Tired of the race racket

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views June 17, 2002]

University of California Regent Ward Connerly, who led the fight that ended group preferences in California state government, has moved on to promote an initiative that would forbid state agencies from identifying individuals by race. Decades ago, such a proposal was on the cutting edge of liberalism. Today, it is considered not only conservative but unrealistic.

Even those who agree with Mr. Connerly have doubted whether such an idea could even get enough signatures to be put on the ballot this November. But it did. Even more surprising, polls now show that most Californians are in favor of getting rid of racial designations on government forms and in government records.

Whether these poll numbers will hold up from now until election time, with the whole media establishment in California certain to be against it, is another story. But it is significant that so many people, even in this liberal-left state, are tired of race as an issue and a subject of government policy.

We should all be tired of it. Race has become a racket. It is a very lucrative racket for the likes of Jesse Jackson, who has been able to pry big bucks from big corporations by threatening to organize boycotts against them, which might imply that they were racist. Race has become a political racket as well, with "racism" charges being thrown around with reckless abandon, especially at election time.

None of this helps anyone in the ghettos. On the contrary, it distracts attention from the many means available to all people today to equip themselves with education and skills to take advantage of unprecedented opportunities.

The negativism spread among minority young people by those who promote racial hype may not only lead these youths into blind alleys, but even into violence that can leave them with felony convictions that will handicap them for years to come--far more than racism can.

-- Thomas Sowell is an economist and author of many books, including Preferential Policies: An International Perspective (Morrow), Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas (Free Press/Macmillan) and Migrations and Cultures: A World View (Basic Books).

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