Looks like Trump is no anomaly. Racism is as American as apple pie. Even the highest court in the land is not immune to racist rhetoric. We seem to be teetering on the edge of something wicked. To quote William Faulkner "the past is never dead. it's not even past." It's scary really. My fervent hope is that people's eyes will open and this will be the beginning of truth and healing. But then that's always my fervent hope and it hasn't come to fruition yet. But since I'm quoting how about a little Dickinson “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -
NYT Rewrites Scalia to Make Him Sound Less Racist
New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak (12/9/15) recounted a startling moment in the Court’s oral arguments over the University of Texas’ affirmative action plan:
In a remark that drew muted gasps in the courtroom, Justice Antonin Scalia said that minority students with inferior academic credentials may be better off at “a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.”
“I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible,” he added.
But part of the reason that the remark drew “muted gasps,” surely, is that that’s not what Scalia said–he didn’t say minority students “with inferior academic credentials” would be better off at worse schools, he said African-Americans in general would. Here’s the whole passage:
There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less–a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas…. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.
He goes on to suggest that “really competent blacks” would be better off if they were “admitted to lesser schools”:
I’m just not impressed by the fact that the University of Texas may have fewer [black students]. Maybe it ought to have fewer. And maybe some, you know, when you take more, the number of blacks, really competent blacks, admitted to lesser schools turns out to be less. And I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.
This is not a person talking about a subset of blacks with a particular kind of educational background; taking his words at face value, this is a person asserting that African-Americans as a whole belong in “lesser schools” that are not “too fast for them.” (Or that “there are those who contend” that that is the case, if you want to give Scalia credit for that circumlocution.)
The fact that a Supreme Court justice justifies eliminating affirmative action on the basis of openly racist views ought to be big news. By sugarcoating what Scalia actually said, the New York Times disguises that news–making the ethnic cleansing of America’s top schools a more palatable possibility. Perhaps that shouldn’t make me gasp.
http://commondreams.org/views/2015/1...nd-less-racist
Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday morning, CNN reports Minority Leader Harry Reid pushed back on the comments, saying, “These ideas that he pronounced yesterday are racist in application, if not intent. I don’t know about his intent, but it is deeply disturbing to hear a Supreme Court justice endorse racist ideas from the bench on the nation’s highest court. His endorsement of racist theories has frightening ramifications, not the least of which is to undermine the academic achievements of Americans, African-Americans especially.”
http://time.com/4144454/harry-reid-j...scalia-racist/