We've got a black man running for president.

Do you suppose, if this was in Kenya, where I believe Obama grew up, the headlines would be that he's a white man running for president?

I have mixed sex parents. He's as black as I am female.

The very liberal Kurt Vonnegut Jr., got it right. In 1961.

Harrison Bergeron
by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General....

> if this was in Kenya, where
> I believe Obama grew up

Hawaii & Indonesia. BioDad was Kenyan.

> He's as black as
> I am female.

I don't get that at all. Colors blend, but genders almost never do.

Anyway, I don't doubt Amy's sincerity for a moment. But it's certain that some who'll be making this argument in the months ahead --a black president means the civil rights movement is over-- are not going to be very nice people.

He's as black as I am female.

I wrote that before I thought about it. Then I thought as you did, Crid, but it's not so simple. Genes don't blend: you either get them or you don't. Their effects may blend, because an expressed property like height or skin colour may be the result of many different genes.

On reflection I'll stick to my witty line though. Sex is controlled by just one small chromosome out of 46, so males and females have much more in common than not. (Vive la différence!)

But it's certain that some who'll be making this argument in the months ahead --a black president means the civil rights movement is over-- are not going to be very nice people.

I'm sure of it, just as I know some people hate me because I was born Jewish. P.S. I don't consider myself Jewish now, either, but those people will never stop considering me Jewish.

> Genes don't blend

Yeah, but the boys in the lab are constantly telling us that the "races" don't exist except as a matter of subjective distinctions. Colors do blend.

Plus, I bet you have nipples. Yet you call yourself a man...

And, while we're at it, how about making scientists work as checkout clerks at the drugstore? Where does it end?

Since I am re-reading "Atlas Shrugged" right now for my own selfish pleasure, I feel called by this comment.

Since the '70, the collectivism forces claimed that everybody is equal not in liberty but in need. This crazy way of thinking blame the able for succeeding when the unable fails and force him to pay for his greatness as if life was a zero-sum game.

How far it will go? The sky is the limit! I am 31 years old and the top of my head is bald. This alone would give me the right to sue the hair salons for their inability to make me look good with a comb over (Just kidding! My remanning hair is shaved close). Up to this point, it is not injustice who drives the demands for a "Leveled Playing Field" but envy for those who are great. Can we imagine a baseball game when the pitcher need to be sure that the batter hit and send the ball in a safe zone?

Some people need to wake-up soon. Even If I believe that Obama would do a terrible U.S. President, having him at the White House would throw a monkeywrench into the gears of the Affirmative-Action machine. I just hope it will break it.

I remeber we watched the film version of HArrison Bergeron in high school. I have to say I wasnt that impressed with the adaptation

It's not that races are subjective, but that there is no single feature that you can call race.

Colour is a good place to start. It is obvious that people from nearer the equator are darker than people from nearer the poles. It's not just "black" vs "white" - you get all shades in between as well. There's a continuous gradation, and that's before you consider orientals and inuits and all the rest of this wonderful mixed-up world. You can imagine a kind of contour map showing colour at any point on the planet.

But it doesn't end with colour and latitude. It turns out that just about any feature you care to measure: height, earlobe thickness, blood chemistry - varies continuously as well. And here's the rub. All these features don't vary in step with one another. They all have different contour maps.

That's why "race" is a useless concept: there's no way to define it. Unless, that is, you define it in terms of just one or two features, and ignore all the rest. There may be economic or political reasons for doing this - to label a slave class, for example. It does make objective sense to talk about a person's blood chemistry, or earlobes, colour or sex. But it doesn't lead very far: you can't argue that since Obama is brown, he is not capable of being a good president. You could argue that if the US population is racist, then his colour will prevent him being a good president. But that's nothing to do with him or his abilities.

Anyway, what have my nipples - you're right, I checked, and I do have them - got to do with this? I also have feet, lungs, bladder, spleen etc just like a woman!

Jerry,

Dammit man you stole my thunder. Have a friend who is a college instructor and to help him out I wrote a sample essay on Harrison Bergeron just last week. What was remarkable about it (other than the fact that story is so unbelievably prescient) is that, when we later discussed it with the students, they...just...didn't...make....the...connection.

Crid,

I am curious about something. How is the "niceness" of a person related to the accuracy or validity of their ideas?

When I was applying for college and scholarships, this topic came up for me. I was raised by white parents, and I'm very light skinned except in the summer, but technically I'm part (50% or so) Native American. I don't remember my dad and have never seen a picture. I've always marked "white" on forms, but occassionally when they ask for more detail I mark "native American" too. Applying, it struck me that I might get more money and have better chances if I pursued that avenue, and got a letter that basically certifies a minority status that I don't feel and never really was aware of. Aside from the ickiness of the whole application process (tell us about your hardships, etc.) realizing that we really weren't always judged by merit only, even on paper, was a bit of a jolt. Naive, I know.

Wolfy, some people are racist assholes. Aside from being not nice to little old ladies in line at the supermarket, they can be malevolent to the point of violence.

This is only June, and I don't get out much, but three times this year I've seen small sedans full of nonwhite males under 25 pulled over and questioned by cops. I agree that these pressures are decreasing over time; Obama is the second black presidential candidate to get my vote, But when anybody, lefty or conservative, starts smirking about how the election means that all these matters can be set aside, I don't trust them.

Criddie,

I won't go into the statistics - they are out there, they are consistent and they are inassailable. The rates of Black on White crime are astronomical, dwarfing the rates of black on white crime to the point of insignificance - in fact, almost the only way white people "get on the board" at all is that the FBI considers hispanic on black crime (for statistical purposes) to be "white on black," while counting "white on hispanic" crime as a separate category. The rates of black crime are astronomical, and have been for some time. The black community has long been bleeding of self inflicted wounds, and more and more public figures (Juan Williams and Cosby come to mind - not credible candidates for "right wing reactionaries" or "racist assholes") are beginning to speak out about it.
Is this an indictment of black folks? No. Its a statement of a fact. And facts are not racist, and they are not mean. But they can certainly be unpleasant. The facts are these - whites have been dying and being raped at the hands of blacks at a rate grossly disproportionate to the number of blacks in the population, and it has been that way for some time. At least a generation.
I'll bet you can tell me who James Byrd is.
Can you tell me who Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom are?
How about Heather Mueller?
Your statement about carloads of black youths pulled over and questioned by police is simply not credible - not because you didn't see it - Im sure you did. But that you would consider that to be prima facie evidence of the racism lurking in our society, without any more facts than "black youths pulled over and questioned by police" shows a serious lack of critical thinking, and a strong tendency to fit facts to your worldview. Perhaps I am wrong, but from what you've written it doesn't sound like it.
If someone tells me a dog has mange, and it would be a good idea if I didn't touch it, I would not consider it pertinent if that person was also a "speciesist asshole." I would consider the credibility of their information. Whether or not they are welcome in my home or in my life is another question altogether.

Correction - first sentence should read - The rates of Black on White crime are astronomical, dwarfing the rates of White on Black crime to the point of insignificance.

See, I think you're so horny about this that you're confusing yourself.

my brother in law owns and runs a record label. while taking a smoke break on the sidewalk with a client one night, two cop cars came screeching up to the curb. the cops got out and proceeded to beat the crap out of his client. apparently, someone had been stabbed at a bar down the street and the cops only knew the suspect was black. when they realized they had the wrong guy, they just left-they didn't even apologize. the client told my B-I-L that it was the second time that happened to him while in our state for business. the client was so beat up he couldn't perform the next night, which is why he came up from boston to begin with.

This is horrible and should be prosecuted. Did your brother-in-law photograph the beating or the results of the beating and do something about it?

How can colleges tell that an applicant is black or white? That sort of info shouldn't be available to admissions directors. I know that UCal loves a good victim story, but the son of the funeral director in the WSJ piece might have a hard time pulling one out of his ass, unless of course his private school classmates called him a necrophiliac.

Do we force Vogue to put homely women on the cover?

Do we force NASA to hire stupid people?

I'm no fan of affirmative action, but this is a bit overwrought. Affirmative action isn't about hiring people because they're unqualified for the job.

Oops, I messed up the tags. The second sentence in the above comment should be in italics too.

And no, I didn't become a blog commenter as the result of affirmative action. . . :)

But rex in many instances that is exacly what is happening

Lujlp, unless you can cite examples I have to disagree. People who happen to be unqualified have been hired because of affirmative action, but being unqualified wasn't the reason they were hired. See the difference?

Affirmative action isn't about hiring people because they're unqualified for the job.

It's about hiring people because they have a certain color of skin, not because they're most qualified for the job. Or are necessarily qualified for the job. Quotas, baby.

You know, I had this same discussion with a client of mine, when does a hand-up become a handout. It ended with something along the lines of, you've never been a slave and I've never owned one. But what would I know about racism, I'm only half Cherokee and half Irish.

Hey, at 160 lbs. I would have a BMI of 22. Poundist!

through the whole ordeal, my brother in law kept yelling at the police, trying to ask the what the deal was and such. my B-I-L and the client had been working all night so they definitely werent looking for the guy they were beating on. as far as I know, he did not take photos, and nothing ever came of it. the initial stabbing didnt even make the news. there was a brief mention of the 'scuffle' on the radio when it was announced the show was canceled. I don't even remember the clients name, but I can find out.

It's about hiring people because they have a certain color of skin, not because they're most qualified for the job.

Yes, Amy, that's my point. With AA, qualifications are secondary to color, ethnicity and/or gender. However, all else equal, a qualified applicant is still preferred to an unqualified one. In your Vogue and NASA examples, the employer is forced to prefer the unqualified because they are unqualified. That's a whole 'nother degree of evil.

However, all else equal, a qualified applicant is still preferred to an unqualified one.

Why should a less qualified applicant get the job at all? Furthermore, you're living in dreamland if you don't think standards are dropped to meet quotas.

In journalism, the white kids don't even get considered for these fellowships and internships.

Amy, you're still missing my point. Of course standards are lowered to meet quotas, and of course that's wrong. But no matter how much standards are lowered, they aren't inverted; a more-qualified applicant may be unjustly rejected, but not because he was more qualified.

Suppose your last sentence above had read "In journalism, no one who can write a clear sentence is even considered for these fellowships and internships." If this were true, then the next step would indeed be putting uglies on the cover of Vogue and hiring rocket scientists because they can't do math.

I think her point was clearly this (and if it wasn't, it's mine with apologies for misunderstanding) - everyone is inherently unequal. Some are better looking than others - does anyone want to seriously argue that attractive people do not enjoy "unearned advantages" over less attractive people? Of course they do. So, we need to even things up, don't we? Uglo- Americans need recompense, too. How about people naturally less intelligent than others? Through no fault of their own? I have worked very hard at math - I'm still not very good at it, and there were a lot of others in high school and college who did better than me at math without half the effort. Well, people can hardly be blamed for lacking natural aptitude, can they? People who have natural aptitudes enjoy "unearned privilege."
I do, however, enjoy natural aptitude for expression in both print and public speaking. Not bragging - I didn't work for it, and if I was going to be born good at something, I frankly wish it had been math. But I enjoy "unearned privilege" in that area, which would give me a natural, unearned advantage over someone who dreams of an occupation that prizes those skills, but who can hardly read or write, and has a speech impediment. Are we going to sit by and let this rank inequality stand?
The lesson of the aforementioned "Harrison Bergeron" (and the lesson routinely repeated by history and routinely ignored by social tinkerers) is this: Government cannot make everyone equally well off, so to achieve "equality," the only recourse is to make everyone miserable.
Give it ten years, and some fat woman with a glandular disorder will sue "Vogue" for "sizeism" because all their models are size 0.
Mark my words.

Thanks, Wolfman. You explained it well.

When I was looking for a job right out of college, I couldn't get in the door where I wanted to work because I'm from a family of nobodies, and middle-class nobodies at that. And from the Detroit suburbs.

Kids who got in right away at the company I worked for had parents with connections and went to schools like Harvard and Dartmouth. Every letter I sent went unanswered, despite a really cute student film I'd made, that eventually got me the job. (I'm guessing they didn't have a hiring quota for redheaded white people.)

Anyway, I had to be a little more clever to get in the door. I tried to sneak in, got caught by the guard, waited outside until somebody important looking came out, and followed a guy who looked like "somebody" to Fifth Ave. I gave him my resume (a kind of funny and clever takeoff on a handwriting analysis) and asked him to give it to somebody at the company who could do something with it.

While creativity and perseverance won't get my column into the LA Times, it got me an interview at Ogilvy & Mather, and ultimately, I got a job as an assistant producer. The guy I ended up stopping? Norman Berry, head of creative for Ogilvy Worldwide.

The point is, if your mommy didn't go to Dartmouth, try another way or start your own business. Don't ask for hiring charity. If you aren't the best person for the job, why should you get the job?

Life isn't fair. Deal with it. And not by screwing other people out of jobs because they aren't tan enough.