Under the Sun: End of racial bias? Not yet

I knew it would happen. But so did others. We knew the election of the first African American president would become the weapon of choice for opponents of affirmative action.

Why, a black man lives in the White House; you can't get any more equal than that, they say. Now, all God's children have shoes. The playing field is absolutely level. Black folks can dream about something else. Affirmative action must die!

What is so disheartening - but it was also predictable - is that this terrible exercise in wishful thinking has been appropriated by a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, as evidenced by its recent 5-4 decision in the Ricci v. DeStefano case.

The court said it was wrong of New Haven, Conn., to make white firefighters wait to be promoted until they could take a new test that was less likely to discriminate against blacks who had also applied for promotion. No blacks qualified under the old test, but the court said that by itself wasn't evidence of the exam's bias.

In other words, just because a man walking across the street is hit by a beer truck, it doesn't mean the collision caused his broken arms, and legs, and ribs, and smashed his face. So, go on with your business as usual, Mr. Truck Driver, while we pillory this fellow for trying to delay your journey.

The court fired a shotgun blast at the very essence of any affirmative-action program, which is that historical discrimination against minorities was so egregious in this country that they should be provided special assistance to overcome the vestiges of that bias, even if such assistance temporarily disadvantages whites.

Critics of affirmative action have long screamed that such an approach is unfair. They're right, just as the original biases that made affirmative action necessary were also unfair. But no one has come up with a better way to open previously closed doors to opportunity.

Of course, many good people, and companies, didn't need a government prod to do right by minorities. I owe my first job as a newspaperman to a white Southern editor who had made up his mind that he needed a black reporter on his staff. Having recently graduated from a small college that produced a weekly student newspaper, my skills were limited, but he gave me a chance.

Were Duard LeGrand alive today, I think he would appreciate the return he got from his investment 34 years ago. But for every story like mine, there are countless in which qualified minorities were denied a job or promotion due to bias.

That's ancient history, say affirmative action's critics. It's time we judged everyone on the content of their character, and not the color of their skin. They want to act as if skin color, or ethnicity, had nothing to do with where a person grew up, how much money his parents earned, his health, or the education he received.

They want to pretend that all the baggage that comes with being the descendants of slaves has been tossed into the trash heap just because a particular African American, whose own ancestral history doesn't include that same baggage, has ascended to the presidency of the United States.

They point to statistical evidence that blacks are healthier, wealthier, and better educated than they have ever been. But they ignore that Africans are still disproportionately poor, undereducated, unemployed, incarcerated, and sick. Each of these disparities can be traced to slavery and segregation, but the Supreme Court majority in Ricci v. DeStefano all but said, so what?

The court majority didn't care about the compelling story of blacks in the United States, nor the more specific story of discrimination against African Americans who were denied jobs as firemen, or those who became firefighters but were forced to eat and sleep apart from whites in the firehouse.

The court majority was more concerned that the dyslexic Frank Ricci had spent hard-earned money to be tutored for New Haven's multiple-choice test for prospective fire lieutenants and captains only to be told that he had to put his ambitions on hold until a fairer test that more accurately assessed firefighter leadership skills could be developed.

The court majority treated as irrelevant the fact that studies show blacks don't do as well on standardized, multiple-choice tests, which is a clear educational vestige of segregated, poorly performing schools. It also ignored that other cities use better tests that simulate firefighting situations to choose fire-company leaders.

Too caught up was this court in its zeal to send the message that, as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy put it, "No individual should face workplace discrimination based on race."

Oh, that sounds so reasonable. Except that the statement assumes that special treatment is no longer necessary to overcome the effects of past bias. It assumes that, left to their own devices, people today won't let their prejudices get in the way when making employment decisions.

It assumes a colorblind America that, with its brand-new black president, is certainly within reach but is not yet in our grasp. The court's decision is not so much wrong as it is premature.

I understand the frustration of whites who don't believe they are biased, and don't see why they have to put their own dreams on hold to make amends for the prejudice of their ancestors. But they should take heart in the racial progress that has been made, and know it does signal the nearness of that day in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream.

We're closer than ever, but not yet is it the reality.