Re: Affirmative Action & King

Richard Manning (daltd@earthlink.net)
Sun, 22 Nov 1998 20:01:43 -0500

Linell Davis wrote:
>
> I have read through the recent posts discussing whether or not MLK would
> have favored racial preferences such as those used in Affirmative
> Action. Horowitz argues is that MLK supported a "color-blind" society
> and so would oppose Affirmative Action while those who say he would have
> supported AA seem to rely on evidence that he was sympathetic to
> socialism and/or favored basic economic change. This seems to me to miss
> the point entirely.
> ...rest of message clipped...

Simple truths, well put, Mr. Davis.

Can America become race blind? To perceive an answer, first let's ask
about America becoming class blind? We theoretically don't have real
class distinctions here, not suppossed to in Arcadia, in the country
built on the HIll above old, evil European ways. Yet the various
Sixties' movements stretched across existing class barriers quite well.
Only to receed soon after the Vietnam War ended for lack of honest media
attention to the new issues then beginning to divide the wealth between
haves and have-nots; between the upper 10-20% contented and the lower
80-90% struggling with diminishing disposable incomes.

But economic class lines are now back again, stronger each year since
1973; classes separating almost as clearly as during the depression era.
Just not talked about, yet, because we're supposed to be in an economic
boom, supposed to be a 'classless' society where everyone is getting a
piece of that creamy, Globalized, pie.

The major difference between now and the Sixties is that we have NO
Vietnam-like issue contrasting all the government LIES from the emerging
realities; and no longer have courageous journalists risking breaking
the PC & EC rules defining career behavior. Watergate fatigued us,
Central American atrocities didn't wake enough of us, the Savings and
Loan chickens roosting into some 500 billion $ were well covered up...,
so we let it all fade into Gulf War heroics and smart bombs as the
acceptable weapons for the Global Policeman.

In the Sixties not only was there a lot of class blindness fermented by
feelings of common values being wounded by lying government and greedy
business leaders but also a perception that our national wounds went
across racial and other categorical boundaries. Whether in sympathetic
feeling with Vietnamese, Blacks, Women, Students, or later gays, the
factor that broke down barriers had to do with gut feelings that
exploitations against those groupds were dangerous, finally, to all of
us.

Yes, Davis has it right about the need to be race blind, not necessarily
color blind. But can we achieve such a mental clarity, so obviosly based
on a higher moral vision, when we are still so mentaly clouded that we
view ourselves as living in a classless society? To be class blind is as
dangerous as being color blind, in Davis' sense. For the prejudices of
color and of class will continue until the foundation cause, the
EXPLOITATION of both, is clearly recognized for what it is, spoken
against, voted against and acted against until we have a much less of a
society quietly operating on a basis of sustaining the haves by wont of
wxploiting the have-nots.

In the Sixties it was the Vietnam War which catalyzed awareness across
many ethnic, racial and class boundaries. The final question I wish to
ask the forum participants here is : do we need to again catch our
leaders in a continuum of bloody lies and greed, in another war serving
special interests, in order to awake our childrens' generation to demand
real progress towards social and economic equalitiy?

richard mannning