Do You Really Think That? | Center for Equal Opportunity

Some questions for the Left, especially the campus Left:

Do you really think it is a good thing for race relations on campus and elsewhere for Americans to be obsessed with race?

Do you really think that it’s a good thing for race relations if every white student thinks of himself (or herself!) as beholden to any nonwhite student he meets — beholden in the sense that he must check his privilege and walk on eggshells?

Do you really think it is a good thing for race relations if every nonwhite person focuses on past injustices to people who may have shared his nonwhite background and is alert to any “microaggression” by whites?

Do you really think it is a good thing for race relations if we obsess over historical wrongs, including what is now considered politically incorrect behavior by otherwise heroic individuals in our nation’s past?

Do you really think that all this is a better way forward than acknowledging the past but not obsessing over it, and focusing instead on treating one another as individuals and Americans rather than as, first and foremost, members of this or that aggrieved group?

Do you really think, in particular, that the attention of African Americans is best focused on misnamed buildings and not on the fact that 71 percent of African Americans are now being born out of wedlock?

Do you really think that a backward-looking, blame-assigning mindset is better for black progress and interracial cooperation than a forward-looking, forgiving one?

Well, do you? Really?

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Relatedly, there was a lot of breast-beating last week about an incident in which a graduate student was accused of plagiarism because she used the word “hence,” leading to the claim that this was obviously a racist “microaggression” of the sort that is widespread in the sacred groves of academe.

But, as I wrote:

[I]t is a big leap from what happened here to this kind of broad generalization. I think it was wrong for the teacher to make this accusation in front of the entire class, but it may or may not have been race-driven.
Consider: When I was in seventh grade, my class had an English assignment where we were asked to write good “topic sentences” for (unseen but imagined) paragraphs. Afterwards, the teacher took me aside — the right way to do it — and suggested that I must have copied my sentences from someplace; she didn’t think I could have come up with them on my own. I assured her I hadn’t copied them, and thanked her for the compliment. She was white, and so am I.

Anyway, maybe the professor here was doing some ethnic profiling, but maybe not. The race-obsessiveness in higher education, and eagerness to play the race card, is ridiculous.

I added:

Criticizing race-obsessiveness (including racial preferences) and criticizing those who play the race card is not the same thing as being race-obsessed or playing the race card, duh.

Also relatedly: It’s no secret that, when it comes to constitutional rights, our college and university campuses are anything but safe zones. For a comprehensive overview of this unfortunate phenomenon, with chapter and verse legally, take a look at Hans Bader’s recent piece here. And George Leef’s recent Forbes column focuses on the particular issue of college officials versus free speech in one recently filed case.

* * *

I spoke in Chicago last week at Northwestern University law school about various voting-rights issues, especially the disenfranchisement of felons. I mean, what better time to talk about voting issues than the week before an election, and what better place to talk about voter fraud and the like than Chicago?

In defending felon disenfranchisement, I made my usual argument that, if you’re not willing to follow the law yourself, you can’t claim are right to make the law for everyone else, which is what you do when you vote. I noted that we don’t let everyone vote—not children, not noncitizens, not the mentally incompetent, and not people who have committed serious crimes against their fellow citizens. The common denominator is that we have certain minimum, objective standards of responsibility, trustworthiness, and commitment to our laws that must be met before we allow people to participate in the solemn enterprise of self-government.

Felons can be given back the right to vote, but they must show they have turned over a new leaf first. That only makes sense, in light of the unfortunate fact that most people who walk out of prison will be walking back in.

Anyway, I felt like my comments were warmly received. On the other hand, maybe everyone was just in a good mood since, the night before, the Chicago Cubs had won the World Series for the first time in 108 years.

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