So what year was it, Pat? 1975? 1979? What was the year when America became 100% equal?

[Bicoastal]

After, the people who rail against affirmative action are essentially saying that the playing field is now completely level.

Sure, only two nonwhite Supreme Court Justices have ever made it to the bench. Sure, only two OTHER Supreme Court Justices have ever been female?

But they'll say, "Oh, that was the BAD old days! The civil rights era happened, didn't it? Institutional racism is dead, isn't it? And ever since that magical year about 30 years ago, blacks, latinos, asians, native americans, etc now have EVERY opportunity that white men have! So if many of these present day communities statistically have more poverty, or crime, or broken homes, or substandard educations, etc. than white communities have? Well, it must be the fault of the people themselves! Pre-19seventywhatever America is NOT at fault!"

(They said the same thing when Barack Obama was elected, remember? Fox News pundits all but declared racism in America "dead.")

This is the fantasy world conservatives want us to live in. And the fact is, even if you accept the fact that institutional racism is generally illegal in this country, the racism of the past STILL lives on in the institutions of the present. Does Pat Buchanan REALLY believe that after generations of slavery, and further generations of Jim Crow, and still more generations of prejudice, that Black America now has the EXACT SAME playing field as White America? If you were a teacher with two students about to take a final exam, and one student was kidnapped, mugged, and beaten the night before, would you still insist that both students had an equal opportunity of getting an A the next day?

Conservatives see affirmative action as an automatic A for the beaten student. I see it as an extra week or two of recooperation and study. And as much as Conservatives like to claim that white men are now being discriminated against, I would argue that it's merely a handicap for the hundreds of years that everyone BUT white men were being discriminated against.

The Magic Year never happened. The playing field is STILL not level, and white males STILL have a huge advantage over others in many areas due to the fact that discrimination, racism, sexism, etc. did not end in the 70's. It dominated the American landscape far too much for that to happen; rather, the effects of institutional racism will continue to be felt for several more generations. Claiming that America become 100% equal as a result of the Civil Rights era turns a blind eye to history writ large in the present.

I sympathize with Pat Buchanan, feeling (in his mind) the sting of discrimination for the first time in his life. But he can always cheer himself up with a glance at the 43 presidents and 108 supreme court justices who were the exact same race and gender as himself. A track record to be proud of, eh, Pat? After all--you earned it fair and square, right?

[Bicoastal]

1. Morning Bump...

...wrote this l a t e last night.

[alsame]

2. My impression was that Pat's not claiming

a level playing field - he claiming there SHOULDN'T BE a level playing field because white Christian males deserve everything.