| Republicans, Racism,
Homophobia, and Affirmative Action
Nice Quotes
President Silver-Spoon
Pink Swastikas
An Anti-Quota Smoke Screen
GOP Racism
Trent Lott Archives
Nice Quotes
Responding to a proposal to rename Houston's Intercontinental Airport
after a black congressman, Jim Westmoreland, a Republican city councilman,
had a better idea: "The idea now is to name the airport Nigger
International. That way it would satisfy all the blacks."
The airport was eventually named after George Bush 1. (more
here)
"There are more American Indians alive today than there were
when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this
sound like a record of genocide?" --Rush Limbaugh (great article
of Limbaugh rebuttals here)
"There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every
slight. The negroes of Washington had their public schools, restaurants,
bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours."
--Pat Buchanan, reflecting on 1950s race relations in his autobiography.
(here)
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual
gay sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you
have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have
the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." Pennsylvania
Republican Sen. Rick Santorum (here)
"Fuck the Jews. They don't vote for us anyway." James
Baker to George Bush Sr. in 1992, as relayed by William Safire in
the New York Times (more
here)
"Do you have blacks, too?" George W. Bush, to a shocked
Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cordoso, in a meeting in March
2001 (Brazil has approximately 170 million black citizens--half
its total population) (here)
Silver Spoon
"Here's a guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit
a triple." --Jim Hightower (here)
NY Times
"President Bush's opposition to the admissions system at the
University of Michigan is easy to take," Representative Robert
Menendez said, "for a man who has benefited from a system that
rewarded him entry into the Ivy League not because of his test scores
and grades but in spite of those test scores and grades, and because
his daddy was an alumnus."
He said Mr. Bush had benefited from a policy of preference for
"legacies and wealth, a preference that has disproportionately
helped whites."
"We have a president who, on his own merit, might not have
made it into Yale," he said. "And he is now trying to
deny the ability of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans
and others the ability to compete with students from private schools
in affluent areas of this country."
After the forum, Tom Daschle formally sought to get the Senate
to file a brief in the case in support of the university. But Republicans
objected, with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania saying the
White House position was the correct one. (here)
Pickering Gets in, Encouraged Enforcement
of Racist Mississippi Laws
Judge Pickering has routinely dismissed claims of racial discrimination
by minorities, stating that aggrieved parties reflexively claim
discrimination causes "any adverse action against them."
As a law student, Judge Pickering wrote a law review article urging
the Mississippi legislature to amend the state's anti-miscegenation
law to make it enforceable. He also attempted to reduce the charges
against a defendant accused of burning a cross on the lawn on an
interracial couple. (here)
Hackers Uncover Blacked-out Pages
Earlier this year, a report that harshly criticized the Justice
Department's diversity efforts was posted on the department's website
with half of its 186 pages blacked out. An independent website operator
was able to bypass the poor security measures and posted an uncensored
version.
"The unedited report, completed in June 2002 by the consulting
firm KPMG, found that minority employees at the department, which
is responsible for enforcing the country's civil rights laws, perceive
their own workplace as biased and unfair."
One redacted section concluded that "[t]he [Justice] Department
faced significant diversity issues… minorities are significantly
more likely than whites to cite stereotyping, harassment and racial
tension as characteristics of the work climate." Also blacked
out: efforts to promote diversity "will take extraordinarily
strong leadership" from the attorney general's office. David
Shaffer, an attorney, said that the incident demonstrates "[t]he
Justice Department has sought to hide from the public statistically
significant findings of discrimination against minorities within
its ranks." (The uncensored report is here)
(More
here)
Lets Change The Data!
DOCTORING DATA: A new report reveals that political appointees
in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) doctored a
study that revealed racial disparities in healthcare. The report,
commissioned Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and seven colleagues, compares
the draft report prepared by HHS scientists to the final version,
edited by political appointees. In an effort to minimize the problem,
political appointees deleted key sections of the report. Deleted:
conclusion by HHS scientists that healthcare disparities are "national
problems." Deleted: findings by HHS scientists on the social
costs of healthcare disparities (including lost productivity, needless
disability and early death). Deleted: key examples of health care
disparities, including findings that racial and ethnic minorities
are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage cancer, die of HIV
and be subjected to physical restraints in nursing homes. (here)
Beware the Pink Swastika!
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Some of Rep. Arlon Lindner's, (R-Minnesota) fine comments
to the Minnesota State Legislature:
"Nazi persecution of gays and lesbians is a new idea spawned
by a lot of rewriting of history."
"What I'm trying to prevent is the Holocaust of our children
from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. If you want to
sit around and wait until America becomes another African continent,
you do that, but I'm going to do something."
Later he said, "I don't believe that's a racist statement.
That's a statement of fact." He also said he had no idea that
his black colleagues would be offended. "I don't think of them
as black people," he said.
"I'm not convinced that they were persecuted," he said,
suggesting that the main gay participants in the Holocaust were
Nazi concentration camp guards. That contention, he added, is laid
out in a book called "The Pink Swastika," which he hasn't
read but is trying to lay his hands on.
"The Pink Swastika" contends that the Nazi Party was controlled
by gays and lesbians and that they were largely responsible for
Nazi atrocities, including the deaths of 6 million Jews in concentration
camps.
"We should never tolerate two men or women being married. Next
it could be a man marrying a child or a man marrying a dog."
-- April 28, 1997, after the House voted to keep a ban on same-sex
marriages.
" . . . But don't impose your irreligious left views on me."
-- Feb. 23, 2000, to Rep. Michael Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, during a
debate on whether the prayer that opens each House floor session
should remain nondenominational. Paymar, who is Jewish, spoke in
favor of nondenominational prayer. Lindner said he didn't intend
to insult Jewish people.
An Anti-Quota Smoke Screen
NY Times
The Bush administration sacrificed truth for political gain when
it filed legal briefs urging the Supreme Court to overturn the University
of Michigan's use of racial "quotas" in admissions.
Michigan's admissions system does not use racial quotas. But the
administration has clearly decided the best way to appease its right-wing
supporters without alienating the rest of the country is to disguise
its anti-affirmative-action agenda as an anti-quota crusade. The
administration should start leveling with the American people about
race, and it should stop trying to turn back the clock.
President Bush said this week that Michigan's policies were fatally
flawed because they "amount to a quota system that unfairly
rewards or penalizes prospective students based solely on their
race." The administration has fixed on the word "quota"
because it has long been political kryptonite. Pollsters know that
many Americans who say they favor "affirmative action"
flip sides when asked about "racial quotas."
But "quota" has a specific meaning, and the University
of Michigan's admissions policies do not meet it. In University
of California Regents v. Bakke, the landmark 1978 case that upheld
affirmative action while striking down quotas, the Supreme Court
invalidated a medical school admissions system that set aside 16
"special admissions" places in the class, which invariably
went to minorities.
At Michigan, in both undergraduate and law school admissions, all
applicants apply for all positions in the class. The university
gives applicants extra points for belonging to an underrepresented
racial or ethnic minority. But it also gives diversity points to
applicants who come from an underrepresented part of the state,
like Michigan's largely white Upper Peninsula, scholarship athletes,
and men in the nursing program.
The administration has suggested that the University of Michigan's
program is unusually flawed. In fact, most highly selective educational
institutions rely on similar admissions criteria. If the Supreme
Court holds Michigan's procedures to be unconstitutional, it will
force an overhaul in admissions policies nationwide.
Mr. Bush insisted this week that he strongly supports "racial
diversity in higher education." But it does no good to support
having underrepresented minorities in selective colleges and graduate
schools without providing mechanisms that will get them there. (here)
Oakland's Reeves Rips GOP
Racism
L.A. Times
State Republican official's e-mail to board members says that blacks
'provide window dressing'
The highest ranking African-American in the California Republican
Party condemned the racism he has endured working for the GOP.
"Black Republicans are expected to provide window dressing
and cover to prove that this is not a racist party, yet our own
leadership continues to act otherwise," party Secretary Shannon
Reeves wrote in an e-mail to party board members.
His comments were sparked by news that Vice Chairman Bill Back
had circulated an electronic newsletter in 1999 containing an article
by someone else suggesting that the nation would have been better
off if the South had won the Civil War. Electing Back "would
take the CRP beyond the point of repair with voters in a pluralistic
state ... and doom us to irrelevance," Reeves wrote.
Back will not drop out, spokesman Darrel Ng said. "Bill has
spent many, many years working to broaden the party. He's not going
to give up now. He's in for the long haul." (here)
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