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What is wrong with this rosy scenario? For one thing, the people who were to bear the brunt of the negative consequences of affirmative action, were seldom the people or the descendants of the people who had originally imposed these Jim Crow laws (the nickname for the body of segregation statutes). At least, they were not guaranteed to be. Instead, the people who were least able to lord it over black people, because of their own lack of power and influence, poor white people, were the most likely to get the short end of the new stick. Thus, it wasn't Senator Bigmouth from Mississippi whose kids couldn't get into college or get a good job, but rather the children of Mr. and Mrs. Poorwhiteman. They were bumped by the only slightly less qualified children of Mr. and Mrs. Poorblackman. This created dissension among the very people who should most easily understand one another. The irony is for civil rights leaders who, having triumphantly eliminated laws discriminating against black Americans, enacted legi slation that would do precisely the same thing to other Americans! Talk about power corrupting, it sure didn't take long in this case!

For another thing, the results of taking advantage of goodies offered by affirmative action often did not turn out the way the authors had intended. Take Clarence Thomas for example. I find him to be the best living example of the abject failure of this policy. When I bring his name up among my black and white liberal friends, "Race traitor! Uncle Tom! Son of a bitch!" are some of the kinder epithets hurled. He is said to have taken all HE could get from the system and now wants to slam the door shut on others. Since he married a white moman, they say he really wants to "be" white. Furthermore, he just doesn't DESERVE the rewards he has gotten.

Say what?! So fucking what that he married a white woman!? Isn't this exactly the point of civil rights for individuals? Among other things, this surely includes the right to marry whomever one pleases. Since Thomas can not "be" white, what exactly is wrong with his aspiring to be all that he CAN be?

As far as whether or not he "deserves" to sit on the Supreme court, let's examine the evidence. He was nominated by a sitting President and duly confirmed by the elected representatives of the American people in the U.S. Senate. His confirmation was controversial, meaning that all kinds of innuendo and rumor found their way into the Senate proceedings and into the mass media. Yet the final vote was to confirm. He took his place on the bench and has been ardently working as one of nine Supreme Court Justices ever since. What else, exactly, is he supposed to do?

As far as "shutting the door" goes, perhaps Mr. Thomas is simply warning about the unwanted side effects of affirmative action. Perhaps the fact that, for the rest of his life, no matter what he does or accomplishes, he will always be known as the nigger who couldn't "make it on his own" has spoiled the sweet taste of success?

Yet, it is the accusation that he is a race traitor which infuriates me the most. A traitor to which race? The black race, to which he has been relegated because of the color of his skin, because he no longer advocates taking handouts from Whitey, that the price is too high? The white race, because he is not properly grateful and humble about his elevation (undeserved, of course) to the highest court in the land? The human race? I just don't think so.

Don't get me wrong. I personally fought hard for many years to eliminate Jim Crow from our national scene. I would still put my noggin on the block if I thought I could help to stop official (i.e. government inspired) discrimination and prejudice. Still, I can not help but feel that Martin Luther King would have seen the folly in this reverse discrimination passing for social engineering. What I can not understand is how it is that intelligent and sensitive people like Jesse Jackson can not seem to understand the objections to this policy. How long will it take for us to collectively realize that bias and discrimination are simply WRONG? But, this means intolerance against ANY MEMBER of the HUMAN race. This is the only race to which I feel any loyalty. If you feel that this makes ME a bigot, then eat my shorts, Dude! Talk to you later...

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