Some feel that affirmative action is reversed discrimination. Whatever they mean by that charge, that is their charge. Some of the most ardent Black Conservatives and most White Conservatives argue against affirmative action as it is applied to nonwhite citizens. They believe affirmative action gives nonwhite citizens preferential treatment.

In a general sense, everyone discriminates. It is the way of our world: I discriminate when buying clothing or other items. So discrimination in this narrow sense is not of concern to any. The discrimination that is of concern is that which is illegal and unconstitutional, and that discrimination that is harmful to one while giving another advantages.

Years ago, Gordon Allport wrote a scholarly dissertation on the nature of prejudice, discrimination, and racism. In that discussion he defined discrimination as the outer manifestations of racism and prejudice. But more than that, discrimination in America is generally understood as an unconstitutional act of inequity that hinders one from pursuing life, liberty, and happiness. It is an unfairness in treatment based upon a tenet not regarded by the constitution of this nation as equally fair to all. Furthermore, it is to marginalize one person as less important than another by showing disparaging treatment or preferential treatment to one and not the other.

A tenet that the constitution of this nation prohibits and most Americans feel is unfair is discrimination because of one's race. This racial basis for discrimination has been outlawed as being against the very philosophical beliefs of the nation.

Yet, although racial discrimination has been outlawed, it exists in all sectors of society presently. The San Francisco Police released an internal police study about racial profiling in the SF Police Department. They found racial profiling present. This type of discrimination, and many other types, is measurable. It would have been a surprise had an objective report found no racial profiling.

In just about every sector of American life there is racial discrimination against Black and Brown Americans. This discrimination did not end with the passage of civil rights laws that expressly prohibited it. When valid surveys of discrimination in housing, health care, employment, education, police treatment, delivery of fire or other social services, insurance costs, finance costs, business or personal loans, in being a part of treatment trials for new therapies, in the criminal justice system, in buying products, or in simply getting service at a restaurant or a hotel, the results are always the same: Black and Brown Americans are discriminated against. It is a part of the fabric of this nation, and many in this nation have become so accustomed to it, that many subtly argue its justification as an entitlement or privilege.

But this discrimination gives preference and advantage to those not discriminated against; second, it disadvantages and often defrauds those discriminated against, when they have paid their fair share, and sometimes even more, and still cannot receive the proper worth of their payments. This is immoral and illegal.

This advantage given to White Americans by discriminating against all who are not White is, in fact, preferential treatment for Whites. Discrimination has nothing to do with likableness of one race over another. Certainly Blacks are not concerned for egocentric notions of racial likeability; for us the issue is whether fairness of opportunity exists in a system supposedly predicated on fairness of opportunity and competition for all Americans. This built in unfairness and preferential treatment to whites is a primary hindrance nonwhite people experience by racial discrimination.

Ward Connerly and others argue that affirmative action is preferential treatment to nonwhite Americans. That notion is utterly foolish in the light of existing racial realities and what affirmative action is structured to do. By all indicators measuring discrimination in any sector of society, racism exists against Black and Brown citizens; preferential treatment is given to whites. There is a pretense, since racism and its benefits to whites have continued so long and so thoroughly throughout American institutions, that it no longer exists. But that is only a quiet and self-medicating pretense sponsored by whites who seek to maintain a preferential status and by a few Black Conservatives who benefit by espousing such a stance.

Never is there the proper hue and cry about or recognition of present-day racial discrimination that preferentially awards beneficial treatment to Whites, and, at the sametime, unfairly and illegally harms nonwhites. There is a queit pretense that the status and positions whites have in this society have been achieved through a system of merit and fairness available to all. Far be it; the field of engagement on which all Americans compete is unequal and tilted toward White Americans. Yet, all have paid and are payng their labor, money, taxes and other assessments in this rich society, but not all receive the benefits of their payments.

During the Civil Rights Movement in the South, most Americans understood the fraudulent nature of Southern White claims never spoken, but assuredly assumed, viz., that they could take Black taxes and labor that helped build and maintain educational institutions and systems of that society and deny them access to those institutions. That Southern action was beyond discrimination; it was blatant taxation without representation, it was fraud and outright theft of Black Americans' resources.

Today, racial discrimination is not as blatant, but it is identified repeatedly, and it is consistently shown to be present in all sectors of our society, issuing preferences to Whites and disadvantages to nonwhite Americans. There is taxation of nonwhites and Whites to maintain American institutions--be they education, social, judicial, etc.--but a failure to compensate properly and equally all those persons taxed. Whites receive the benefits, and more, of their money, but nonwhites are still being unfairly levied and not getting the benefits of their money. This discrimination gives preferential treatment to White Americans. And if affirmative action is preferential treatment, discrimination that favors one race over another is, in fact, affirmative action. Whites have been the recipients of this affirmative action for too many years, and it continues unabated today. The Ward Connerly's of this nation are fond of saying that affirmative action is reverse discrimination. Ethnic affirmative action, of which they refer, is indeed a reversal of the present discrimination/affirmative action that exists today. And isn't it about time? How much affirmative action do whites need?

Racial discrimination is preferential treatment without sanction in law. And it is preferential treatment that goes on stealthily throughout America without proper redress. It belies the notion that America is a nation of laws, and it belies the notion that America is poised for fair competition. Where is the fairness of competition or opportunity when there is discrimination? Furthermore, where is the honesty in taking everyone's money but only some receive the services paid for? Can there be true self-congratulatory celebrations of victory when the race has been fixed? Is America so self-deceived or blind to its unfairness that it cannot see the great affirmative action that goes on daily? And does America also assume all are blind? It is risky to measure others by the limitations of one's own flawed reasoning and limits.

Discrimination in America is not even subtle anymore; it is through shaded systems and flawed tests outright preferential treatment for whites. They may compete fairly among themselves, but they do not compete fairly among the rest of America. They operate on a brand of White affirmative action that is somewhat subtle but totally real, much like that of the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action program, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld. And Connerly, Crouch, McWhorter, Steele, et. al., say not a word!

Most White Americans wittingly or unwittingly pretend white affirmative action does not exist--they just take the benefits of unearned preferences as if they were birthrights. Yet, the Connerly, et. al., campaign to stop affirmative action for nonwhites, which does little more than offer some small attempt to correct the ongoing discrimination. Nonwhite Americans need not go back to the centuries of discriminatory advantage whites have taken against us; let's talk about discrimination that exists now! Why not campaign as feverishly against this white affirmative action as against nonwhite affirmative action?

Surely, we should be as apt to call racial discrimination White Affirmative Action or Standard White Preferential Treatment because it is. And the Black Conservatives and many whites of America, were they fair minded, would campaign against it as strongly as they do against nonwhite affirmative action.

In the light of indigenous discrimination and white preferential treatment, no one can honestly believe that America is about merit and fairness. That's only propaganda to the outside world--and nonwhites are the outside world also. At home, let us be true to ourselves; let us end White Affirmative Action now!. One way of doing that is to extend it to all. That means the affirmative action that conservatives rail against, should be promoted to the level of White affirmative action. After all, White affirmative action has been around so long, it is invisible to most white but very obvious to most African Americans.

Why not, at long last, see how well we all do when the field of human potential is level, even, and fair? Why not open the competition to all? Whites have been playing among themselves too long; let the world at home into the game on a fair footing and see how well we all do. []

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