White Privilege and Affirmative Action

Para leer este artículo en español precione aquí.

There is no nation on earth that has not made mistakes, nor shall there be any who do not commit it again. That is the legacy of our victorious heritage, our rationality irrational, and the verb verbose make proverb, and our blah, blah, blah.

Incredibly Abigail Fisher is in the news. She was victim of a racially discriminatory procedure. She accuses the University of Texas of rejecting her because of her race. This girl, 22 years old, white, waited until her graduation of other university, to file this lawsuit.

Some media such as Ebony and The Nacion, made mention of the subject with little journalistic ethics. For Ebony, much more aggressive and fervent in their hatred, we find the headline "Affirmative Action against White Privileges”. In the case of La Nación is much more subtle "U.S. Supreme Court accepts case of Positive Discrimination in university”.

Presumably, any white do not should irritated by the title of Ebony, and not for the racist content of his article, simply because it should not be offended by being called white. What would happen if a girl with fair skin and blue eyes appeared in Harlem, with a small placard that read "affirmative action versus blacks privileges?”

The title of The Nation introduces a new concept, a perfect fit for a Hitlerian ideology, "positive discrimination". Yes, The Nation casts doubt, with a surprising apathy, the demand for this girl who accuses the University of Texas to accept students from other racial groups with lower academic achievement than hers, because this university is attached to the right decide their admissions through racial quotas. They pretend to call it "positive discrimination".

Students and Teachers
pro Affirmative Action

The United States, like most nations of this continent, has a racist historical past, where it went from slavery to segregation. Thanks to the founders of the nation, the slavery was finally abolished, and there was another time when movements were born defending the rights of blacks, and triumphed. All these positive steps strengthened the United States, but on a third time came to the rematch.

Ebony can mention that whites have privileges, but can not do mention about these privileges, as The Nation uses the term too loose like 'alleged' because all accusations of Abigail are "alleged".

Both media, perform maneuvers to turn the matter into a political issue and divert it from its humanist and social context. The Nation gets to say, in a paraphrase conclusive and without  connection to the above, "The case will be reviewed in the fall, shortly before the presidential elections in which President Barack Obama seeks reelection. The Republican presidential hopeful to the White House, Mitt Romney opposes quotas in government bodies". Ups!, La Nación forgot to say "racial quotas".

Ehtnic Backgrouund Area on a form

This may be the first time in history that a country tries to overcome the mistakes of his past, making exactly the same, but from the other side of the mirror. Perhaps many have got used to select on a form application, in a box that asks about the 'race'. They can answer you  about these terms: "black non-Hispanic", white non-Hispanic", "" Asian not-Hispanic" and "Hispanic ". This is such ignorance, reaching the absurdity of considering the Hispanic as a race, in which are included all others.

As a Cuban, I'll take this radical lesson of the stupidity, about what should not be allowed. Today Cuba is a country mainly mestizo, where blacks and a whites are the minority. I could not imagine racial quotas pro-whites and pro-blacks.

In this city of New York on April 16, 1983, in the newspaper Patria, José Martí wrote.

Abigail Fisher

"Racist" is a confusing word must be explained. The man has no special right because it belongs to one race or another: Say human, and already say all rights”. 

It is impossible to build a just society, sowing divisions among its citizens. The state should ensure equal rights for all. Today we see that the fashion of being progressive is approaching a new way Nazism, a birth of a new prejudice, segregation and intention, in this case, through the races.

Allow this, to look the other way and pretend not is real, we do not rid of the responsibility of this great error.