by Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzalez
We could end discrimination by making it as
least as repugnant and punishable as smoking
in public.
WE HAVE FOUND A SENSIBLE SOLUTION to the highly divisive issue of affirmative
action: We can live with dismantling affirmative action if, in exchange,
we as a society make the eradication of discrimination our No. 1
priority. We can do this by criminalizating the offense: Deny someone
a job, a loan or an education because of race or ethnicity or gender,
and go to jail.
We challenge our body politic on both sides of the political spectrum
to seriously consider this simple proposition.
Currently, the perpetratotors of hate and prejudice are fined, at best.
But even that's rare. We as a society have never legally treated discrimination
as a serious offense. We have determined that it is no worse than loitering,
littering or smoking in public. In fact, littering and smoking are now
considered much more socially offensive.
The other side of Hitler was egotistical, arrogant, grandiose, loquacious,
aggressive and irritable. He had delusions of omnipotence, invincibility
and infallibility, violent mood swings, rages, racing thoughts and pressured
speech.
As Carl Rowan documents in "Dream Makers, Dream Breakers," which chronicles
the life of Justice Thurgood Marshall, historically, the people who
have gone to jail were those fighting against discrimination, not those
practicing or perpetuating it.
"Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" proclaimed
Alabama Gov. George Wallace in his inaugural speech in 1963. Six months
later, he stood outside the University of Alabama to refuse admission
to two African American students, and he never spent a day in jail.
In part, this is because U.S. coursts now operate on the thesis that
"racism is largely a thing of the past and color-blindness a current
reality," writes Lani Guinier in "The Tryanny of the Majority." Reading
her 1994 book, which offers an insightful view on the development of
our nations's civil rights laws, one gets the impression that discrimination
is a complex issue.
From a legal standpoint, it is. Yet morally, the issue is quite simple:
Discrimination has no place in a civilized, democratic society.
Even the opponents of civil rights publicly agree with that. Where
people differ is in their perception of the extent of the problem and
in their approaches about how to solve it.
Allowing history to render judgment against bigots or simply handing
out fines has consistently permitted society to feel comfortable with
the idea that such practices are not so bad.
Further, the historically underfunded Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, which is generally charged with enforcing antidiscrimination
laws, provides little disincentive for employers and even lawmakers
to discriminate. EEOC's current backlog is roughly 100,000 cases.
For the sake of argument, let's agree to disagree about the prevalence
of discrimination. And let's agree that no one actually wants quotas
and nobody ever actually wanted affirmative action. Affirmative action
arose as a means by which to rememdy the legacy of historical bigotry
and as a means to deal with current offenses. Let's agree that we as
a society no longer need to make reparations for past practices, but
instead need to decide how we as a society morally and legally deal
with the current problem.
Discrimination should be considered the most morally
repugnant thing one human being can do to another.
To deny people jobs because of their race, ethnicity or gender is to
deprive them of their livelihood. To remand children to an inferior
education because of their skin color is to potentially condemn them
to a life of crime and poverty. To deny people the right to live wherever
they choose is to tell them that they are not worthy of living among
other human beings.
Our task as a society should be to create a punishment to fit the crime,
a powerful disincentive, such as criminalizing discrimination and making
a committment to end it once and for all. And, yes, that would most
definitely also call for more funds. That's the trade-off. We argue
that the moral price of violating the human spirit is higher than the
monetary, material cost of mounting a serious effort to dismantle the
remnants of Jim and Jane Crow.
Criminalizing discrimination should satisfy everyone: those who want
to dismantle affirmative action and those who truly are committed to
creating a color-blind society.
Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzalez write a syndicated column
in San Francisco.
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Commentary
There is or was a comic strip, once appearing in National Lampoon, called
Politeness Man. A slightly Dick Tracy like character roamed the world
looking for breaches of etiquette. He'd usually do something like jumping
through a window to lecture a startled armed robber on the need to say
"Please!" when asking victims for their cash. He would then turn to
the victims and excoriate them for some even more abstruse breach of
syntax or conduct and then award them the Steel Hanky (five pound metal
likeness of the rag you're supposed to pick up when a lady drops it)
usually flinging it upside their heads and knocking them out, finally
departing to the sound of thanks from the real criminal. Now why did
that come to mind?
But indeed -- isn't it time that we as a nation turned away from our
petty preoccupation with street murders, rapes, armed robbery, impending
national insolvency, wars, famine and disease and instead address ourselves
to something of real importance -- like people calling each other names?
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