July 02, 2007

Supreme Court gets it right on Racism

Letter to the Editor

I rarely agree with this new Supreme Court but the decision they made to make the nation more colorblind was the right decision. I'm old enough to remember when I was in the 4th grade when they stared busing kids around to schools far from their home to end segregation. I thought it was a bad idea then and it's still a bad idea today.

I agree with Justice Roberts, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." I think that racial policies that were intended to integrate society has institutionalized segregation making us all aware of the race of a person and that race should play a role in decisions. But why is it important to classify a person based on the frequencies of light reflected by the surface of a person's skin? After all, we all come from Africa if you go back far enough and we all have black ancestors. All of humanity evolved from black people and we're all pink on the inside.

Racial identity is racist. I think that black leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have done black people a disservice and that it's time that black people stop thinking of themselves as "African Americans" and start thinking of themselves as ordinary people. If we are going to have affirmative action then let it be for poor people and let's achieve integration by building the best schools in the poorest neighborhoods where they are most needed.

Posted by marc at July 2, 2007 05:15 PM
Comments
Post a comment









Remember personal info?