Sunday, February 27, 2005
Some blacks must be more equal than others, says top civil rights lawyer.
First civil rights lawyers argued that there should be equality between the races. Then they argued for preferences between races. Now they want to pick "first among equals" within races...
First civil rights lawyers argued that there should be equality between the races. Then they argued for preferences between races. Now they want to pick "first among equals" within races...
More Africans Enter U.S. Than in Days of SlaveryAnd now we see the argument for race based affirmative action, as opposed to the need based variety, turning to devour its own tail.
Since 1990, according to immigration figures, more have arrived voluntarily than the total who disembarked in chains before the United States outlawed international slave trafficking ... and more have migrated here ... than in nearly the entire preceding two centuries...
"Historically, every immigrant group has jumped over American-born blacks," said Eric Foner, the Columbia University historian. "The final irony would be if African immigrants did, too."...
Many speak English, were raised in large cities and capitalist economies, live in families headed by married couples and are generally more highly educated and have higher-paying jobs than American-born blacks...
[But] the growing proportion of immigrants may further complicate the debate over programs envisioned to redress the legacies of slavery...
Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr., who teaches at Harvard Law School and has warned colleges and universities that admitting mostly foreign-born blacks to meet the goals of affirmative action is insufficient.
"Whether you are from Brazil or from Cuba, you are still products of slavery," he continued. "But the threshold is that people of African descent who were born and raised and suffered in America have to be the first among equals."... [NY Times]
