Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240067
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEVEN YATES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The first and most fitting response: ``Of course!'' No one in his right mind supports politicians who consistently act against his interests and put him at an automatic disadvantage. In this respect, ``angry white men'' are no different from any other group.
But we did not adopt this label voluntarily, nor the group identification it implies. Both have been forced on us by the official ideology of the 1990s: identity politics, something most of us reject because we see ourselves as individuals, not members of some collective entity.
What we've long observed is that, for roughly 25 years, ``equal opportunity'' has really meant ``preferential treatment.'' In true Orwellian fashion, some are more equal than others. ``Civil rights'' now means rights for all except us. There are areas of federal employment (civil rights-related work, for example) where a white man has almost no chance of obtaining desirable employment. Set-aside laws are rampant in industries such as construction. Frequently, it is not the lowest bidder who gets the contract but the lowest minority or female bidder. As a result, costs have gone up.
In colleges and universities, ``affirmative action'' as a means to statistical parity as an end in itself is out of control. Tenure-track appointments have been given to people (usually women) who lack qualifications for them. As an academic, I could cite many examples. Professional schools routinely reserve seats for members of certain groups. Law schools in particular have earned a reputation. A case challenging such practices, Hopwood, et al. vs. State of Texas, is on its way to the Supreme Court.
Democrats have done everything to protect these practices, using tactics from verbal subterfuge to the character assassination of their critics. Witness the fight over what became the 1991 Civil Rights Act, which overturned several Supreme Court decisions against set-aside laws. Opponents were linked with David Duke and painted as covert racists. George Bush, never one to take a firm stand on anything, finally capitulated.
Many white men in all walks of life - men who have never harmed women or minorities, and who have families to support, too - have had their careers damaged or destroyed by government-mandated preferences without any other visible result. To call them ``racist'' or ``sexist'' or ``mean-spirited'' for protesting at the voting booth is itself mean-spirited and intellectually dishonest, a sign of desire not for justice but revenge, pure and simple.
What goes around comes around, as the adage goes. The plain truth is, we white men are tired of being blamed as a group for every mistake of history. We question the assumption that our lives are expendable pawns on the social engineer's chessboard.
Preferential policies did not create racism and sexism, obviously, but have certainly helped maintain a climate of suspicion and hostility that might have been mostly resolved by now. Thomas Sowell has been making this point for years, to little avail. So have other minority and women writers who note that preferences tend to set groups against one another.
It is time for the ``official'' leaders of government-designated victim groups to stop whining about how mistreated they have been and start leading the way to a more harmonious society. At present, they are only encouraging the very division the original civil-rights movement set out to overcome.
Our repudiation was of Democrats, not women as a group or any racial or ethnic minorities. If they can't see a difference here that makes a difference, we can't help it. We agree completely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s plea for a society of individuals judged by the content of their character. This means repudiating preferential treatment and identity politics.
There are good signs. The number of black Republicans is increasing, for example. Many black Americans now realize that government programs create more problems than they solve. The liberal policies of the past 25 years have left many of their number dependent, disillusioned and angrier than we ever thought of being. (Think of ``gangsta rap.'') This is because these policies are dead ends.
As for us ``angry white men,'' the election proved that politicians can no longer ignore us or dismiss us out of hand without suffering the consequences.
Steven Yates is a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina and author of ``Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action.'' He wrote this for The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C.
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by CNB