Politically Correct Discrimination

At exclusive colleges and universities in 2016, conservative students held satirical “Affirmative Action Bake Sales” to spotlight discrimination against whites applying for admission. Cookies were sold to Native Americans for 25¢ whereas blacks were charged 75¢, Latinos $1.00, Asians $1.50, and whites $2.00. Women of any race got 25¢ off. SAT scores required for admission to those elite schools also varied according to race and pretty much correlated to the prices of cookies. Asians needed higher SATs. So did whites. Lower scores were accepted for minorities and women.

Protesters at UT bake sale

Young Americans for Freedom hoped to initiate civil discussion of Affirmative Action policies at the University of Texas and there was some, but things went downhill and the event ended in violence according to campusreform.org. Opponents shouted epithets like Nazi! You deserve to be punched! Others yelled “Get the f*** out!” Still others tried to steal the cookies and overturned the table on which the cookies were displayed.

Last weekend, SkyNews reported on an event in Detroit along the same lines, but it wasn’t satirical like the event at the University of Texas. It was serious: “The organisers of the AfroFuture Fest, set for 3-4 August, are charging lower rates for tickets bought by ‘people of colour’ than for ‘non-people of colour.” Early bird tickets for ‘POC were $10 and $20 for ‘Non-POC.’”

In the FAQ section of their web site, they explained: "Why do we have POC (people of colour) and Non-POC (white people) tickets? I'm glad you asked! Equality means treating everyone the same. Equity is insuring (sic) everyone has what they need to be successful. Our ticket structure was built to insure (sic) that the most marginalised communities (people of colour) are provided with an equitable chance at enjoying events in their own community (black Detroit).”

Tiny Jag

In response, one entertainer has withdrawn from AfroFuture Fest: “Tiny Jag, a biracial rapper based in Detroit, has quit the event and insisted AfroFuture Fest removed her name from all promotional material… ‘I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial… It seems almost like it has spite, and unfortunately with spite comes hate…’ [she said.]”

Good for her, but it would have been better if she’d quit on principle alone and not because she’s “biracial.” Most of us are multiracial — or multiethnic at least — as more and more people learn when they get results their DNA analysis after paying $50-$100. It’s way past time to put all race-based quotas in our rear-view mirror and affirm that there’s really only one race — the human race.

The word “discriminate” used to be neutral, meaning “distinguish”; “discern”; or “differentiate.” It described an ability to detect finer differences between similar things. It had at least one positive connotation when used to describe someone with nuanced taste in art, in food, or in human character. Then in the 1950s and 60s it developed a strongly negative connotation when describing racist attitudes — referring primarily to some white people averse to other races. In that context it was often employed as part of the phrase: “discriminate against.”

Forced, race-based, school busing is back in the news after some 2020 Democrats put their fingers up into the political winds. California Senator Kamala Harris scored points against front-runner and former Vice President Joe Biden in their first debate when she criticized Biden’s sponsorship of an anti-busing bill while he was a US Senator from Delaware back in the 1970s. There actually were conservative Democrats in those days, and not a few of them either. They opposed racial segregation in schools when black students were denied admission, but could not support forced busing when imposed by a federal judge and left-wing Democrats because some schools were majority black.

In the 1960s, former Democrat Congresswoman Louise Day Hicks opposed any plan to bus Boston first graders across town and pointed out that schools in Boston’s Chinatown were majority Chinese, in the North End they were majority Italian, and in South Boston or Charlestown (where my family comes from) they were majority Irish. These were neighborhood schools and people wanted their kids to attend school in their own neighborhood. It wasn’t about race until the US government under Federal Judge Arthur Garrity made it so by forcing six-year-olds to be bused past the school on their block and sent across town because of their skin color.

The federal government’s forced busing plan was based on racial discrimination pure and simple. Then-Senator Joe Biden was right to oppose it, but he’s backtracking now and that’s no surprise. Biden has demonstrated over forty years that he goes where the wind blows. California Senator Kamala Harris resurrected that highly-charged busing issue because she would do anything to peel away support from the front-running Biden.

Biden is an old, white guy and she’s a younger black woman. In today’s Democrat Party, racial and sexual identity politics come right after abortion on its list of most important issues.