Affirmative action ban seeks to defend Americans' right to be racist
| Published 04/11/06 12:00am | Updated 08/28/09 6:22pm
Steve Sutton, in "Columnist promotes different racism form" (SN 3/22), illustrated what Americans have done time and time again — defended the right to be racist. It isn't that Americans are ignorant of significant issues and social injustices; they simply feel they have the right to be racist.
It amazes me but still pleases me that so many people will fight for what they feel is their right to discriminate against others for their civil attributes.
We have never had a ballot proposal banning affirmative action that works toward the advancement of white females, yet so many states see fit to halt efforts that work to advance the opportunities of victims of racial oppression. The college enrollment and graduation rate of white women hasn't increased so substantially during the last 50 years simply due to natural progression. It is due to affirmative action. Affirmative action seeks to diversify areas of life where certain groups are underrepresented, such as with men in the nursing field.
Affirmative action also looks to advance the opportunities of groups that have been historically oppressed. Of course, that includes women. So how is it that anyone, especially whites, can lack so much common sense that they see fit to speak out against efforts for the advancement of racially oppressed groups?
How often do you see a white male accusing a white female of unfairly taking his spot in a college? Why am I and other groups of people — who seldom and only recently received preferential treatment after such a long and violent history of oppression — being attacked?
My great-great-grandparents were in chains and never received the 40 acres and mule promised to them. My great-grandparents were kept from voting, establishing businesses and manifesting their own destinies. My grandparents were forced to attend inferior schools, barred from living in many communities and unrightfully denied loans from banks. With such a rich history of oppression and subjugation, how well off can anyone expect my parents to be?
Generations of my family have been kept poor and ignorant. Many whites make the common argument, "Well, my ancestors were poor and ignorant immigrants and they prospered. Why can't your family do the same?" In answer to that I have already apprised you all of my family's history, a history that has been repeatedly taught to every American.
The two poorest and least educated groups of people in this country are blacks and American Indians. We are also the only nonimmigrants in this country. The only groups never allowed the pursuit of happiness. All of this is common knowledge to anyone who has an eighth-grade education, let alone a college degree. So perhaps what needs to be done is what many whites have yelled at me, "Why don't you do what my ancestors did?" OK then. Perhaps I will.
What follows next will seem too crude and vulgar to many. However, those educated in history will undoubtedly realize the irony of such responses.
I will move to another nation and join another major religion. Then I will come to the United States with thousands of my countrymen. We will bring iron horses and many guns. I will colonize U.S. territory in the name of the new nation I have sworn loyalty to and keep the U.S. savages off of my property by any means necessary.
Since the U.S. citizens will undoubtedly and rightfully retaliate and demand that I and my comrades leave, we will slay them as the savages they are. Those who will not convert from the fractured and splintered religion of Christianity and willingly become a stool to rest my feet on will be forced onto reservations. But not before we rape their women and infect their children with Ebola-laden garments and blankets.
But we won't just take from them. We will be so kind as to give them a barrel of their so very coveted oil for the island of Manhattan.
Although, for my comrades and I to live happily, we cannot be forced to work too hard. So we will go to Europe and capture us some pale-eyed coons because we know all of them to be savages and lack proper religious beliefs. We will be doing them a favor and saving them from themselves by forcing them to till our fields. Of the Europeans whom we will have property rights over, we will rape their women as well. If any of our property dare to try to run away, we will sever their feet and leave them to die of infection.
If I do as many white immigrants have done — as many of their descendants have ironically told me I should — many people will call me an evil racist. They will say that my actions are that of a terrorist. I will say that it is simply reciprocity. It would be my manifest destiny.
Eteinne L. Field is an Okemos resident. Reach him at .