Edward Rhymes's Open Salon Blog

My Town Hall-Protesting Friends: The Death Panels Are Here

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:08:32 -0400

Introduction

As the discussion regarding healthcare has risen to a fever pitch (yes I’m being generous by calling it a discussion), the myths, half-truths and, sometimes, outright lies have began to take root. The most pernicious of these lies, in my opinion, is the talk of “death panels” and the killing of the elderly. There has even been talk of federal tax dollars funding abortions, even though the 1976 Hyde Amendment strictly prohibits that. For the record, I believe that healthcare reform, in its most robust sense, is a moral imperative. It is my belief that a society and a nation will be judged, ultimately, by its treatment of its most vulnerable citizens --- the least of these.

Care Delayed, Is Care Denied

A recent national survey (Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey, 2007) estimated that 12.6 million non-elderly adults – 36 percent of those who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company in the individual insurance market – were in fact discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years. I don’t believe it would be a tremendous leap to say that amongst those who were discriminated against were the chronically and terminally ill. In fact (and the data bears this out), I’m certain of it.

When a person is diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer, some insurance companies review his/ her initial health status questionnaire. In most states’ individual insurance market, insurance companies can retroactively cancel the entire policy if any condition was missed – even if the medical condition is unrelated, and even if the person was not aware of the condition at the time. Coverage can also be revoked for all members of a family, even if only one family member failed to disclose a medical condition. If the disease is serious enough, could such a decision lead to death? And if so, wouldn’t that indeed be the very definition of a death panel? And as the justifiable-howls ascend into the atmosphere about not wanting government coming between the patient and the doctor, the fact that that is EXACTLY what insurance companies have been doing for decades is ignored and goes unchallenged.

Resuscitation is Futile

In general, futile care laws enable the following situation: Person A has a severe medical condition and/or disability. He or she desires to continue life sustaining treatment that the doctor considers futile or wasteful. The doctor brings the case to a hospital ethics committee (or panel), which, after deliberation, overrides the patient's stated desires regarding treatment. The person and his or her family then have 10 (in Texas) to 14 days (in Virginia) to find another hospital that will treat them, or the treatment will be withdrawn, resulting in death. Unfortunately, many hospitals will not treat patients whose treatment is considered futile by another hospital, which condemns these patients and their families to hospital/state imposed death, or contentious court battles, often in their last few weeks of life.

At last check, only 10 states have passed laws forbidding hospitals to withdraw treatment if family members or guardians object and require treatment to continue until the patient can be transferred.

This type of state and medically-sponsored, life and death discrimination does not need to be codified to be a threat. For example, the 2005 Haliegh Poutre case involved Massachusetts social services attempting to remove her feeding tube and ventilator against her biological mother's wishes (she had been abused by her adopted family), which was only stopped when she began showing signs of alertness after a judge gave the go-ahead to override her family's wishes. Similar cases have occurred in New Jersey, Alaska, and other states without specific futile care laws. This would be considered legislative or policy (public and business) death panels. Where has the outrage been all these years? Where were the chants of Hitlerism and fascism?

To illustrate this hypocrisy (and in some cases cognitive dissonance), during the Terry Schiavo case what made the actions of the White House and the then Republican-led Congress (with plenty of Democrats in tow as well) even more duplicitous, is that on March 15^thof 2005 at Texas Children’s Hospital, Sun Hudson (a six month-old infant) was taken off of a ventilator--- in spite of his mother’s objections--- and died in his mother’s arms. He was born on Sept. 25, 2004 with a rare and potentially fatal genetic disorder. He was placed on a ventilator because his lungs had failed. This child died without fanfare, protest or judicial review. The cruel irony is that Texas Children’s Hospital was well within its “rights” to do so because of the “Texas Futile Care Law” signed by then Gov. George W. Bush in 1999. According to this law, a Texas hospital with the consent of a doctor and ethics committee can withdraw care they deem futile and too costly even against the wishes of the patient or legal guardian. Where were the platitudes about “erring on the side of life” as this six-month old baby took its last breaths in his grieving mother’s arms?

Cross My Heart and Hope Not To Die

The absence of health insurance creates a range of consequences, including lower quality of life, increased morbidity and mortality, and higher financial burdens. In 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimated that 18,000 Americans died in 2000 because they were uninsured. Since then, the number of uninsured has grown. Based on the IOM’s methodology and subsequent Census Bureau estimates of insurance coverage, 137,000 people died from 2000 through 2006 because they lacked health insurance, including 22,000 people in 2006.

Much subsequent research has continued to confirm the link between insurance and mortality risk described by IOM. In fact, subsequent studies and analysis suggest that, if anything, the IOM methodology may underestimate the number of deaths that result from a lack of insurance coverage.

More broadly, these estimates should be viewed as reasonable indicators of the general magnitude of excess mortality that results from lack of insurance, not as precise “body counts.” The true number of deaths resulting from being uninsured may be somewhat higher or lower than the Institute of Medicine’s estimates, but that number remains significant. Once again, is this not the very definition of death panels? Are we not already consigning people to die? Are we supposed to get worked up about the people who, according to the myths and lies about death panels, MIGHT die and not show any concern for those who are ALREADY dead and dying?

Counting the Cost

I want to conclude this composition with some questions and an appeal. The estimates for this healthcare reform endeavor has ranged anywhere from $700 billion to 1.5 trillion (according to the numbers I’ve seen and read). A high sticker price to be sure and yet we are already footing the bill for the uninsured and under-insured: in emergency room visits, when our neighbors homes are foreclosed because of bankruptcy related to medical debt (about 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs) the property value of our homes go down, and the preventable-loss of human life to diseases and illnesses of the primary bread-winners of families comes back on us as country and society one way or another.

However, I suppose the most compelling argument I could construct against the anti-reform voices is that in the run-up to the Iraq War, by and large, we did not ask the cost of one bullet or bomb; we did not ask the cost of the care for the mangled body of one soldier; we did not ask the cost, in pain, of the families in America and Iraq who would lose their sons and daughters (another kind of death panel); we did not ask the cost of the displacement of millions of Iraqis; and we did not ask the cost for one single brick used in rebuilding a country we were misled into invading. The actual dollar amount for both wars were not even items included in our budget up until eight months ago, and we as American citizens, for the most part, didn’t ask to see the books. Now, when it comes to healthcare reform, it’s all about costs and deficits? To my town hall-protesting friends, your preoccupation with what you believe is a government plot and plan to “pull the plug on grandma,” has caused you to miss the plugs that have been pulled and are being pulled on grandma, grandpa, dad, mom, son and daughter. And for what? So insurance companies can enjoy a fatter bottom line and to subsidize the multi-million dollar bonuses and salaries for their executives. So what are these protestations regarding death panels really about? If it is really about death and the sustaining of life, then why have your voices been muted up to now? If you believe so strongly in life, how can you ignore the threats to life that have been posed by our current healthcare system? Going back to the contrast concerning the dialogue before the Iraq War and our current healthcare reform discussion: what does it say about us as a nation when we are silent and malleable in our decisions to kill, but resort to fear, hate and dishonesty in our decisions to heal? How we answer that as a society will determine whether we are enablers of death or advocates and champions for life.

Mike Huckabee: Civil Rights Leader?

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:07:11 -0400

Republican Party darling Mike Huckabee, during a recent speech, decided to dispense some tough love to a predominantly white audience when he voiced his concerns about the state of affairs in American white communities. "The epidemic of whites involved in drunk-driving fatality accidents is deplorable," Huckabee said. He cited the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's 2000 statistics that showed that white male drivers between the ages of 21-34 constituted the largest percentage of drunk (or impaired) drivers in fatal crashes and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Prevention Research Center's 1999 findings that of the 91,248 alcohol-related driving fatalities, 65,309 were committed by whites.

Huckabee also took aim at the violence perpetrated by whites in school: "White school children killing other school children must stop. The senseless and barbaric school shootings in Pearl, Miss.; Paducah, Ky.; Jonesboro, Ark.; Edinboro, Pa.; Springfield, Ore.; and Littleton, Colo.; serve as chilling reminders of what happens when there is a failure of leadership in the white family." Huckabee referred to his speech as a wake-up call: "We can't hide behind the stereotypical image of the Black and Hispanic violent criminal anymore. Before there was 'gangsta' rap you had Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma and Francis Ford Coppola winning award after award and Oscar after Oscar for their films filled with whites committing brutal acts of violence. What type of message does that send if we reward movies that depict such brutality? The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas, Scarface, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction. These movies have all contributed to a culture of white violence." FBI statistics also state that from 2007, of the 57 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty 35 of the assailants were white." Richard Poplawski and James W. Von Brunn," Huckabee said, "signals an alarming trend."

"White politicians don't want to discuss these issues, but somebody has to speak up," Mike Huckabee said, as he continued his assault on what he called the "white crime epidemic."

"The average serial killer is usually male, between the ages of 25-35, and he is usually white. The majority of the time, he will kill victims of his own race. The ages of his victims will vary greatly, depending on his particular 'interests.' His intellect ranges from below average to above average. He doesn't usually know his victims or have any particular hatred for them personally (though they might be symbolic to him in some way) most of the time... His victims never did anything to hurt him in any way...they are normally strangers to him. He doesn't come from one social class or another; he can come from skid row or Park Avenue. The typical child abductor-murderer is, likewise, usually a white male. They are single and about 27 years old. They are either unemployed or work in unskilled jobs, live alone or with parents; while their victims are typically 11-year-old white females from middle class neighborhoods." "Child sex offenses are among the fastest growing offenses of the Federal criminal caseload from 1994 to 2006 and during 2006, 3,661 suspects were referred to U.S. attorneys for child sex exploitation offenses. Child pornography constituted 69% of referrals, followed by sex abuse (16%) and sex transportation (14%). Most suspects charged with sex exploitation were white, male, U.S. citizens, and had attended some college." "Where do we point the finger for this," Huckabee said as he was quoting from a December 2007 Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice.

Huckabee continued his attack on those he referred to as "social and moral vampires." "Child pornography or kiddie porn is a crime whose perpetrators are overwhelmingly white and whose victims are disproportionately white. This too must stop. Even in our sacred institutions such as our churches, specifically in far too many Roman Catholic churches, our innocent white children are being preyed upon."

"Do you realize that nearly 70 percent of those serving time for violent crimes against children are white," Huckabee said as he cited the Survey of Inmates of State Correctional Facilities by the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, "and white inmates were nearly three times more likely to have victimized a child than black inmates" What are we doing to ourselves?, he continued. "Susan Smith, Andrea Yates and Deanna Laney represent a frightening pattern of murder and neglect of white children by white mothers.... And do they take responsibility? No. They either blame it on some phantom black man or say God made them do it." Huckabee also referenced reports from over recent years, of white female teachers taking advantage of and exploiting their minor students.

Mike Huckabee additionally raised the issue of fiscal irresponsibility saying, "Our current economic crisis can also be traced to a pandemic of greed perpetrated by the predominantly white male old-boys-network." "Monetary estimates from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners approximate the annual cost of white collar crime as being between $300 and $660 billion as of 2005." "While you’re looking for the Black or Hispanic with the ski-mask and gun" Huckabee exclaimed, "the Bernie Madoff’s are "making-off" with our economic fortunes." "How many more Enron’s, Worldcom’s, Tyco’s, HealthSouth’s, and ImClone’s do we have to endure before we get the message?"

Mike Huckabee later turned his focus on white youth and drugs, "It's the same story for young adults. Whites are 66 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds and 70 percent of drug users that age. Blacks are 13.5 percent of persons in that age group and only 13 percent of young adult users, while Hispanics are nearly 15 percent of that age group, but yet comprise only 12 percent of drug users 18-25. According to the Justice Department, drug users tend to buy from same-race dealers. So the nearly three-quarters of users who are white, mainly rely on white drug dealers, not the Blacks or Hispanics of accepted imagery. When it comes to drugs like Ecstasy and crystal meth - a hot product in suburban America - the dealers and users have long been known to be mostly white, middle-class males between 14 and 32. American society doesn't want to face the fact that white kids deal and use drugs. They simply can't look in their faces and see that a nice-looking white kid is selling drugs to their kids, because that would mean that their kids could do this too.

"When will it end?" lamented Huckabee.

Author’s confession:
Dear reader, this article is only an invention. Mike Huckabee never delivered a speech such as this. However, the statistics stated in the article are very real and very true. As a matter of fact this piece had been published earlier in 2005 and has been tweaked to add some more up-to-date statistics and a new main character (instead of George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee).

No leading white political or religious leader has ever, to my knowledge, come close to expressing the thoughts and views outlined in this composition. Very few of our national leaders have made a call to arms in the fight against racism, either because it was considered a political non-starter or because it was in their selfish and destructive political interest to stoke the prejudicial and racist fires of American society. However, if they did, what do you think the response would be? If you don't have an answer it's OK. I realize that it is difficult to come up with an answer to a question that has rarely or never been asked. However, other groups (especially Blacks) have had to deal with similar rhetoric for centuries right here in America and have had to answer the question I just posed to you, time and time again.

Let's think about it, when the tragedy at Columbine occurred there were literally hundreds of news stories asking the question: "Why are our kids becoming so violent." Not why are white kids becoming so violent, but "our" kids. Now let's contrast that with what happens when a black child is killed in a predominantly black community. The headline more often than not has read something like this: "The problem of black-on-black crime" or "Violence amongst black youth." There are two scenarios taking place here: 1. De-emphasizing or minimizing ethnicity. When the crime is perpetrated by whites, color is not the issue; the issue is "our" children and violence. 2. Emphatic emphasizing and alienation when blacks are deemed the culprits. It is no longer "our" kids; it is "black" kids or youth. Can you, will you, see the difference? Our need to examine these inequities is exacerbated by the recent comments made concerning the adequacy of Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor; the racist claims of the "Birthers;" the issues that are being raised as a result of the arrest of Henry Gates, and the list goes on and on.

I know there are some who may be offended by the assertions that I have made in this piece; this is regrettable and yet I understand. But before you give full sway to your feelings of anger and disgust, answer this: were you this offended when Blacks or Latinos (and other ethnic groups) were being characterized in the same way? Did you challenge the people who made (and those who published) derogatory and inaccurate remarks about other ethnic groups, to tell the whole truth?

It's not easy being made to look like deviants, criminals or malcontents, is it? It is frustrating and dehumanizing when the few are made to represent the many. When the face of evil and all that is thought to be wrong with society bears a resemblance, in ethnicity, to you. This, I understand all too well. If that is how you feel, please remember it; meditate on it. For it is the same feeling that many of your fellow citizens have had to live with on daily basis. In conclusion, let us ponder this: A fictitious speech had to be written to talk about the crimes and indiscretions of white folk; the words and speeches that are used to degrade and debase Black folk and other people of color is all too real.

DWB: Driving While Black and Brown

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:07:58 -0400

I wrote a piece several years ago (from 2004 to be exact) for a local newspaper when I lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The article is about racial profiling in Massachusetts and yes, the Henry Gates incident is the impetus for me posting this. There are some minor additions to the piece.

The recent report released by Northeastern's Institute for Race and Justice confirmed what communities of color in Massachusetts had already known for years: Blacks and other minorities are pulled over by police at a greater rate than white drivers (vehicles driven by minorities also were searched at greater rates than white drivers). However, to merely say that Blacks and Hispanics are stopped in disproportionate numbers doesn't begin to tell the whole story. Should the Northeastern report be interpreted as racial profiling by police officers in dozens of communities (including New Bedford, Fairhaven and Wareham) in Massachusetts or as a reflection of "colorblind" law enforcement officers merely doing their jobs and letting the numbers, like the proverbial chips, fall where they would? The findings appear to suggest the first scenario.

A Boston Globe analysis completed in January 2003, like the Northeastern study, points to a pattern of racial bias in traffic stops and searches throughout Massachusetts. The widest gap in ticketing was in Milton, just south of Boston, where minorities received 58 percent of the traffic tickets, while only an estimated 16 percent of the drivers are minorities. The Globe report also found that Blacks and Hispanics (in the targeted Massachusetts communities) were 50 percent more likely to be searched during routine traffic stops, even though white drivers were more often charged with drug offenses as a result of searches (so even when the police departments' own findings suggest that white drivers are more guilty of drug offense violations as a result of vehicle searches, they continue to stop and search more vehicles driven by Blacks and other minorities -- a betrayal of good law enforcement and common sense, as well). Massachusetts is not alone in this epidemic of racial profiling. In a report from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Criminal Justice Reform Project, in February 2003, 77 percent of drivers stopped on a Maryland highway are Black, even though they comprise only 17 percent of the drivers. Eighty percent of those stopped and searched in Florida are Black and Hispanic. They are only 5 percent of the Florida drivers. These are just a few examples of this widespread inconsistency in law enforcement.

Racial profiling poses several problems. First, there is an economic aspect to consider. The disproportionate amount of tickets given to minorities represents hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue each year. Also, Black and Hispanic drivers, because of this excessive ticketing, have to pay thousands more in auto insurance costs than their white counterparts. Which leads to this question: Is it fair that communities and insurance companies benefit from this prejudiced and unfair practice in our police departments and law enforcement agencies? Second, racial profiling is inconsistent with true law enforcement. Honest citizens in any society or community want good law enforcement. People driving drunk, carrying unregistered weapons or illegal drugs in their vehicles shouldn't be tolerated. With that being said, the numbers suggest that law enforcement officers, nationwide, are misguided in their efforts. According to statistics compiled from1999-2004 by the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the U. S. Department of Justice, whites are twice more likely than Blacks and other minorities to drive drunk, represent approximately 66 percent of those arrested for illegal possession of weapons, and whites are more than 30 percent more than any minority group to sell drugs (however, Black youths are 48 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses than whites). So is this an exercise in finger-pointing or tit-for-tat? Absolutely not, but what these statistics do indicate is that if the premise for the extreme number of traffic stops and searches conducted against people of color is to enforce the law, then police officers in Massachusetts and nationwide are disproportionately barking up the wrong tree.

Last, there is also a negative psychological and social impact that racial profiling has upon a people. The American Civil Liberties Union placed an advertisement in U.S. magazines a few years ago, that stated: "The man on the left is 75 times more likely to be stopped by the police while driving than the man on the right." The man pictured on the left was Martin Luther King Jr.; on the right was a photo of Charles Manson. We rarely view people who have been victims of racial profiling as "victims." It is often looked upon as an inconvenience or a minor nuisance (in the same way our male-dominated society tends to view sexual harassment) but not as victimization. It deteriorates the confidence that all citizens should be able to have in those who have taken an oath to “serve and protect.” Another consequence of racial profiling is the label of "guilty" that it stamps on its victims. If scores of people of color are continually pulled over and searched by the police, society begins to think, consciously or subconsciously, "There must be something to it; where there's smoke, there's fire" (even when the statistics clearly contradict this presumption).

Sometimes we hear numbers and percentage points so much that we forget that behind each unjustified percentage point is a story of someone's pain, humiliation and emotional scars. This is why we can't, in our cities and communities allow our mayors and police chiefs in Massachusetts to "explain away" this problem in law enforcement. That is why this issue is personal for me. One spring night a few years ago, I also was a victim of racial profiling (it wasn't the first time, but the most memorable). To make a long story short, the New Bedford police officer abruptly backpedaled when I informed him I was a New Bedford High School teacher and that I had the ACLU, the national NAACP and an attorney the equal of Perry Mason on my speed-dial at home (my wife, who was over eight months pregnant at the time, also was with me --- one of the police officers threatened to send my wife home alone and me to jail---l through this ordeal that lasted more than 30 minutes -- and, guess what, folks? No ticket). My wife, even to this day, says she marvels at how much calm I showed throughout the incident.

However, the most difficult aspect of this scenario occurred the following day. It seems that a number of my students had seen the encounter the night before (these students being Hispanic and Black males). They wanted to know what happened, and I told them. What I saw in their eyes was painful. I saw that even though they were considerably younger than I, they understood the frustration, they understood the injustice. I also saw in their eyes a struggle. It was if they were saying: "Mr. Rhymes, they tell us to be good citizens, they tell us to be good people. They tell us to get an education and we will be respected, but no matter how innocent, accomplished or careful we are, skin color, Mr. Rhymes, overrides everything." And I, a former U.S. Marine, a Ph.D. recipient and educator, tried my best to respond to the questions they were struggling to answer. I told those young men that maybe they could change what earlier generations couldn't. I told them that injustice should never cause them to stop believing in the ultimate good in fighting for justice.

I am a few years removed from that experience (which still evokes a deep emotional response from my wife), and I still don't know whether my answer to the grasping, conflicted minds of those young men was good enough. Let's hope the chiefs of the police departments across Massachusetts have a better one.

Not Standing Pat: Addressing The Racist & Facts-Challenged

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:07:12 -0400

I am approaching this without animus or accusation, but I don’t deny that I am passionate about this subject. Here I would like to focus on real history and the facts. It is true that America has a proud history of democracy and civil liberties. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence have been considered, by many scholars and historians, as two of the greatest documents ever devised by any country or society. Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty are regarded in history and the world as enduring symbols of freedom. These things are all part of American history, but not the only part. There is another aspect of the U.S., another America if you will, with a history and culture that is just as real as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Real history tells us that America would not be without the genocide of the Native; the enslavement of the African; the subjugation of the woman and the exploitation of the immigrant. In the building of the America that Pat Buchanan speaks of, I wonder how many of these brilliant architects of our nation (i.e. Jefferson, Washington, Patrick Henry etc.) would have been able to compose or pen many brilliant thoughts or fully participate in the formation of a democracy without the “luxury” of having slaves. Just a thought.

So let us recap the issues of affirmative action and “racial preferences.” Blacks and other people of color are the face of a program that benefits white women more than any other group of people. Society ultimately ignores the actual racial preferences that create more job and career opportunities for whites---even to the point of white ex-cons having the same shot at employment as Blacks who don’t have a criminal record; the white privilege that still allows white students (more than any other group) to get into their college of first choice---while loading up on admission evaluation points made possible by past discrimination and current educational and economic inequities; as well as the racial and class preferences that got former President Bush into Yale and kept him out of Vietnam. Additionally, while Blacks ultimately will receive less pay than their white counterparts (even with similar or better credentials and experience) and inherit less (based largely on past and current discriminatory practices), they will still pay more for automobiles and houses---houses which will accrue less equity than those owned by whites.

People such as Pat Buchanan spew the most insidious kind of racism and it can be narrowed down to two primary paradigms: (1) Ignore the more entrenched de facto affirmative action that advantaged whites (and white males in particular) since Jamestown (anyone remember Bacon’s Rebellion?); (2) Minimize and deride any achievement by people of color as always falling short of white achievement or not belonging in same league or conversation (which means that in the mind of Pat Buchanan, and others like him, there is nothing that a person of color could ever achieve that could reach the heights and glory of white accomplishment). This begs the question: why the white supremacist fears of Obama and Sotomayor? In light of the facts, and history, this fear is irrational and unfounded. So let us review some of those key facts:

· 97.7% of all American President’s have been white

· 94% of the Senate is white

· 83% of the House of Representatives is white

· 8 out of 9 of the Supreme Court Justices are white (please refrain from all Clarence Thomas jokes) --- with Sotomayor (and every single person that questioned her on the Senate Judicial Committee was... well.... White) there would be 7 out 9
92% of the U.S. state governors are white

· 97.4% of the CEO’s of the Fortune 500 companies are white

· 98% (393 out of 400) of the 2007 Forbes 400 Richest Americans are white

· The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans owned 62.3 percent of the business assets in 2004.

· The wealthiest 5 percent collectively owned 88.7 percent of business assets.

· According to the EEOC’s 2007 statistics for U.S. private industry, Whites represent 87.4% of Executive/Senior Level officials and managers, and 80.5% of the First/Mid Level officials and managers

· The wealthiest 5 percent also owned 93.7 percent of the value of bonds, 71.7 percent of nonresidential real estate, and 79.1 percent of the value of stocks.

· Every nightly political news program on the major cable news networks (MSNBC, CNN, Fox) or broadcast news networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) is hosted by someone who is white

However, these numbers do show a dominance tilted in favor of whites, and that’s with affirmative action in place. Power has been described as the ability to define reality and the capacity to make that definition binding for others. What Pat Buchanan and his ilk do show us is the ability of the privileged in our society to simultaneously control most, if not all, the institutional and structural levers of power and still cast themselves in the role of the outraged victim. We live in a nation where the criteria for "best qualified", "exemplary", "outstanding" etc. has been (and for the most part still is) defined predominantly by white males. In a system where people of color and women had not been allowed to participate for centuries (and we are still not at full participation yet) discrimination and inequality doesn’t just determine where a generation of an oppressed group ends up, it also determines where the next one begins. How do we eradicate that?

Affirmative Action: It's A White Thing (Part Two)

Fri, 8 May 2009 14:05:30 -0400

This detailed account of actual or real racial preferences should make clear to those who both believe that the days of racial discrimination are over and that past discriminations don’t have any bearing on this country in the here-and-now, that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Sadly, the voices of those who benefit the most from affirmative action are by-and-large silent---white women. The unadulterated fact is that affirmative action has helped whites more than people of color. Consider that gender is a major component of affirmative action. As a result, no group has benefited more than white women. And given that white women are more likely to be associated with white families, one could reasonably argue that whites (as they are, for the most part, the daughters, sisters and mothers of white men) have been the main beneficiaries of affirmative action. Nevertheless, in 1996 when Proposition 209 came before the people of California, 57% of White women voted in favor of it---even though just the year before, the United States Labor Department confirmed that the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action were indeed white women ("Reverse Discrimination," 1995). It seems to me a betrayal of epic proportions that after accumulating advantages as result of these programs, they now appear to be at best ambivalent or at worst hostile towards them. Tim Wise, white antiracist author and activist, in his essay “Is Sisterhood Conditional? White Women and the Rollback of Affirmative Action,” wondered: “Why would white women increasingly come to view affirmative action in largely the same negative terms as the ‘angry white men’ about whom the media has made such an issue in recent years? Are white women thinking and voting more like white men on this issue because they identify their interests as being largely tied to those of white men--perhaps their husbands, or sons--and as such, are afraid affirmative action might restrict opportunities for loved ones and family members (Ladowsky 1995)? Is their ambivalence due to a false sense of efficacy and opportunity? Since white women have made some impressive gains over the past 30 years, do they now feel affirmative action is no longer needed (Burkett 1998)? Are white women essentially identifying more with their perceived racial interest, than gender or individual interest, and thus responding predictably to the ‘racialization’ of affirmative action in mainstream discourse? In other words, are white women hostile to affirmative action largely because of their own racial prejudice (Frankenberg 1993)? Or, was the failure to convince a majority of white women to vote against 209 simply a failure of resource mobilization? Not enough money? Not enough time? In other words, the message was right, the strategy sound-to target white women and emphasize the gender aspect of affirmative action--but the "good guys" were simply outgunned and outspent?”

The following statistics, to a great degree, can be traced back to affirmative action initiatives. From 1972-1993:

The percentage of women architects increased from 3% to nearly 19% of the total;
The percentage of women doctors more than doubled from 10% to 22% of all doctors;
The percentage of women lawyers grew from 4% to 23% of the national total;
The percentage of female engineers went from less than 1% to nearly 9%;
The percentage of female chemists grew from 10% to 30% of all chemists; and,
The percentage of female college faculty went from 28% to 42% of all faculty.

The overwhelming majority of the women represented in these statistics are white. The Department of Labor’s statistics also estimated that 6 million women workers are in higher occupational classifications today than they would have been without affirmative action policies---I believe that it is also important to note that Black and Hispanic men, on average, trail White women in earnings. So once again, why do most white women oppose affirmative action? I believe, as Wise alluded to, it is because it has been racialized in the public discourse. The critics of affirmative action characterize it as a Black issue because this enables them to use the negative racial stereotypes associated with Blacks to portray these policies as undeserved hand-outs to an “underqualified and unmotivated” group of people. The media is often complicit in these portrayals. In this respect, the heavy participation of white women in these programs is obscured by media portrayals which, for the most part, completely ignore the role of affirmative action in promoting equality for women. Furthermore, because affirmative action explicitly states that race can be one consideration (among many others, most whites (and some people of color as well) ignore or reject the more pervasive implicit truth that whiteness plays an integral role in the acquisition of jobs, scholarships, promotions, cars, houses and so on---more so than any group of people. The absence of the word “white” does not connote an absence of its presence, privilege or power.

Wise, in his aforementioned piece, also goes on to show that “ultimately, white women's views on affirmative action are hardly different from their male counterparts, particularly when the issue is framed as one of preferences. According to National Election Studies since 1986, white women are not substantially different from white men when it comes to their feelings on this issue. Opposition to ‘preferential hiring and promotion’ … [grew] from 86% for white men and 79% for white women in 1986, to 90% for white men and 88% for white women in 1994. Similarly, opposition to admissions preferences in colleges [stood] at around 76% for white men and 70% for white women (Citrin 1996, 43).” This reality played out in Washington (1998) with 51% of white women voting against affirmative action and in the recent defeat of affirmative action programs in Michigan with 59 percent of white women (82 percent of non-white women voted against it) voting to approve Proposal 2---the measure was approved 58 to 42 percent. A consequence of this dynamic that I believe bears mentioning, is that women of color (especially Black & Hispanic women) are not able to work with White women on other issues of concern (sexism, misogyny etc.) when they perceive that the vast majority of them are indifferent or antagonistic to the realities of racial discrimination in their lives and to the mechanisms that they believe would be instrumental in redressing those realities.

So let us recap the issues of affirmative action and “racial preferences.” Blacks and other people of color are the face of a program that benefits white women more than any other group of people. Society ultimately ignores the actual racial preferences that create more job and career opportunities for whites---even to the point of white ex-cons having the same shot at employment as Blacks who don’t have a criminal record; the white privilege that still allows white students (more than any other group) to get into their college of first choice---while loading up on admission evaluation points made possible by past discrimination and current educational and economic inequities; as well as the racial and class preferences that got President Bush into Yale and kept him out of Vietnam. Additionally, while Blacks ultimately will receive less pay than their white counterparts (even with similar or better credentials and experience) and inherit less (based largely on past and current discriminatory practices), they will still pay more for automobiles and houses---houses which will accrue less equity than those owned by whites. Where in these numbers do we find the need to end affirmative action?