Looking out: The same gang

By Brandon Astor Jones "We hear talk from elected officials these days about contracts, compacts, and covenants, about obligation and opportunity. Seldom ... do we see any discussion of race [or] any acknowledgment that race remains a searing issue in our society. This silence stands in stark contrast to the incessant ranting on radio talk shows about angry white males ... about affirmative action and preferential treatment." — Hugh B. Price, president, National Urban League Forty-five years ago I found myself the only black child at an all-white school. My family had moved from Chicago's inner city, where I rarely saw a white face. I had to walk five miles each way to get to Lowell Longfellow School. The start of my first day was filled with the usual hopes and fears of a seven-year-old. After the principal lectured me about the rules and regulations, he sent me to my new classroom, where I was introduced to the class and assigned a desk. When recess came, I had to pass through a group of students gathered at the classroom door. On the playground I was met by a menacing gang of bullies. I would later learn they were led by Paul Bentley, Richard Tucker and Richard Pomerantz. I was unprepared for a hostile confrontation and literally fell for the oldest trick in the book. As one boy got down on his hands and knees behind me, two others pushed me backward. From that moment on, I was forced to fight every day — sometimes against several boys at once. What started out to be the basic intellectual development of an eager-to-learn seven-year-old had deteriorated into a daily series of battles in a race war that had been declared upon me. Eventually I began to initiate my own assaults in an effort to pre-empt the endless attacks. Semesters turned into years, and all I had really learned in school was that I was very tired of fighting for no other reason than the colour of my skin. The experience was so overwhelming that when I graduated from the fifth grade I never went back to school — a decision I regret to this day. By that time I was not the only black student at Lowell Longfellow. Nevertheless, I had endured enough. If there had been anti-discrimination and/or affirmative action laws on the books back in those days — well, I think you get my point. Tragically, there are still thousands of children of colour going through similar battles, yet an increasing number of men in seats of power want to dismantle affirmative action because, as they see it, women and people of colour are getting too much preferential treatment. As if less than two generations of affirmative action has corrected more than 400 years of violence and discrimination. White males occupy 47% of the space in US workplaces, and 97% in the corporate seats of power. These figures alone bespeak the critical need for even stronger affirmative action measures. I can agree that there are areas in the present scheme where appropriate review would be useful. However, it is clear that a meat-axe approach would result in a thoughtless dismemberment of an already crippled society. There would be no need for affirmative action if those in power could be depended on to be fair. Affirmative action is not about quotas: it is about making the playing field of prosperity level. Sadly, in their ignorance, Paul Bentley, Richard Tucker, Richard Pomerantz and Newt Gingrich are all members of the same gang.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]