11/17/2013
State bans on Affirmative Action a.k.a. government-backed anti-white racial quotas are one of the few accomplishments of Conservatism Inc./ the Beltway Right. (Of course these bans are at risk in the current Supreme Court case Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, and on past form Conservatism Inc. will capitulate here too.)
Most Americans associate Affirmative Action with blacks, for whose benefit it was originally invented and is still rationalized. But for some time now, the Affirmative Action debate, both pro and con, has been driven by a group that, being overwhelmingly recent immigrants, was never here to be discriminated against in the first place: Hispanics. Thus the fate of the most recent Amnesty/ Immigration Surge drive, designed in significant measure to make Mexifornication irreversible, will also in large measure determine the fate of Affirmative Action — as well as the fate of the Republican Party and (if anyone cares) America itself.
State bans on Affirmative Action clearly indicate that, as minority i.e. Hispanic immigrant population increase, there is greater resistance to minority racial preferences. Of the six states with the highest percentage of Hispanics, four have banned Affirmative Action in college admissions: California, Texas, Arizona, and Florida. Altogether, ten states have banned Affirmative Action in college admissions: most of them also have high percentages of Hispanics.
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States with Highest Percent of Hispanic Population *States that have banned Affirmative Action in college admissions |
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1. New Mexico- 46.7% 2. California*- 38.1% 2. Texas*- 38.1% 4. Arizona*- 30.1% 5. Nevada- 27.1% 6. Florida*- 22.9 7. Colorado- 20.9 8. New Jersey- 18.1 9. New York- 18.0 10. Illinois- 16.2 11. Connecticut-13.8% 12. Utah- 13.2 13. Rhode Island- 12.8 14. Oregon- 12 15. Washington*- 11.6 15. Idaho- 11.5 17. Kansas- 10.8 18. Massachusetts- 9.9 19. Nebraska*- 9.5 20. Oklahoma*- 9.2 21. Georgia*- 9.1% |
Just two states with relatively low percentages of Hispanics have banned Affirmative Action: New Hampshire (2.9%) and Michigan (4.5%).
But, whatever Conservatism Inc. might tell itself, groups that benefit from special privileges don’t enjoy having those privileges being taken away. This definitely includes Hispanics, now the country’s largest minority group. [Hispanics now Largest Minority, by Lynette Clemetson, New York Times, January 22, 2003].
65% of Hispanics favor Affirmative Action in education, according to Angus Reid Public Opinion and 68% support Affirmative Action in employment.
More significantly, a recent Georgetown University poll shows that 63% of younger (18-24) Hispanics favor Affirmative Action to “redress past discrimination”. In a Pew poll, 64% of Latino adults said that discrimination against Hispanics in schools is “a major problem” and 58% said that discrimination against Hispanics in the workplace is “a major problem.”
Thus, far from “assimilating,” younger Hispanics believe that the “American Dream” enterprise-society boilerplate touted by Conservatism Inc. is not good enough and would rather receive preferences based on their race.
Of course, this is not news to anyone outside the Beltway Right.
Banning Affirmative Action is, needless to say, good policy for many reasons. But while rising minority populations spur resistance to anti-white discrimination, there is a tipping point. Once the population is changed sufficiently, anti-white racial discrimination hardens because it is supported by the new majority of non-whites. Once a state makes this demographic transition, it will become a multicultural racial-socialist welfare state.
Witness the tragedy of California. It is worth recalling that California as recently as 1994 passed a ballot measure banning welfare and public education for illegal immigrants. And in 1996, it passed a ballot measure banning Affirmative Action in college.
But the demographic and ideological bloc behind those ballot measures — a.k.a. Americans — was simply disenfranchised by a liberal judge and a Democrat governor [Davis Won’t Appeal Prop. 187 Ruling, Ending Court Battles, by Patrick McDonnell, L.A. Times, July 29, 1999]. Now the conventional wisdom is California is doomed by demographics (although Peter Brimelow and Ed Rubenstein dispute this and blame GOP cowardice and stupidity)
The dismal descent of California could well be repeated in other key electoral states.
As a devastating Politico report concluded, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and even Georgia could join turn red after amnesty. [Immigration Reform Could be Bonanza for Democrats, by Emily Schultheis, April 22, 2013]. Note that those four states are among those that have banned Affirmative Action.
Moreover, states can ban Affirmative Action all they like, but the president appoints Supreme Court justices, who can easily strike down state bans on Affirmative Action — as may happen in Schuette v. Coalition [Affirmative Action: Unequal Protection, The Economist, April 27, 2013]. Another few justices like Sotomayor and Kagan, and we’ll be longing for the days of mere quota admissions.
So what of the hapless Republicans? They perforce represent the Silent (white) Majority while pandering to minorities. But they apparently don’t realize that only whites believe their fantasies about a colorblind America. Non-whites forthrightly advocate for their race and culture and demand handouts supposedly owed them by virtue of their ethnicity,
All of which goes back to James Madison’s Federalist No. 10, which addressed the danger of “factions.” Madison defined a faction as a group
who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
America’s racial minorities typically have a “passion” for their race and culture, along with an “interest” in the special rewards extended to them by virtue of their ethnicity — which, since quotas are a zero-sum game, is “adversed” to the historic American nation.
This minority attitude is now encouraged in countless ways, through upbringing, education, and everyday discourse. Republicans seem unaware of the chauvinistic myth of La Raza, of the reconquista, or of the lasting bitterness felt over the Mexican-American War. In the face of these blood-deep influences, what countervailing passion or interest can the GOP possibly appeal to?
Factionalism will increase with racial diversity. Democrats will offer racial factions a panoply of special benefits simply for being minorities, and directly appeal to the race-based passions and loyalties of those minorities. Republicans will offer racial factions rhetoric about the wonders of American capitalism — as if the minority group can’t have their market economy and their racial preferences too.
Conservatism, Inc. has nothing to offer to compete with the massive cultural force of minority racial grievance. Many Hispanics inevitably have deep-seated hostility against conservatism. Exceptions only prove the rule.
Pro-amnesty Republicans are too privileged and unintellectual to appreciate the perspective of people unlike themselves. Conservative rhetoric appeals to them, so they think it can appeal to everybody. They want more people to be colorblind, so they stick their heads in the sand and pretend that minorities have the exact same perspective as the WASP working- and middle classes.
If the Amnesty/ Immigration Surge drive prevails, anti-white discrimination and minority favoritism will intensify. State bans on Affirmative Action will then become a scarlet letter upon Republicans.
We will have pro-amnesty Republicans to thank for the future growth of what black intellectual Shelby Steele once called the “parasitic diversity industry” — and America’s inevitable national collapse.
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