American Exceptionalism?       

  

Harry T. Cook
By Harry T. Cook
8/8/14


 

So I'm reading all these news accounts of how courts at various levels are probing and parsing laws that determine how the race of applicants to public universities may be considered in the admissions process, if at all.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court majority has decided that it isn't the 1960s anymore, nor is it even Reconstruction. Ergo, those justices say, things are different and things are better. Given that, they say, we must give affirmative action no further thought. African-Americans are doing just fine.

 

I have one inquiry of the justices and those who think as they think: What percentage of white people who are descendants of European immigrants were brought to this country by slave ship? The answer must be something like .000001.

 

The great majority of African blacks came to this country against their will and became slaves. Others came on contract as indentured servants. Their coming here could not honestly have been depicted as bravely intentioned voyages such as the ones made by the founders of Jamestown or the Plymouth colony.

 

That being the case, why are we having such a hard time offering the hand up to our fellow African-American citizens, far too many of whom begin life at a definite disadvantage due to slavery and its aftermath known as Jim Crow in their past.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court and its various subordinate appellate benches claim to sweat over every word of every case that heads their way on the subject of affirmative action. One appellate judge told a reporter in a recent interview that dealing with such cases is like "looking for a needle in a haystack." He meant, presumably, that searching for constitutional justification for giving preference to an African-American applicant begins as a lost cause. Really?

 

Nine years ago, 58 percent of Michigan voters adopted an amendment to the state's constitution that outlaws affirmative action in public institutions. The vote was 2,141,010 to 1,555,691 -- by nearly two-thirds. The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the amendment on the grounds that the People rule. Justice Anthony Kennedy said that it wasn't what was at issue, rather who was deciding it.

 

I felt a hot blush of shame for my native state when that ruling came out. Some of the e-mail that showed up in my inbox that day came from people who relished the outcome. Such statements as "Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty we're free at last" were the ones that, at first, hurt and later made me want to drop into a saloon somewhere in a mid-Michigan hamlet and bait a likely target into an argument, teaching him maybe a lesson in history whilst he taught me a lesson in brawling.

 

Sense returned to me almost immediately as I realized that I would wind up an inmate in one county jail or another with blackened eyes and contusions if I picked that fight. I resorted to banging my head against the wall for a while.

 

Here's a true story that makes it clear why affirmative action is vital. It is the most American thing that can be undertaken to make just and overdue reparation for 300 and more years of the nation's abuse of African-Americans:

 

It's toward the end of the Great Depression, and an African-American youth, a grandson of a slave, is finishing the eighth grade in a small Catholic parochial school in a major American city. He has earned top honors and knows even more Latin than many earnest high school students of the day. The nuns who have marveled at his acumen and his interest in learning believe that he is destined for the preparatory school that feeds top talent into a local Catholic university.

 

The day comes for the student's admission interview. Accompanied by a nun, the student presents himself in the outer court of the dean's office. The nun is asked what he is doing there. The dear sister replies that he had come for his scheduled admission interview. Presently a priest arrayed in a Roman cassock appears, blanches at the color of this all-A's applicant and tells him to vacate the premises forthwith.

 

That student grew up to be the mayor of his city. Over four terms, he confronted white racism at every turn, mostly without cooperation from the white power structure.

 

What if he had been accepted at that prep school, gone on to its university, become academically equipped to enter the university's law school, and gone thence to be as brilliant a senator or Supreme Court justice as he was a 14-year-old Latin student? What a difference it could have made.

 

This story belies the rote belief that America is the land of the unfettered free. Our country is not the leading light of democracy among the nations. Not by a long shot.

 

In a recent day's newspaper, one could read the following stories:

  • Wall Street banks have received nearly $1 billion in fees over the last three years advising and persuading American companies to move the address of their headquarters abroad to reduce their tax obligations.
  • An excoriation of those who are working on behalf of low-wage earners to lift the minimum wage to help people get out of poverty.
  • Because of the deliberate refusal of a mostly reactionary Congress to enact laws that would help maintain Social Security, Medicare and disability benefits, the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens may eventually find themselves facing destitution.

Such unpatriotic greed and congressional stubbornness are born of the same kind of willful ignorance and cruelty that held back and put down a brilliant young man just because his skin was dark. What a perversion of the supposed ideals of supposed American exceptionalism.

 


Copyright 2014 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 

Readers Write 
Essay 8/1/14: Eternal Life

 

Alice Randolph, Paris, France:

While temporarily living as a graduate student in the City of Light, I still look forward each Friday to the light you shed on important ideas, events and developments. It's like a letter from home. Your essay today "Eternal Life" will be printed out and framed. It is the best thing I have ever read on the subject. Thank you for your intellect and generosity.

William McFadden, Seattle, WA:

Your reputation preceded you here in the Northwest as a former priest friend of yours, now unfortunately passed away, quoted your work often. I'm not sure what he would say about your "Eternal Life" article, but I'm sure he would respect the work that went into it. I know I do, because I am close to the end of my own life on earth and think about these things. I wish I could say your words were words of comfort. But they are words of integrity and honesty. No more than that can be expected of anyone.

Ronald Payne, Milford Center, OH:

You've penned another excellent essay regarding "eternal" life. As you already know, you are preaching to the choir. Those of us who see reality the way you do will give you a standing ovation. The rest, who cling to the notion that they have another life coming, do so out of fear and superstition and will object to your "heresy," as they wonder aloud how you could have passed yourself off as a Christian for so long. Though I guess that your essays convince few to change their minds or hearts, I love standing for the ovations. I'm the short guy in the third row standing in his seat so you can see my enthusiasm in cheering you on! The others aren't applauding; they are placing orders to have "I'll be right back" chiseled into their headstones.

 

Herb Kaufman, Beverly Hills, MI:

I was almost 71 when I had the first of two grandchildren. I feel very fortunate, though I envy the number you have and the young age at which you had them. If I'm lucky, I'll be here to attend the grade school graduations of mine, but certainly don't expect to be around at the time of high school graduations. But again, fortunate nonetheless. Whenever the subject of children and grandchildren comes up, I am reminded of the time some years past when I visited my 90-years-plus mother at her nursing home in Ohio. Dementia was taking its toll, and I was somewhat surprised when she weakly called my name upon seeing me. Trying to wend my way into her foggy brain, I began showing her pictures in my wallet. "Do you remember your granddaughter Valerie?" was followed by a stare into space. "Do you remember your grandson Martin?" was answered by a side-to-side head nod. The last was a picture of my wife. "Do you remember my wife Sandra?" A brief pause, and then ... "She's not Jewish is she?"

 

Nancy Stern, South Bend, IN:

Your article about eternal life was like a glass of cold water poured on my sleeping face. I was at first offended until I got closer to the end and saw that you would believe in it if you could find a way to do so. Thanks for waking me up. Of course, now I have to think the thing through, too. You must have been a challenge to your parishioners.

 

Jean T. Long, Dayton, Ohio:

I have walked many miles in Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio and often passed a lovely angel statue seated on a bench upon which is written: "To Live in Hearts We Leave Behind is Not to Die." Says it all, and I fully agree with both your sentiment and this one. Live life while we are in it, not with a hope to do better or correct this one in some future beyond death. Thank you for your consistent and excellent commentaries!

 

Betsy Kalcec, Royal Oak, MI:

Your words are wise and true.

 

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

Love the Mencken quote, as it reminds us how difficult lawyers have made our lives, but that is another subject! My mother, a pioneer woman physician, devout Christian and lifelong American Baptist, read her Bible every day, never missed worship on Sunday, tithed her income to the church, and gave generously beyond that to charitable causes. She lived to be 93. Near the end of her life she asked me, her ordained son, "Do you really think there is life after death?" Without waiting for or wanting an answer, she abruptly changed the subject. It is difficult to deny something you have been taught and tried to believe all of your life, even when the answer seems so undeniably obvious.

 

Cal Mannes, Tiger, GA:

I enjoy reading everything you write that arrives in my email each Monday and Friday. I'd say "God bless," but I'm an agnostic with strong leanings towards atheism. So, I'll simply say, Namaste.

 

Tracey Martin, Southfield, MI:

You certainly did not live risk-free your professional life. Kinda makes it worth having lived it, doesn't it. The reward for success is, of course, the grandkids (who "go home at the end of the day"). Seems to me, though, that you dared to threaten the essential nature of the Christian deity in contemporary practice. The savior god subordinates easily the god of ethical behavior, except as that latter is distorted into (moral) crime-and-punishment (i e, sin-and-damnation). So far, I've not seen defined a life-everlasting of any appeal. To the extent it would be one of active consciousness, tedium would seem to be its overweening reality (except for Shaw's hell in Man and Superman). The "right hand of god" would surely be more impacted with eternal souls than Michigan stadium being vacated by celebrating patrons at the satisfying conclusion of a triumph over Notre Dame. Personally, I'm comfortable in self-assurance that as much of my "I" will exist after physical death as it did prior to my 1933 conception (so I'm told). Seven minus nine is sometime in November. I have lived as a creature of evolution and I will depart according to those same insightful tenets. A happy primate to the end. So be it and amen.

 

What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at revharrytcook@aol.com.