Barack and Affirmative Action

It was hard to believe, but there it was in my current home town paper. The St. George Spectrum. Let me quote the author of the piece: “The presidency should not be decided by Affirmative Action. And, I fear, that's all Obama's election would be. The same, of course, could be said if Hillary Clinton, God forbid, runs a successful campaign.” A meme had successfully migrated to the paper.

A meme is an idea that gets transmitted through a culture. The right has already tried “the closet Muslim” meme on Obama with little success. This one I think will be more successful.
Let’s call this, “The affirmative action” meme. It’s the idea that if people are voting for Obama, they are only doing so out of a sense of guilt. They are depriving a qualified white man of their vote. The idea that affirmative action deprives white men of their due by placing unqualified people of color in their place still has currency.

As a white man, let me give you my quick take on affirmative action. We have made it necessary. My white skin buys me certain privileges in this society. I will never be pulled over by police because of the color of my skin. This is not white guilt. This is a recognition that some historical redress needs to be made. I don’t think affirmative action is perfect, but right now it’s the best we have. I’m voting for Obama not because of the color of his skin. At first, my horse
was Edwards. He was the strongest anti-war candidate there was. Obama’s a close second.

But let’s get back to the meme. I first noticed it a little while ago while reading David Horowitz’s Frontpage Magazine website. Joseph Puder called Obama, “thefirst affirmative action candidate.” Here’s more:


The blind support and almost universal cheering of college students for Obama is a by-product of years of indoctrination on college campuses (especially Ivy League universities) under the stern eyes of faculty and administrative “political correctors,” who bar the teaching of Western
Civilization and bash Europeans as imperialists, oppressors and racists. It seems as if American college students have been groomed to cheer a black presidential candidate thereby providing them with a small measure of ablution from their “racist sins.”


Yes, White America, us college profs were working behind the scenes for years, just to ensure an unqualified black man would defeat a qualified white man for the presidency.

It only took two days for this meme to travel from Frontpage to my hometown paper.

Here’s what the conservative open-source site Conservapedia says about Obama:


Obama has absolutely no military, executive or foreign policy experience. Yet he is the favorite of the leftist attack site "MoveOn.org" for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, campaigning to the left of Hillary Clinton. He has no clear personal achievement that cannot be explained as the likely result of affirmative action.


I guess if one ignores a pretty solid legislative record as a first-termer, including ethics reform, international proliferation of loose nukes, and restructuring of disaster relief, port-Katrina, his record does look pretty bleak. Not to mention his accomplishments at one on the premier law schools in the country and a fairly solid record of legal scholarship. I guess it is just another unqualified black man stealing what rightfully belongs to a white man.

Apropos of nothing. The conservative record on affirmative action is pretty baffling. I generally support affirmative action and see it as a flawed but necessary remedy for what has happened in this country. It's used in other circumstances as well. Curiously conservatives have no problem with legacy admissions to schools. In fact, National Association of Scholars president Stephen Balch, seems to think they’re pretty benign. I’ve also never heard conservatives express reservations about civil service “reach downs” to veterans. Military veterans are fast-tracked for all kind of government jobs, from police to firefighters. I’ve never heard a conservative say
that an unqualified veteran took a job from a qualified non-veteran.

Maybe we should listen to this meme. Maybe Obama is part of the legacy of affirmative action. But he’s the best argument I’ve seen for it yet.

Cross-Linked From:

commprof.newsvine.com

Research on Social Movements and Virtual Connections

This study examines the impact of geographic dispersion and technological mediation on the organizing processes of a virtual network organization. Listserv and conference call records from the approximately two-year existence of the Continental Direct Action Network were analyzed in order to examine how the virtualness of this organization impacted participants' perceptions of opportunity, balance of latency and mobilization, formation of a collective identity, and formation of affective bonds. The results reveal some of the local/global tensions that may exist in the organizing processes of virtual network organizations. They also demonstrate that an identity tension may emerge when new geographic localities join an already existing virtual network organization. It is suggested that new routes for informal communication among geographic localities may be necessary in order to enhance these processes and socialize new members into the network.

Full Article Available Here:

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue3/shumate.html