Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby
Carter, Stephen L.
REFLECTIONS OF AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BABY Stephen L. Carter/Basic Books/286 pp. $22.95 Arch Puddington America's controversial experiment with racial preference, now two decades old, has...
...Others who have traveled this journey report that there comes a time when one harbors conservative convictions on the various litmus test issues of the day, but still rebels at being labeled a conservative...
...He is convinced that, if the playing field is not exactly level, enough progress has been made to enable middle-class blacks to compete effectively...
...Indeed, he argues that standardized tests are more likely to predict the performance of blacks than of whites...
...What case can be made for affirmative action now rests almost exclusively on expediency, with a few catchwords like "diversity," "fairness," and "justice" tossed in...
...Teachers told him that entry to prestigious universities was assured because he was "black and smart"—always, Carter notes, in that order...
...They represent, in a sense, the modern version of the Talented Tenth, the young, smart, and energetic of an earlier generation who, W. E. B. DuBois believed, would one day constitute the leadership class of the Negro race...
...One complains that "people of color are forced to hide their true voices and write like white males" in order to land positions on the Yale Law Journal...
...At one point, Carter tries to distance himself from conservatives by professing support for a vague program of tax-andspend to benefit the inner-city poor...
...It is probable that Carter does not believe he is a conservative, at least not now...
...This book, of course, is about affirmative action, not urban poverty...
...He proposesthat policies centering on race be phased out in favor of policies based on financial need, a position articulated by Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings...
...Carter examines the phenomenon as it is played out on the front lines of the most prestigious universities...
...Compounding the problem is a virulent war on black authority figures who fail to "think and act and speak in a particular way, the black way...
...Whereas the Talented Tenth earned their accomplishments against daunting odds in a perArch Puddington, a former aide to the late Bayard Bustin, works for Radio Flee Europe-Radio Liberty in New York vasively bigoted environment, blacks now are the beneficiaries of policies that give them an advantage in university admissions and the job market...
...Carter deplores the expectation that blacks in positions of influence "always and everywhere .. . represent the race," and sees as dangerous the notion that blacks "on the inside will hold a particular, and predictable, set of political positions, will be, in effect, blacks of the right kind...
...A new and corrosive stereotype—the black professional as recipient of a novel form of welfare for the university-credentialed—has been added to the long list of unfavorable images black Americans have had to overcome throughout their history...
...the corruption of affirmative action by the "diversity movement...
...The weakness of the pro-affirmative action advocates is best reflected in the disgraceful way they have treated critics like Sowell and Steele...
...Carter has included an intriguing and valuable section on the failure of conservatives to appeal to a broader base of black support...
...Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby is the latest in a series of fine writings to question racial preference...
...the university had overlooked the fact that he was black, and now wanted him...
...Carter's commitment to merit leads him to a scathing attack on the notion that blacks should be exempt from various kinds of qualifications...
...It is concern about the implications of the affirmative action stereotype that has motivated Stephen L. Carter's impressive book...
...Carter believes that the diversity movement is relegating blacks to an intellectual ghetto, in which they are seen as qualified to pass judgment on issues of race and not much else...
...And a particularly tragic example of this treatment is the isolation of intellectual dissenters who happen to be black...
...Among the numerous examples Carter provides of black-on-black intellectual assault, the award for the most repulsive, hands-down, is Carl Rowan's comparison of Sowell to the Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling...
...And he notes with irony that while some contend that blacks shouldn't be judged by objective criteria, like tests, because of alleged cultural bias, others insist that subjective gauges like interviews shouldn't be employed because of the potential racism of the interviewer...
...Carter's own encounters with affirmative action vividly illustrate the dilemma preferential policies pose for those who want not only to achieve but also to be seen as having done so on their own merits...
...As for affirmative action itself, Carter's subtle, reasoned, and consistently fair-minded arguments against the practice reinforce an intellectual position that is now beyond refutation...
...This, at least, is Carter's position on affirmative action at the elite level...
...But there is an important difference between the youthful achievers of DuBois's time and ours...
...And, of course, Carter will forever be known above all else as the first tenured black at Yale Law School, rather than as an expert in his chosen—nonracial—specialties: the separation of powers, intellectual property law, and the relationship between law and religion...
...Carter is particularly disturbed at...
...His own black students are sufficiently influenced by affirmative-action thinking to have concluded that "the bad guys are out there," rigging the system against them...
...The son of a Cornell faculty member, Carter was an intensely competitive and high-ranking student, yet was never permitted to forget that his race somehow gave him a leg up on his white classmates...
...One can predict with certainty that Carter will not be accorded the same gentlemanly treatment by the defenders of racial orthodoxy...
...The personal dimension he injects and his astute observations on the diversity question are the book's true strengths...
...An admissions officer from Harvard Law School, which had initially rejected Carter, called to apologize...
...No matter how creative, efficient, driven, or ingenious he may be, it is assumed that a black owes his position in at least some measure to the wide array of benefits society distributes on the basis of race...
...He even accepts the sincerity of those who believe that "people of color who hold the wrong views have no right to call themselves people of color...
...As long as the affirmative action mindset predominates, blacks will find it difficult to advance beyond the label, "First black, best black, only black...
...At least this is how it appears to the rest of society...
...And what of Carter's tortured objections to being labeled a conservative...
...Works by Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Glenn Loury, and Nathan Glazer have focused on affirmative action's psychological, political, or educational repercussions...
...This is not a minor omission, for rebellion against affirmative action was provoked largely by its assault on standards, and it is not law firms or universities that have been compelled to lower standards or resort to the notorious practice of race norming, but fire departments, utility companies, road crews, and the like...
...The idea, as advanced in a Columbia Law Journal article, that "diversity is part of quality" is seen by Carter as precisely the kind of dangerous thinking that THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1991 43 will only convince society that what black professionals really seek is the wholesale abolition of the merit principle...
...But if Carter were to devote the same honesty and rigorous intellect to the problem of poverty that he brings to racial preference, he'd probably change his mind...
...Here again, his principal concern is the message this kind of special pleading sends to blacks...
...Carter, by contrast, eschews polemic and bends over backwards to avoid questioning the motives of these critics...
...Carter is not complaining, merely citing his own experience to highlight the challenge blacks face in convincing society (and themselves) that they can make it on their own...
...And it is even more problematical for blacks, who well understand that most blacks regard black conservatives as, in Carter's words, a "lunatic fringe...
...He knows that clinging to preferential policies reinforces the notion that blacks cannot compete without a bit of government coercion on their behalf...
...The progeny of affirmative action range from television anchormen to Ivy League professors to corporate executives to government officials...
...He is rather in the midst of a familiar odyssey from the political left to conservatism...
...The black freedom struggle "has been fought at too great a cost for us now to pretend that the struggle was really about having a black orthodoxy rather than a white one imposed on us...
...This is especially difficult for those whose defining political experience was the struggle for racial equality...
...Another may lament that universities are not "sensitive to the special perspective people of color bring to scholarship...
...He laments: Few Western-style purges are more disheartening, and more threatening to freedom, than the disdainful treatment of intellectuals who dare to challenge intellectual orthodoxy...
...Insulted, Carter went to Yale...
...he has already drawn the wrath of Alvin Poussaint, whose attitude towards dissenters is a good barometer of the civil rights establishment's disposition...
...22.95 Arch Puddington America's controversial experiment with racial preference, now two decades old, has produced the country's first affirmative action generation...
...He claims, I think correctly, that conservatives patronize impressive figures like Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas by regularly trotting them out as exhibits for the cause, trump cards against the latest ill-conceived proposals of the NAACP or the Congressional Black Caucus...
...On the other hand, Carter's complaint that conservatives are "far better at explaining what is wrong with civil rights than what is right with them" raises a thorny question: Other than defending blacks against overt discrimination, is there anything on the current civil rights agenda worthy of support...
...Unfortunately, he declines to offer judgment on the blue-collar occupations...
...Some will be tempted to ascribe them to a desire to appeal to those blacks and white liberals disenchanted by a black political culture increasingly dominated by the likes of Al Sharpton and Marion Barry...
...Yet one can understand why Carter wants to concentrate on the Talented Tenth...
Vol. 24 • December 1991 • No. 12
