White men are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action this country has ever seen.
That’s not rhetoric or metaphor. It's only truth.
If affirmative action is defined as giving someone an extra boost based on race, it’s hard to see how anyone can argue the point. Slots for academic admission, for employment and promotion, for bank loans and for public office have routinely been set aside for white men. This has always been the nation’s custom. Until the 1960s, it was also the nation’s law.
So if we want to talk about achievements being tainted by racial preference, it seems only logical to start there. After all, every worthwhile thing African Americans achieved prior to the mid-‘60s – Berry Gordy’s record label, John Johnson’s publishing company, Alain Leroy Locke’s Rhodes scholarship, Madame C.J. Walker’s hair care empire, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams’ pioneering heart surgery – was done, not just without racial preference, but against a backdrop of open racial hostility.
By contrast, nothing white men have ever achieved in this country was done without racial and gender preferences. Affirmative action.
I know that will be hard for some folks to hear. I know it will leave some white brothers indignant. And I expect many recitations of “up by my bootstraps” and “know what it’s like to be poor.” We all want to feel that we made it on our own merits, and it’s not my intention to diminish the combination of pluck, luck, hard work and ability that typically distinguishes success, whether white, black or magenta.
There’s a word for those who believe race is not a significant factor in white success: delusional.
It is not coincidence, happenstance or evidence of their intellectual, physical or moral superiority that white guys dominate virtually every field of endeavor worth dominating. It is, rather, a sign that the proverbial playing field is not level and never has been.
www.pulitzer.org