14 April 2006 >> Legal racial discrimination didn’t end with the abolition of slavery, or with Jim Crow, or the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So-called “Affirmative Action” programs upheld by the Supreme Court have made it legal for institutions to discriminate based on race since the 1970s. But for many people, the American melting pot has melted away well-defined racial boundaries, making the simple pigeonholing of Affirmative Action difficult to administer.

And now, with DNA testing, many people can rightfully lay claim to all sorts of ethnic and racial backgrounds. Because Affirmative Action sets aside different rewards for different races, people now have an incentive to “discover” racial backgrounds that might be beneficial to them. The New York Times reports:

Alan Moldawer’s adopted twins, Matt and Andrew, had always thought of themselves as white. But when it came time for them to apply to college last year, Mr. Moldawer thought it might be worth investigating the origins of their slightly tan-tinted skin, with a new DNA kit that he had heard could determine an individual’s genetic ancestry.

The results, designating the boys 9 percent Native American and 11 percent northern African, arrived too late for the admissions process. But Mr. Moldawer, a business executive in Silver Spring, Md., says they could be useful in obtaining financial aid.

“Naturally when you’re applying to college you’re looking at how your genetic status might help you,” said Mr. Moldawer, who knows that the twins’ birth parents are white, but has little information about their extended family. “I have three kids going now, and you can bet that any advantage we can take we will.”

[...]

Given the tests’ speculative nature, it seems unlikely that colleges, governments and other institutions will embrace them. But that has not stopped many test-takers from adopting new DNA-based ethnicities — and a sense of entitlement to the privileges typically reserved for them.

[...]

“This is not just somebody’s desire to go find out whether their grandfather is Polish,” said Troy Duster, a sociologist at New York University who has studied the social impact of the tests. “It’s about access to money and power.”

Affirmative Action has always been a bit hypocritical in a society that claims to strive for color-blindness. Technology is now helping us see just how absurd it is.

24 February 2006 @ 1:51PM >> Here’s a funny and endearing 15-minute video that has nothing to do with politics but is not at all politically correct: Yellow Fever. Enjoy!

4 January 2006 >> Los Angeles homeless advocate Ted Hayes is a Republican. He’s also black. This is problematic, because according to today’s racial politics, you can be black or you can be a Republican, but you can’t attempt to be both without sacrificing your racial identity:

American blacks who are affiliated with the Republican Party are vigorously vilified by Democrats, especially black Democrats. Uncle Tom, sell-out, Oreo—the list of slurs is long.

[...]

We see this across the country. Michael Steele, the lieutenant governor of Maryland and a Republican candidate for the Senate, has been crudely disparaged on racial grounds. A prominent leftist Web site, for instance, depicted him as “Sambo,” among other aspersions. When Condoleezza Rice was nominated as secretary of state, she faced similar treatment: editorial cartoons depicting her as a racial caricature, personalities calling her “Aunt Jemima” on liberal talk radio, and so forth. Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly, Colin Powell, Thomas Sowell and other black conservatives regularly face similar smears.

[...]

It is time for American blacks to have a conversation about the phenomenon of Democrats persecuting black Republicans. Why is this happening? What is it that the Democrats don’t want black folks to understand about Republicans? What is it that the Democrats don’t want black folks to know about Democrats? And how is it that we have come to this point—after having endured so much—where we have ourselves curtailed the freedom of political expression through the threat of retaliatory consequences?

Mr. Hayes knows of what he speaks. His Dome Village homeless shelter will itself be homeless soon. Why? He says it’s because he’s a Republican. As a black homeless advocate, he’s got a lot of nerve being a Republican. More power to him.

18 June 2004 @ 9:22PM >> Somehow, I think the folks complaining about this would also be complaining if the roles were reversed:

The Edward Byrne Center does not yet bear the fallen officer’s name, though the dedication ceremony took place a month ago. And if a group of community leaders and residents have their way, it never will.

The reason? Edward Byrne was white.

“The center is in the middle of an African-American community,” said the Rev. Charles Norris of the Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church. “It should be named for a slain African-American law enforcement officer.”

20 November 2003 >> “Concocted quotes can make for compelling reading, especially if they’re designed to elicit an emotional response. The intensity of the feelings generated by an e-mail determines the velocity at which it travels; the passion stirred is what gets people to press Send. Therefore, because a rational dissection of fraud is less titillating than incendiary accusations, a clever hoax will always have a broader reach than an earnest rebuttal. And, because reading an e-mail requires far less effort than researching it, few will ever discover that they’ve been duped.” More >>

5 November 2003 >> Howard Dean says he wants to be candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. Is this his Sister Souljah moment, and does it signal a larger “southern strategy” for Dean? More >>

15 August 2003 >> A reader asks: “I was just wondering if there was anything about Bush you don’t like?” More >>

10 December 2002 >> “Regardless of whether Lott actually supports segregation—and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t—it is very difficult for excuse-makers to interpret his statement as being anything other than an endorsement of segregation. Instead of standing on feeble ground to defend the indefensible, they should stand aside, and let Lott receive the rebuke he deserves. For the good of the Republican Party, but more importantly, for the good of the country, Trent Lott should step down as the Republican leader in the Senate.” More >>

18 January 2002 >> “To disfigure a moment in history to satisfy ephemeral political concerns is not only an insult to the firefighters who raised the flag, it cheapens our nation’s historical record by turning it into a mere simulation.” More >>