King's dream and the 'M' word By Jeff Jacoby, 1/24/2002 What would Martin Luther King Jr. have made of Monday's Boston Globe? On Page 10, to honor King's memory and legacy, a full-page ad reproduced the peroration of his unforgettable 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial: ''I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today....'' It was the greatest American speech of the 20th century, and it is right and proper and really very wonderful that 40 years after it was delivered, we regard the man who delivered it as an American hero and are uplifted and inspired by his words. But if Page 10 would have raised King's spirits, Page 1 would have broken his heart. On Martin Luther King Day, the Globe's front page featured a story on what it called the ''growing debate'' over the use of the word ''minority'' to refer to racial or ethnic groups. It reported that the ''M'' word has, to some, ''the outdated ring of `Negro,' `Oriental,' `Spanish,' and `Eskimo.''' (Spanish?) Among those making that claim is Charles Yancey, a black member of the Boston City Council. ''It implies inferiority and inequity among Americans,'' he said last year in proposing to ban the term from all city documents. His motion passed unanimously - which was a good thing, since, as former Councilor Thomas Keane observed, what would we have called anyone who voted against it? It goes without saying - but for the sake of any readers who have just emerged from a cave in Tora Bora and don't understand how things work in America today, I'll say it anyway - that Yancey's purpose in condemning ''minority'' was not to drive home the point that the law knows neither majority nor minority, but insists on one standard for all. It was not to make it clear that the sine qua non of ''racial justice'' is color-blindness. It was not to emphasize the gross indecency of racial preferences and set-asides - of quotas that assign jobs or contracts or promotions or seats in the freshman class on the basis of skin color or family origin. No - it was simply to find new words for the same old hustle. Every person quoted in the Globe's story seemed to take it for granted that American institutions should go on sorting human beings by race and ethnicity. Brooke Woodson, who heads the city's Office of Minority and Women Business Enterprise, favors dropping ''minority.'' Pedro Pirez, a Cuban immigrant whose construction firm qualifies for special advantages as a ''minority-owned'' business, favors keeping it. But both endorse the entrenched system of preferences that subordinates equality and merit in the name of ''diversity.'' How far the civil rights movement has fallen! Once it struggled for the dignity and equality of all Americans and called, in A. Philip Randolph's words, for ''the abrogation of every law which makes a distinction in treatment between citizens based on religion, creed, color, or national origin.'' Today it fusses over the word ''minority.'' King, who knew the difference between real insults and make-believe ones, would be appalled. ''When you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading `white' and `colored,''' he wrote from the Birmingham jail, ''when your first name becomes `******' and your middle name becomes `boy' ... and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title `Mrs.' ... - then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.'' Difficult to wait for what? What was it that King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference hoped to achieve when they faced Bull Connor's dogs and hoses? An America in which the law would continue to play racial favorites, while city councilors piously debated the merits of ''minorities'' vs. ''people of color''? The question answers itself. King did not protest the double standards of Jim Crow so they could be replaced with the double standards of affirmative action. His dream was of a world in which the law would take no notice of race or ethnicity, a world in which there would be no legal disadvantage to being a minority - and no advantage, either. Americans today are remarkably tolerant and unbigoted - especially when compared with other nations - and yet our government and laws are obsessed as never before with race and racial categories. That obsession in turn infects our workplaces, our schools, our media. Thirty-four years after King's death, we are more mired in race than ever. If he could see us, he would weep. Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com. This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 1/24/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
I had some sympathy for his position … until the last paragraph. To tie this in with "Immigrants …" thread, I don't think that hyphenated names signify and affirmative action. Two separate issues. The author's real concern appears to be with affirmative action. Affirmative action can be viewed as discrimination, but it usually addresses a societal problem. If you expand the job description, then, to include these issues, it may not be discrimination. (For example, police forces here have had affirmative action programs to hire more first-nations officers. But there is a much higher percentage of first nations people charged and convicted of crimes than is represented on the police force. If you expand the definition of the job qualifications to include "very good first-nations cultural awareness," something the force clearly needs more of, then they're only picking the best people for the job.) In any event, I think affirmative action policies should have sunset clauses. They are designed to be a corrective measure, so there should a clear definition of what the end target percentage is, and a way to terminate the policy when that has been met.
