Yesterday, on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan attacked Sonia Sotomayor specifically, and affirmative action in general. Included in his attack were such claims as "this has been a country built basically by white folks," that Sonia Sotomayor was purely an affirmative action candidate who lacks real credentials and his suggestion that we need more white-male Supreme Court nominees---like Robert Bork---despite the fact that 108 of the 110 United Supreme Court Justices in our nation's history have been white.
What opponents of affirmative action like Pat Buchanan fail to grapple with is that this country was built on affirmative action---for white males---and you don't have to go back to the Founding Fathers to see this in action. If you go back to the 1950s, which Buchanan apparently wants to do, and look at the major private universities, you would find that 20-30% of the admissions were "legacies," people who got there not on merit but because they were the sons of alumni and donors. George Bush, of course, is the poster-child for this generation of affirmative action babies. I'd like to see Buchanan, or any conservative, defend his admission to Yale on the basis of merit. And I'd like to stack his credentials up next to Sonia Sotomayor 's and ask which one was more deserving of admission to a major university, or the bench, or the Presidency, or anything.
The white-male affirmative action which bozos like George Bush benefited from and want to protect was a monopoly of opportunities; monopolies work to undermine healthy competition and produce bad results. The affirmative action which emerged from the 1960s civil rights movement was an effort not only to promote diversity of people and opportunities, but to democratize opportunities so that white-male hierarchies did not automatically get all the perks. This has been healthy for America, not only because society has become more diverse, but also because it now is less likely that the truly unqualified, the frat boys like GWB with no academic credentials and problems with excessive alcohol consumption [but a connected family] are not automatically passed on to graduate schools, and then on to unsuccessful business careers, not to mention catastrophic political careers.
I prosecuted employment discrimination class actions for 25 years, in the process forcing many major corporations to hire and promote women, minorities, older people and the disabled. In every single case I had, when the case was over and the workforce was integrated, no matter how bitter the litigation had been, the companies would confide in me that their workforces after "affirmative action" were stronger, more competitive, more productive. Affirmative action has been good for American business and good for America. Indeed, corporate America, which has seen the benefits of fair employment practices first-hand, long ago abandoned opposition to it. Too bad racists like Buchanan have failed to pay attention to what really has happened in the American workforce over the past 40 years.
That type of affirmative action is catastrophic.
I'm also yet to hear a valid argument that proves that every employer ONLY hires the "best and brightest"...clearly, not everyone is the "best and brightest", yet millions upon millions of people have jobs in this country. If that were the only criteria for getting employment, only 100 people would be employed in this country.
Further, does every employer have the SAME criteria list for determining who is the most qualified for a particular postion? And if they do, is being the "most" qualified the ONLY criteria in selecting a potential employee?
Buchanan's argument sounds eerily like the the same one used to keep slaves under the brutal control of the white man: that non-whites, by nature, lack the same intelligence as whites.
To Buchanan, Sotomayor could only be an affirmative action nominee because she's non-white. How could she - or anybody ethnic - possibly have the inherent intelligence a white candidate? Or have truly achieved - through merit - qualifications for the job?
What a sad commentary on the current GOP.
Very sad.
Unfortunately, Affirmative Action gets stigmatized by the likes of Buchanan because he firmly believes it creates an unfair advantage for recipients while trampling on the rights of so-called deserving white males.
According to people like Buchanan, it is as if people who advance under AA laws are somehow less than able, unqualified or unfit for the advancement which they seek.
But, what is even more disappointing is how those who make this appeal are never challenged to speak to the history of white male Affirmative Action, as you note this is how unfortunately the tenor of the debate has fallen and they have been able to advance their agendas, by simply omitting the reality of the American workforce over the past 40 years.
It also demonstrates that the system does not wish to resolve issues as much as they want to project issues out of their perspectives, even as society demands otherwise.
Sotomayor is the opposite. She relished each opportunity she has ever had and made the most of it through hard work. She graduated at the very top of her class even in a rigorous academic environment like Princeton. Unfortunately, Buchanan still looks down at her credentials, although he admires Alito and Roberts for their very similar academic credentials. Buchanan can get past the fact that Sotomayor is a woman of Puerto Rican descent and never will. Fortunately, we are easily getting past Buchanan and his ideology that places of privilege are reserved for white males. He is so far behind the times.
P.S. By the way Mr Buchanan, Sonia Sotomayor is a supreme example of why Affirmative Action does work.....not the opposite. If you had half her intelligence you would understand the difference.
Still NBC is leaving the light on for this dinosaur. Might even promote him to co-anchor on Morning Joe; that's a good fit.
Now there is an agenda to rage against.
Is it no surprise that the majority of "sytems" are headed by White Males, Is it because of talent? Intelligence? Good looks? (Pat Buchanan!). Or, is it that they have a leg up on the "competition."
Basically what he was saying - if all you shoot from the hip screaming mimis would've listened- was Obama didn't spend the time to look for a better qualified candidate he just picked the first Latina woman available - that's what he was upset about.
The difference being that Pal went on into politics and kept his own views, making them public at every turn. Sodomayor continued to learn, study and realized that she had to put her own views aside when making decisions as a judge.
I heard the interview, and that's EXACTLY what he was suggesting.