What does "better qualified" mean?

On November 1, 2012, I responded to an op-ed penned by Michael Kinsley regarding affirmative action. Kinsley was responding to a recent study suggesting that those admitted to prestigious law schools under affirmative action programs, and hence less qualified, would be better off going to universities with a less challenging curriculum.

Kinsley's piece challenged this assumption, and I agreed with most of what he wrote in this column. When he used the term "better qualified," however, to describe those non-affirmative action admissions, I could not keep silent.

My response to Kinsley's discounting of my qualifications, is reposted below. What do you think?


Re "Overthinking affirmative action," Opinion, Nov. 1

I was admitted to UCLA Law School in 1987, when it had an aggressive and effective affirmative action program. I take issue with most of white America's view that affirmative action lowers the bar for minorities in the admissions process, selecting us over "better qualified" applicants.

What qualifications are we talking about? I was a single mother in college and worked 40 hours a week. Thus, I had at least 55 hours a week that were unavailable for study, even though I also carried a full load and consistently had a high grade-point average.

So the real question is, if those applicants who were trust-funded through school had to do what I did to get to the same place, could they have done so?

Affirmative action is about assessing one's qualifications in ways that measure things other than GPAs and test scores.

Irene Daniel

Los Angeles

THE GOP AND RACE IN AMERICA: Whiteness to Die For

By  M. Irene Daniel

                I have been working on this story for a while now. Every time I felt ready to write it, more incidences of GOP dog whistles surfaced. However, I don’t really want to talk about the comments or antics of the likes of Ann Coulter or Donald, the clown, Trump. That would be too easy. Pointing out the obviously ugly and arrogant ignorance of these, and their ilk, is really not challenging, or new. Going over their comments and pointing out the obvious is not only an odious task, but is simply a waste of precious time.

                I would like to examine what is behind these dog whistles, and why they are so effective. I want to talk about the power of an idea, an idea of whiteness, and what the history of this idea has been. How has this idea evolved, or devolved, and how does it continue to manifest today in our country?

                I was recently chatting with a friend of mine who grew up in the south. She told me the story of how one of her white male relatives, a life-long Democrat who actually agreed with Obama’s policies and intentions, could simply not bring himself to vote for a black man. Just couldn’t do it. She also shared how ashamed he was and that he felt powerless to change.  Initially, I was angered by this story. This anger, however, fueled a curiosity, which led to seeking, which led me to compassion for this man who seemed trapped by an obsolete, yet still powerful idea, of white supremacy.  Rather than assign shame or blame for the racial divide in this country, I find it more productive, as well as more interesting, to attempt to trace its origin, in an attempt to understand the largeness of the idea of whiteness.

I recalled a memory of my own, in which the child of a white conservative friend of mine was telling a story about a group of people. There was “a black man, and a Mexican, and an American,” he said. Before he could continue, I asked him what he meant by “American.” He confirmed that the American in his story was the white person. I asked him if he thought that only white people could be Americans. He seemed to have that “deer in the headlights” look on his face, as we both realized that no one had ever had this kind of conversation with this young man.

                I was not angry with him at all. He was just a kid after all, about 10 years old. But I was somewhat surprised at how easily these categories came to him. He was not in any way a mean or insensitive child; in fact, quite the opposite. He was growing up in a white middle-class conservative Christian family that would in no way see themselves as racist, nor did I. And yet, somehow, his perception of a white America indicated a priority, or superiority.

                I recently read an op-ed in the LA Times (October 18, 2012) wherein K.C. Cole, a professor of journalism at USC, referred to such classification as “default assumptions.” It is these default assumptions that suggest images and priorities. For example, when we think of the term CEO, our hard drive conjures up an image of a white male. It is these default assumptions that suggest to white Americans that “affirmative action hires” are less worthy and/or competent than white males. I will more specifically address affirmative action in another blog post in the interest of brevity and readability. For both of these issues are more complex than black and white.

                I have personally witnessed countless examples of people being unable to change, or even challenge their default assumptions about others. I recall my third year in law school at UCLA, involving the Roscoe Pound Moot Court competition. In the spring of 1990, when the moot court finalists were announced, there was not one able-bodied white male among them. There were white males with physical disabilities, a few white women (one of whom was blind), and several persons of color, male and female, who successfully argued their way, orally and in writing, to this major law school victory. This perceived “dumbing down” of moot court motivated one of the white males in our school to write an opinion in ‘The Docket,’ our law school newspaper, discounting the esteemed honor earned by these accomplished finalists. He basically accused the judges of lowering the standards in order to allow these candidates to prevail, and lamented that this would lead to the devaluation of his law school diploma from a school that molly-coddles “the other.” He thought it was very humanitarian to try to give these people a chance, but it wasn’t worth the devaluation of his degree, and hence, his future.

                This inaccurate perception of non-white success is often found in the comments of John Sununu, one of Mitt Romney’s most prominent surrogates, suggesting that President Obama is not a legitimate occupier of the White House, not "American" enough. I have also witnessed this attitude in my own personal life. I remember hearing conservative white people expressing outrage at the fact that my brother owned a home with a pool, and that I had been admitted to the UCLA School of Law; the perception being that something was amiss here. How could these dirty Mexicans deserve things like pools and educations? These things were for white people. These are not imagined or exaggerated examples of how many, not all, white conservatives perceive ethnic minorities, especially minority women. These are, but a few, real memories from my life experience. What I know of racial misperceptions I know, not because I read it about somewhere, even though I have studied racial issues even beyond college and law school, but because I have lived the reality of the “default assumption” that white is better, smarter, more worthy.

                When I was in college I wrote a paper entitled, “How Racism Killed Huey Long,” the premise of which is, I think, informative here. Although there were no persons of color directly involved with the assassination of the Louisiana Kingfish, the idea of whiteness over blackness played a major role in the deaths of Long and his assassin, both white men of sophistication and stature in their community.

                Huey Long was assassinated by Carl Austin Weiss, the son-in-law of Judge Benjamin Pavy, a longtime political rival of the Kingfish.  At the time of his murder, Long had made so many powerful and corrupt enemies that he was always surrounded by several armed bodyguards. So, any attempt on his life would most assuredly end, not in arrest, but death by bodyguard. The assassin was a young, and very accomplished, medical doctor with a wife and baby, and seemingly everything to look forward to in life. So why would a young man with a beautiful young family and a promising professional future commit knowing suicide by taking a shot at Huey Long?

                A story had been leaked that Long was about to expose what he said was proof that Judge Pavy’s family lineage was tainted with negro blood. While this might seem laughable today, in the 1930’s Louisiana of Jim Crow, having even 1/32 negro blood meant that you could not drink from white drinking fountains, use white bathrooms, or enjoy any other privilege of whiteness. And for this young man, the thought of his little baby drinking out of the same drinking fountains as negroes, was enough to commit himself to his own death, if it meant preventing such a dark future for his little white baby. His whiteness was, literally, to die for.

                Even though there is no more Jim Crow, centuries of legally sanctioned racism, and the ensuing exploitation of ethnic minorities, cannot be overcome with less than half a century of trying to correct this festering American cancer of racism.  The residual subliminal racism affects us all. Even those who have been discriminated against sometimes adopt a preference for whiteness.  Otherwise, why is it that, in test after test, little black girls prefer white dolls, and often see whiteness as prettier? We have all been conditioned, on some level of consciousness to see whiteness as better, more desirable. Much of this societal norm is not intentional, but, as Robert Frost once said, “Way leads on to way.”

                These residual attitudes need not be viewed as anything but a natural consequence of our racial history. We are now, however, in the 21st century, and it is time to evolve out of this notion of whiteness as superior. For, just as was the case with Huey Long, this outdated and incorrect attitude, is what is killing the 90% white GOP. It might not happen in this election cycle, but certainly by the next presidential election, no group, of any kind, that is 90% white will be viable for long. This is not ideology. This is math.

                The 3 largest growing demographics in the United States right now are women, youth and Latinos. Accordingly, whatever you are selling in the USA, be it ideologies, cars or washing machines, this is your target market. Generally, when one is courting a target market, the intent is to invite, entice and encourage that market to take a look at your product, or, as is the case with the GOP, your policies. If I were trying to encourage someone to join a group, I would try to ensure that they felt comfortable, and not out of place in said group. Why then, is the Republican party doing exactly the opposite when it comes to ethnic minorities, or as I heard one Tea Party member describe us, “the mud races?” He actually said that, I’m not making any of this up.

                The obvious, and unconstitutional, attempts to disenfranchise blacks and Latinos in numerous swing states, the inhumane manner in which undocumented Latinos are maligned, the racial-profiling legislation like Arizona’s SB1070 – the show-me-your-papers law, the unprecedented rudeness and disrespect for our first African-American president, the birthers and those who want to see the president’s report card, and the list could go on forever; are all ideas promulgated by Republicans and all evidence an assumption regarding the superiority of whiteness in America. And it is this assumption that seems to drive much of the opposition to President Obama. This does not mean, of course, that any criticism of the president is racist. I have some criticisms of my own. Rather, it is the manner in which this critique is communicated by the extreme right that is racially derogatory, replete with references to watermelons and images of witch-doctors. Moreover, Mitt Romney’s condescending manner reinforces this idea that President Obama is not “American;” kinda like that 10-year old kid I told you about earlier.

                 The point of all of this for me, is to try to understand why the idea of whiteness, as well as the default assumption of its supremacy, is still so powerful today. Who can deny that this is true? And even more confounding, is why people like Carl Weiss, and institutions like the Republican party, prefer non-existence in whiteness, to surviving by acknowledging racial equality, and surrending the false notion that being white somehow makes one more credible.