The death of Martin Luther King, Jr., which we commemorate today, is a painful reminder of the nation’s tragic experience with racial divisions. But Dr. King’s life was also a paean to hope. As everyone knows, Dr. King believed that a day would arrive when his children would be judged not by their color but by the content of their character.
Have we arrived at that day? Unfortunately, no. In some ways, one’s color is more of an issue today than it was forty years ago. In this light, I would like to explain why programs of affirmative action on college campuses strike me as mistakes that will postpone the day that Martin Luther King so eloquently predicted.
I wrote recently about my personal experience as a woman. I do not want special preferences such as Title IX, the law that mandates equal sports activity for women in college; I do not want special set-asides if I am a woman entrepreneur, to make sure that I get some government contracts. I believe that I can and should stand on my own.
And I believe that most African-Americans share this conviction with me. Two months ago we celebrated Black History Month, with performances, lectures and exhibits. We celebrated the feats of great Americans like Dr. King, Booker T. Washington, and Frederick Douglass. King, Douglass and Washington worked tirelessly to attain their goals, despite obstacles that today’s civil rights leaders can only imagine. They truly did “overcome.” Ironically, this is a legacy that some African-Americans may be in danger of forgetting.
Frederick Douglass was born a slave, the ultimate obstacle to achieving greatness. After escaping, and despite having no formal education, he eventually became a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and founded an abolitionist periodical. After emancipation, he held a series of government posts, including that of ambassador to Haiti.
Other African-American activists and educators rose from poverty and oppression to become leaders in their communities and in the battle for civil rights. Booker T. Washington began his life as a slave, then worked his way east to get an education. In spite of the barriers imposed by Jim Crow laws, he worked tirelessly to help educate a generation of young black Americans, becoming the first black president of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, later Tuskegee University.
How do the African-Americans who support affirmative action reconcile the celebration of independence, accomplishment, and perseverance despite overwhelming odds with the culture of dependence fostered by affirmative action? By affirmative action, I mean the system of preferences based on race that is widespread in universities today – preferences that guide admission of students and hiring of faculty.
These preferences prevent Dr. King’s dream from becoming a reality because they place the focus on group identity instead of personal achievements.
Yes, King believed that some sort of program might be appropriate to address past discrimination, but would he have supported today’s system of racial preferences, which elevates race above character? King promoted affirmative action not as preference for race over race, but as a preference for inclusion and equal opportunity.
Booker T. Washington understood the value of succeeding without the help of government. He said that “success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed….”
And: “[O]ut of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.” That strength and confidence is what Dr. King had, too.
Today’s racial preferences send a message that African-Americans need help from a magnanimous and patriarchal government, that they cannot stand on their own feet. But they don’t need that kind of “help.”
Blacks have been proving that they are strong, resourceful, and capable ever since they were released from the shackles of slavery, and even before. But by accepting racial preferences, they are forgoing the strength and confidence that comes from overcoming obstacles. Instead, they are choosing dependence on government regulations that give them supposed advantages. For those who have been independent and successful, racial preferences undermine the perception that they deserve their achievements.
Affirmative action, like women’s preferences, also creates a tense and polarized environment where the constant focus on group identity divides people instead of uniting them. How can we ever discover the content of someone’s character if we are focused first on skin color?
I have been similarly frustrated with the women’s movement today. I don’t want to be hired, admitted, or accepted just because I’m a woman. Why do schools and governments assume that women can’t compete on their own merits? These policies are based on the assumption that women are weak or unworthy without special help.
The only thing that African-Americans have ever needed from government was the chance to be equal in the eyes of the law. Racial equality – the most important aim of the civil rights movement – will never be a reality as long as racial preferences in hiring and education exist.
That is why I am pleased to see that NCA&T is hosting Bill Cosby, the comedian and author who stresses self-reliance on May 9. And it is working with Cosby on a program (the Cosby Kids Project) that helps underprivileged children learn to develop those inner strengths and skills that lead to success.
It’s time for a new chapter in Black History – or maybe we should just call it American History. The focus on civil rights activism should be on looking towards the future rather than to the past. The next step should be to judge people without looking at skin color at all.