At this year's regional National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference in Austin, Steven E. Smith, the attorney representing Cheryl Hopwood in Hopwood vs. Texas, the landmark case that set back affirmative action, spoke to us on a panel about affirmative action and its future.
He started his presentation about his sad story of growing up "a poor white man" in Texas surrounded by Mexicans he claims were his friends. He claimed he had to struggle to get into college, then into law school, and finally to get a job. But the thing that pissed him off the most, he said, was that those Mexicans he had grown up with had affirmative action, while he didn't. This, he claimed, created division among "us." We were deviating from our original goals of a color-blind society, using race as a factor for admissions, hiring and government contracts. We needed to unite against all forms of discrimination so that future poor white folks won't grow up with such a chip on their shoulders as he did.
I must admit, listening to him almost made me teary-eyed. What a sad story. I felt for him. I wanted to run up there and shake his hand, telling him that he had just converted me to a united form of racial love that conquers all. I wanted to make him the first white man I had hugged since my good friend Todd got married over a year ago. I wanted to raise my fist in the air and yell Que Viva Smith! Viva Hopwood! Viva Color-Blind America! Viva the past! Viva David Duke! (oops ...)
Then another panelist woke me up from my delusions. Alberta Brooks, a Chicana reporter from the Austin American-Statesman, patiently waited for Smith to finish his novella of struggle, and asked an austere question: "Mr. Smith, did you ever have to face legal discrimination?"
His answer was no.
"Well I did, as well as my family," Brooks shot back. "And it hurt."
The crowd erupted in applause. All Smith could do was repeat his rhetorical commitment to a color-blind America.
It then hit me why anti-affirmative action initiatives are becoming so popular across the country. While it is true that the majority of Americans have diseases called white fear, white guilt, Hispanaphobia, fear-of-a-black-nation syndrome and emasculationphobia, the real reason anti-affirmative action initiatives have gained popularity is because opponents of affirmative action have learned to play the victimization card.
All of a sudden, they have experienced a struggle equal to or worse than those of people of color and women. They know what it is like to be spit at, to be called a wetback, to be told to go back where they came from, to be the last ones hired and the first ones fired, and to be denied admission into a college based on their ethnicity or culturally biased test scores - and people are buying this ploy.
Now, I do not want to get into what Elizabeth Martinez calls "oppression Olympics" in order to see who is more oppressed than the other. After all, part of our multiple identities are defined by our classes. Yet, that does not mean that race, ethnicity and gender should be thrown out the window. In this society, one's race and gender does indicate whether one will fail or succeed. Affirmative action is just one program that attempts to tame society's racism and sexism.
But what opponents of affirmative action have done successfully is define the argument as "us" against "them." Heroes against the villains. The superior against the inferior. The qualified against the unqualified. Through using fake victimization cards, they forge this argument to an almost uninformed public that digests these false sound bits while nodding its head, then goes out to vote. Those in power, using the argument of the Hopwood decision, abolish minority scholarship programs and mutual organizations and change admission policies.
An example of these phenomena can be seen here at UH, where scholarships like the Academic Excellent Awards had to be revised, groups like PROMES had to change their names and various centers had to change their mission statements. All this to appease them, our new crop of victims.
No one ever denied that we all struggle. It is an everyday occurrence in our lives. But some have to realize that some of us feel like our struggles will end in vain, nothing will come of it and life will, thus, have no meaning. Racism and job discrimination does exist, and abolition of affirmative-action programs won't make them go away. It will just please the opponents.
However, some of us on this side will not sit passively, nor believe Smith's tear-jerking stories, nor will we let the debate stay one sided, nor fight sad story with sad story, novella with novella. We don't need hugs. We need equal opportunity.
Contreras is a senior history and English major.