President Obama Kills Dr. King's Dream

Scragged has often quoted Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech:

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. [emphasis added]

Dr. King reminded Americans that our vaunted justice system had been skewed against black people for centuries and that decisions were being made on the basis of skin color rather than on the facts of the case.  He summed up his vision of what America should be:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

As vivid as Dr. King's speech was, though, instead of trying to get the various races to work together, many of today's political leaders try very hard to get people of different races to fight each other.  This often works out well for politicians who use racial fears to get votes but it doesn't do our nation any good.

Slow Gains for Unity

There's a slowly-developing consensus among ordinary Americans that affirmative action, the practice of favoring one person over another because of skin color, harms our society.  That's shown in the success of referendum-based Civil Rights Initiatives banning race-based preference; despite the unified opposition of opinion makers, the Democratic Party, and by large numbers of liberal Republicans, these efforts usually win with healthy majorities.  Affirmative action is now illegal in California, Washington state, Michigan, and Nebraska, with more states joining the parade for racial justice at every election.

This change in the national mood has not gone unnoticed.  When he was running for President, Mr. Obama said,

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. ... when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. ... Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. [emphasis added]

We thought that our national leadership had recognized how harmful affirmative action and race-based justice were.

Back to Race-Based Justice

Unfortunately, we were wrong.  At his first opportunity to appoint a new justice to the Supreme Court, Mr. Obama chose an avowed racist, Sonia Sotomayor.  Ms. Sotomayor has been criticized for her belief that a "wise, Latina woman" would come to better conclusions than a white man merely by virtue of her sex and race - a blatantly sexist, racist sentiment if ever there was one.

A nominee's past rulings are scrutinized to see how the Supreme Court would be affected.  Judge Sotomayor recently ruled against a group of white and Hispanic firefighters who were denied promotion by the City of New Haven.  These candidates passed the test for promotion, but no blacks passed.

In the past, tests which blacks failed more often than whites had been held to have "disparate impact" which makes them illegal.  The City claimed that they were afraid that blacks would sue because no black passed the test.  They refused to promote anyone at all.

The "disparate impact" standard is ridiculous.  It assumes that all talents, all skills, and all interests are spread evenly across all racial groups and across however many sexes there may happen to be.  If whites pass the test and blacks don't, the test is automatically illegal according to "disparate impact."

Anybody who watches sports knows that this is absurd.  There are far more black football and basketball players than whites.  If abilities were spread evenly, the number of black athletes would be in line with their percentage of the population (about 13%), but there are a lot more black athletes than 13%.

The movie "White Men Can't Jump" pointed out that blacks are better at basketball than whites.  Is this because of racism on the part of team owners?  Some sort of genetic difference?  Maybe a difference due to black culture more heavily emphasizing sports?

Doesn't matter; all that matters, legally, is the result - which is transparently imbalanced.  Based on the liberal's own definition of racism, hiring policies in the NFL and the NBA which emphasize athletic skills have a "disparate impact" on whites and should be outlawed.

Facts?  What Facts?

This obvious fact that different groups have different abilities and preferences doesn't go down well with liberals.  When Larry Summers, President of Harvard University at the time, pointed out that the reason there were fewer women mathematicians than men might be because women weren't as interested in math as men, he was howled out of his job.

Our research agencies consider gender when giving out research money: if there aren't enough women interested in a particular area of research, that topic won't be funded regardless of the merits of the research or the credentials of the scholars.

The New York Times reported that Ms. Sotomayor's decision that the whites had no complaint against the City of New Haven was overturned by the US Supreme Court.

The court ruled, 5-to-4, that New Haven acted illegally when it threw out a promotion test on which minority firefighters had performed poorly. In doing so, it put a new, narrower definition on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is intended to root out discriminatory policies. [emphasis added]

The Times didn't see fit to print the news that no blacks had passed the test, nor did they report that the test had been professionally designed with the greatest of care to eliminate any possibility of racial bias; they said blacks "performed poorly" instead.  Their motives became clear later in the article, which said, "In ruling against New Haven, the Supreme Court dealt a blow to diversity in the American workplace."  The Times believes that it's more important to have a diverse group of firefighters than a competent group of firefighters.

Reaction to Sotomayor's being overruled split along party lines.  Fox News reports:

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, applauded the decision and suggested trouble ahead for Sotomayor.

"The Supreme Court today reminded all courts and governments that equal justice under the law means refusing to tip the scale in favor of one race over another," he said in a written statement. "The Senate Judiciary Committee should carefully examine Judge Sotomayor's role in the Second Circuit's opinion on this case.  Discrimination and racial preferences have no place in our courts, let alone on the highest court in the land." [emphasis added]

Dr. King would agree with Rep. Smith in saying that racial discrimination has no place in our court system.  Unfortunately, Rep. Smith is in the minority; the Democratic majority believes that racial discrimination in the courts is not only acceptable but desirable even though their own President spoke out against rigged courts:

But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said "it would be wrong" to use the decision to criticize Sotomayor and that her panel's decision exhibited "judicial restraint."

He said the Supreme Court's ruling is "likely to result in cutbacks on important protections for American families." [emphasis added]

What nonsense!  Promoting people on the basis of their qualifications instead of on their race erodes "important protections for American families?"  Having the most competent fire fighters would protect families - both white and black - whose houses catch fire, but we can't have that.

"This is a cramped decision that threatens to erode these protections and to harm the efforts of state and local governments that want to build the most qualified workforces," Leahy said in a statement. [emphasis added]

It's hard to see how throwing out tests when not enough blacks pass helps build the "most qualified workforce," but that's what passes for thinking in our Senate.

Whither Racism?

We now come to the main question.

Candidate Obama acknowledged the frustration whites feel when affirmative action puts less-qualified candidates ahead of them.  He spoke frankly of the damage to our society being done by institutionalized racism.  He seemed to agree with Chief Justice John Roberts who said, "The way to end racial discrimination is to stop discriminating by race" - but that was during the campaign when he needed white votes.

If he meant what he said, why would he appoint a candidate for the court who's so out of step with the Court's thinking, with the teachings of Dr. King, and with the desire of American voters which he articulated so well?

Mr Obama nominated a justice who's out of step with the Court's current thinking on racism because he doesn't like their race-blind way of thinking.  Instead of a court which rules according to the law, Mr. Obama wants a court that rules from "empathy."  Ms. Sotomayor's statement that she can be more sympathetic because she's a Latina is just what he wants.

Dr. King's dream of a race-free society is dead, killed by a black man.