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| Source:The Economist- looks like freedom in Brazil. |
Source:FRS FreeState
“TO SUM up recent research predicting a mixed-race future for humanity, biologist Stephen Stearns of Yale University turns to an already intermingled nation. In a few centuries, he says, we will all “look like Brazilians”. Brazil shares with the United States a population built from European immigrants, their African slaves and the remnants of the Amerindian population they displaced. But with many more free blacks during the era of slavery, no “Jim Crow” laws or segregation after it ended in 1888 and no taboo on interracial romance, colour in Brazil became not a binary variable but a spectrum…
From The Economist
As a Liberal, I take Dr. Martin L. King’s I have a dream speech that one day his children would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin, seriously. But I apply it to all Americans not saying that Dr. King didn’t but.
Dr. King all the time spoke about and in favor of the U.S. Constitution and how all of those rights applied to all Americans equally. Not just European-Americans, and not just Anglo-Saxons, or Anglo-Saxon males, but every American, including African-Americans. He even spoke favorably of our Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) and vision they created for America where every man (meaning every American) would have the same individual and constitutional rights as everyone else.
Dr. King didn’t speak of an America where some Americans would have better or more rights and be treated better or worst then other Americans, simply because of their race, color, or gender. The whole point of the civil rights movement in the first place was the African-Americans weren’t getting the same treatment and equality under law and in society, simply because of their race and color.
There seems to be this attitude on the Left (to be generous) that racism and bigotry shouldn’t be tolerated when it’s applied to certain groups of people. But that it’s okay when it’s applied to others because minorities have suffered in this country because of their race and ethnicity. As well as Caucasian women and that Caucasians as a whole have benefited. But that when racism is applied to majorities, even majority women, it’s okay because it benefits people who’ve been left behind and it’s a small price to pay.
My attitude as a Liberal who wants to live in a colorblind as well as racial blind and ethnic blind society is that we only get there if we create that for ourselves and practice these things and individuals are treated as individuals and not members of groups. That if you want to eliminate racism and other forms of bigotry in this country, the first step is to stop practicing it no matter who it’s supposed to benefit or deny.
If we are going to have an equal protection clause and civil-rights in this country which we do, then they should apply to everyone and that no one should be denied to benefit simply because of their race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. And no one should benefit from those things even it is only one consideration.
What we need in America instead of affirmative action, is to have strong civil-rights and anti-discrimination enforcement in this country. So people who practice bigotry in this country would pay a steep price for it and it would be doing themselves a financial as well as professional disservice by practicing bigotry and could even cost them their jobs of business and so-forth.
We also need a real public education system in this country so all Americans have access to a quality education who attend public schools and all have the opportunity to get themselves the skills that they need to be successful in life. To the point that schools and employers would be doing themselves a disservice by denying people access to these things because of their race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality.
The cure for racism in America is not more racism but to eliminate racism and bigotry outright (to paraphrase Black Panther leader Fred Hampton) so it’s no longer practiced. And you do that by cracking down on bigots who practice it and by giving everyone the opportunity to be successful in life so bigotry wouldn’t be a good idea to practice because of the legal and financial consequences that would come from it. But also because of the access to quality talent that schools and employers would lose access to. You don’t defeat racism with different racism, but with civil rights enforcement, education, and equality of opportunity.
