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A Buchanan-Like Dump On Affirmative Action Critics

It?s been several months since I?ve been provoked enough to criticize one of the offerings of the Chronicle of Higher Education?s designated ?diversity? hitter, Penn anthropologist John L. Jackson, Jr. (here, which links here, another example that cites five earlier examples).

Jackson writes today that he watched ?the Sotomayor confirmation hearings pretty faithfully? (a perfectly apt term: Faithfully ? ?Adhering firmly and devotedly, as to a person, cause, or idea; loyal.?) What Jackson says he saw is the Democrats winning the battle ? getting Sotomayor confirmed ? but the Republicans winning the war.

.... Obama might get his nominee confirmed, but the Republicans soundly won the week anyway.

Conceding their relative powerlessness to stop the Sotomayor train from eventually reaching its final destination (the chambers of the Supreme Court), they turned the hearings into a very dramatic lesson on ?the perils of reserve [sic] racism.? On the white man?s newest burden: being victim par excellence of a newfangled American racism.

And to our faithful viewer this dramatic lesson was nothing less (or more) than a blasphemous screed, nicely represented by a Pat Buchanan riff to Rachel Maddow:

Buchanan argues that White people built America (without help from anyone else) and that that explains why over 99% of the Supreme Court judges in this country?s history have been white. Whites, he proclaims, were the only ones who died at Gettysburg or signed the Declaration of Independence. To invoke racism as an explanation for their dominance on the Court, he declares, is as ridiculous as arguing that black athletes only dominate America?s olympic track team because of discrimination against White runners.

?In many ways,? Jackson continued,

the Republican Senators who questioned Sotomayor seemed to be implying something similar in their attacks on Affirmative Action and the logic of New Haven?s attempt to determine why no Black firefighters passed the test for promotion.

Where, Jackson asks, was the ?Democratic push back,? the ?curiosity or conversation? about why the black firefighters did so poorly? ?Maybe,? he notes, ?a Wise Latina Senator would have pointed out that palpable silence.?

Thus to argue that a bunch of white firefighters (and one Hispanic) should not be denied promotions they?d earned because not enough blacks score high enough on the promotion exam ? in short, to criticize special treatment based on race ? is to be Pat Buchanan. That?s an argument worthy of, well, Pat Buchanan.

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 20, 2009 (boomark / email).