationalism resides in the White House.
"Times Have Changed: Civil-Rights Era Voting Law Needs Reform"
Stuart Taylor Jr. March 23, 2012
Although the problem of black disenfranchisement has been largely solved [What? Stuart is as far from the truth and facts here as is the most avid White nationalist. It wasn't possible to say this in 2012, and the proof is in so much racism in America in 2019!], many southern states still have to submit all voting rules changes for federal approval
Stuart has read too much White Nationalist inspired material, listened to people of color who have bought into or been brain washed by the racist logic of recent years, and / or he is blindly unaware, as most white people are, to the truth and the evidence of racism in America!
Stuart relies on others to provide evidence of the need to change Civil Rights in America, and he abuses, in a sense, people of color who don't get it, as I note above, who say foolish things as evidence, using their unwise supposition that racism is under control, and on the wane in America, to justify changes in Civil Rights.
Taylor's reasoning is alluring, but wrong, as 2019 shows how tribal politics is and how voting by people of color has become the most feared threat to conservatives in American politics.
"Times change. And many laws that were once essential to help us progress eventually become outdated, counterproductive, and in need of revision, if not repeal.
But by then such laws have often become sacred cows, perpetuated long past their glory days by self-serving politicians, interest-group lobbies, and media nostalgia or bias. Their reach is very hard to restrain unless an unusual opportunity presents itself.
So it is with Section 5 of the iconic Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was initially set to expire in 1970. It requires eight states in the Deep South, plus Alaska and parts of seven other states, to obtain "preclearance" from the U.S. Justice Department (or a slow-moving special court) before making even the minutest change in their voting rules."
This "preclearance: is actually needed in MORE states, not fewer. Read the facts of how states try to limit voter rights to prevent voter fraud when the numbers of proven voter fraud is miniscule, perhaps less than 1%! Conservatives argue that the reason there is so small a percentage is that voter fraud is not discovered. That makes voter fraud another conspiracy theory, which means, as is the weakness of ALL conspiracy theories, IT CANNOT BE PROVEN OR DISPROVEN BECASUE AT ITS ROOT IS NO EVIDENCE TIHER WAY.
The problem with the "either way" in the voter fraud conspiracy, is that it has been proven there in almost NO voter fraud.
"Section 5 played a critical role in ending the disenfranchisement of Southern blacks and breaking the back of American apartheid. But we live in a different America. The very racial progress that Section 5 helped accomplish has arguably made it unnecessary and certainly calls for reducing its intrusion on state powers. "
What is different in America, Stuart? I will tell you because you didn't see it in 2012 are you used your legalistic argument devoid of any and all social awareness. The "difference?" The difference in America is the deceit of voter suppression is disguised, and because you cannot discern it, it must not be there. Voter suppression as a major conservative initiative against ALL PEOPLE OF COLOR is in the "difference" between 2012 and 2019.
"Indeed, many or most of the states and localities covered by Section 5 have become as protective of voting rights as the rest of the country. And Section 2 of the act provides ample authority to deal with residual voting rights violations -- which no doubt still occur -- through the ordinary judicial process.
Efforts to reform Section 5 have nonetheless been beaten back by left-wing Democrats, right-wing Republicans (some of whom benefit from the racial gerrymandering it imposes, while others would prefer its outright elimination on ideological grounds), the civil rights lobby, and its allies in the news media and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
Even as the grave wrongs that justified the drastic Section 5 remedy have receded into the past, Congress has repeatedly extended it, most recently until 2031, without substantially easing the burden imposed on the many covered states and localities with good voting rights records.
Indeed, when Section 5 came up for renewal in 2006, Congress made it even more onerous. For example, Congress overruled a 2003 Supreme Court decision (in Georgia v. Ashcroft) by prohibiting states from replacing any of their existing majority-minority districts -- safe seats for minority politicians -- with districts that would be more racially integrated."
Is it possible the courts were smarter than you, Stuart? Stuart rambles on, but gains no more leverage in his argument to change how courts control voter rights in America to protect against the real apartheid still existing in the good, old USA.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISS IS REAL STUART, AND INSTITUTIONAL, GOVERNMENTAL, AMERICAN RACISM IS STRONGER IN THESE PAST YEARS, AND IN 2019 WHITE NATIONALISM RESIDES IN THE WHITE HOUSE!
Here is our 2019 reality on "voter rights" Stuart.
"Hunting black men to start a ‘race war’"
James Harris Jackson went to New York with a Roman sword and an apocalyptic ideology. He stabbed a stranger in the back and left him to die.
By Michael E. Miller Local enterprise reporter covering immigration, poverty, inequality and crime Dec. 27, 2019
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/local/race-war-murder-hate-crime/
"The War of Races’: How a hateful ideology echoes through American history"
By Michael E. Miller Local enterprise reporter covering immigration, poverty, inequality and crime December 27, 2019
