Perhaps California's mostly liberal voters aren't as "progressive" as we thought because even though former Vice President Joe Biden defeated President Trump in a California landslide last month, that state's voters actually moved toward the center of the political spectrum.
Exhibit "A" is the fact that California Republicans flipped four House seats formerly held by liberal Democrats. Exhibit "B" is the fact that Golden State voters defeated Proposition 16, which would have eliminated a ban on race-based admissions to the sprawling University of California System, by a surprising 14-point margin, 57-43 in a state that Democrat Biden carried 64-36. "Californians, like most Americans, don't like racial discrimination," commented veteran Washington Examiner columnist Michael Barone. Congratulations to California voters for rejecting racist legislation favored by elitist college administrators and corporate executives.
"Racial quotas and preferences these days discriminate less against whites than against Asians, who are denied places (college admissions) despite high test scores and rigorous preparation," Barone added. That's why Asian-Americans are suing Harvard and Yale for low-ranking Asians in the "positive personality" category. Yes, really.
The politically correct suburban Seattle school district that sets policy for my 16-year-old twin grandsons' high school has endorsed Black Lives Matter, a racist organization that demonizes white people and police officers of all known skin colors, and has also established a "Racial and Educational Justice Team" to make sure all students understand that America is an unfortunate nation founded on slavery and plagued by "systemic racism" and "white privilege." I call it ideological indoctrination.
Classifying people on the basis of ethnicity and/or race is a murky proposition. There are several questions about race and ethnicity on Census forms, but those questions can be complicated and tricky. For example, consider former President Barack Obama and noted "social justice warrior" Colin Kaepernick, both of whom are half black, half white men who were raised by white people, Obama by his grandparents (his grandfather served in World War II) and "Kap" by his white adoptive parents in Wisconsin and Turlock, California. So don't tell me that Kap is an "oppressed black person."
A former director of the U.S. Census, Kenneth Prewitt, told the Wall Street Journal last month that race questions are "incoherent because race is incoherent." "Americans of two or more races, or ethnicities — including Vice President-elect Kamala Harris — are the country's fastest-growing demographic, and they defy labels," the Journal added.
Ward Connerly, the 81-year-old conservative African-American businessman who led the successful 1996 California ballot initiative to ban racial preferences in that state's sprawling university system, also worked against Prop 16. In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Connerly decried "an era of racial bean-counting that has brought us to where we are today, with 'diversity' and 'affirmative action' on steroids, being used not really for black people, but to remake America." Connerly described the Asian-American fight for educational equality as "probably the truest civil rights movement of our time."
Clearly, it's time to put an end to racial preferences and quotas in America. Amen.
Guy W. Farmer is the Appeal's senior political columnist.
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