ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 17, 1996 TAG: 9607170019
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: CAL THOMAS
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
FOLLOWING last summer's Supreme Court ruling that states could not use race as the predominant factor in designing legislative districts, there were massive outcries from the civil-rights establishment, some editorial writers and members of Congress from the racially gerrymandered districts.
Race relations had been dealt a mortal blow, they claimed. Congress would quickly become all-white and blacks would never be represented again.
Omjasisa Kentu, director of Philadelphia's Grassroots Political Network, was quoted in Ethnic NewsWatch as saying, ``Every single effort is being made to return African-Americans to post-Reconstruction days. They want to strip us of every ounce of political and economic power. It has started out in the South, and it will be coming North. The most frightening thing is this is being done legally.''
Georgia Rep. Billy McKinney, father of Rep. Cynthia McKinney, said of the Supreme Court decision, ``I think it's a day of infamy for us, for black people in the South ... I'm saying that four racist white people and one Uncle Tom made this decision.''
Rep. Cynthia McKinney lamented that ``fairness has been squarely left behind.''
Laughlin McDonald of the ACLU in Atlanta said, ``I really fear that this court is sending us back to the dark days of the 19th century.''
Penda Hair, the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund attorney, charged that the decision ``would purge African-Americans and Hispanics from Congress.''
But when the primary election was held last week, the black representatives who said they could not win unless their districts were drawn in a way that would guarantee their election, won the Democratic Party nomination in their new, mostly white districts. All of their opponents were white. To fulfill the gloom-and-doom philosophy of those mentioned above, racist whites should have voted against McKinney and 2nd District Rep. Sanford D. Bishop Jr. Instead, McKinney won her primary with 67 percent of the vote in a district that is now only 33 percent black. And Bishop won 59 percent in his new district that is now only 35 percent black.
There is still the general election, of course, but the predictions of racial Armageddon are proving to have been a slur on the good people of Georgia. McKinney should have apologized for her earlier remarks, but instead, after the vote, she shamelessly reversed her previous comments: ``I'm not worried at all about getting support [from white voters]. We put together the kind of campaign that transcends race.''
And that is precisely why the Supreme Court ruled as it did. When blacks (or whites) appeal to a broad base of voters and conduct their campaigns on ideas, not race, they can do well. But racial gerrymandering is a form of affirmative action that demeans minorities and majorities. Besides, elections pitting black candidates against white candidates ought not to be about race, but ideas.
Supposedly, it is prima facie evidence of racism when a conservative white defeats a liberal black, but America gets no points for bridging the racial divide when a liberal black beats a white of any political persuasion. And when a conservative black is elected, such as Reps. J.C. Watts, an Oklahoma Republican, or Gary Franks of Connecticut, also a Republican, it definitely doesn't count to those who see racism in everything.
NAACP President Kweise Mfume has threatened members of Congress with defeat if they refuse to support affirmative-action legislation. But the results in the Georgia Democratic primary indicate that a campaign based on the color of one's ideas is the best kind of affirmative action. It is also the only kind that can bring us a less racially obsessed society.
The Georgia primary is bad news for those who practice a politics of grievance, guilt and ``gimme,'' but good news for racial progress. If blacks can win elections in mostly white districts, self-anointed civil rights spokespersons will have to find real jobs. No longer having to listen to their never-ending litany of negativism and rationalizations for the lack of "black progress" will give all our ears a rest and free many blacks to pursue their dreams instead of wallowing in self-pity and self-hatred.
- Los Angeles Times Syndicate
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