Post by Old Badger on Jun 29, 2023 22:07:45 GMT -5
The Republican Supreme Court majority, once more tossing decades of precedent to enact its own views into law, did what everyone expected and declared Affirmative Action for minorities unconstitutional. To reach that conclusion they decided to twist the 14th Amendment--designed to help freed slaves become equal citizens of the United States--into a cudgel to destroy efforts to make that Amendment's promise reality. This shameful, racist act was rightly blasted by Justice Jackson:
"Given the lengthy history of state-sponsored race-based preferences in America, to say that anyone is now victimized if a college considers whether that legacy of discrimination has unequally advantaged its applicants fails to acknowledge the well-documented 'intergenerational transmission of inequality' that still plagues our citizenry. Gulf-sized race-based gaps exist with respect to the health, wealth, and well-being of American citizens. Every moment these gaps persist is a moment in which this great country falls short of actualizing one of its foundational principles — the 'self-evident' truth that all of us are created equal."
Clarence Thomas, pulling up the Affirmative Action ladder behind him after rising to its top, wrote a concurring opinion twice as long as Jackson's dissent, apparently hoping more words would make it more convincing. Citing her history of the historical connection between public policies on race and "levels of health, wealth, and well-being" he launched this attack: “So Justice Jackson supplies the link herself: the legacy of slavery and the nature of inherited wealth. This, she claims, locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood."
As the Brits would say: bollocks! You know how you can tell? By reading his own closing words: “While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination, I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law.” Hope and change? Wasn't that what Republicans used to laugh at when Obama was a presidential candidate in 2008? Now it's the answer to racial discrimination?
In a footnote, clearly written after she'd seen Thomas's draft, Jackson wrote that he exhibits an "obsession with race consciousness that far outstrips my or UNC's holistic understanding that race can be a factor that affects applicants' unique life experiences. Justice Thomas ignites too many more straw men to list, or fully extinguish, here. The takeaway is that those who demand that no one think about race (a classic pink-elephant paradox) refuse to see, much less solve for, the elephant in the room— the race-linked disparities that continue to impede achievement of our great Nation's full potential. [Proponents of colorblindness] prevent our problem-solving institutions from directly addressing the real import and impact [of racism and are] deterring our collective progression toward becoming a society where race no longer matters." Amen.
"Given the lengthy history of state-sponsored race-based preferences in America, to say that anyone is now victimized if a college considers whether that legacy of discrimination has unequally advantaged its applicants fails to acknowledge the well-documented 'intergenerational transmission of inequality' that still plagues our citizenry. Gulf-sized race-based gaps exist with respect to the health, wealth, and well-being of American citizens. Every moment these gaps persist is a moment in which this great country falls short of actualizing one of its foundational principles — the 'self-evident' truth that all of us are created equal."
Clarence Thomas, pulling up the Affirmative Action ladder behind him after rising to its top, wrote a concurring opinion twice as long as Jackson's dissent, apparently hoping more words would make it more convincing. Citing her history of the historical connection between public policies on race and "levels of health, wealth, and well-being" he launched this attack: “So Justice Jackson supplies the link herself: the legacy of slavery and the nature of inherited wealth. This, she claims, locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood."
As the Brits would say: bollocks! You know how you can tell? By reading his own closing words: “While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination, I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law.” Hope and change? Wasn't that what Republicans used to laugh at when Obama was a presidential candidate in 2008? Now it's the answer to racial discrimination?
In a footnote, clearly written after she'd seen Thomas's draft, Jackson wrote that he exhibits an "obsession with race consciousness that far outstrips my or UNC's holistic understanding that race can be a factor that affects applicants' unique life experiences. Justice Thomas ignites too many more straw men to list, or fully extinguish, here. The takeaway is that those who demand that no one think about race (a classic pink-elephant paradox) refuse to see, much less solve for, the elephant in the room— the race-linked disparities that continue to impede achievement of our great Nation's full potential. [Proponents of colorblindness] prevent our problem-solving institutions from directly addressing the real import and impact [of racism and are] deterring our collective progression toward becoming a society where race no longer matters." Amen.