The vast majority of Americans desperately want to get beyond the “race” issue in politics and continue moving down the path toward a color-blind society. Indeed, initiatives to do away with “affirmative action” programs which extend preferential treatment to certain persons based on their race have passed overwhelmingly in every state where they have been on the ballot, and as many as a half-dozen additional states are likely to vote on such measures this November in what is being called “Super Tuesday for Equality” by supporters.
And then the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Barack Obama’s former pastor - comes along and picks the scab once again, forcing race into the presidential campaign where it truly wasn’t for the vast majority of Americans (other than Bill Clinton and David Duke).
So its extremely unfortunate and regrettable to see Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie (D-Reno) trot out the race card here in Nevada yesterday, demanding to see, according to the Associated Press, “a breakdown of the ethnic composition of the Nevada state Board of Medical Examiners over the last two decades.”
Leslie made the request after Dr. James Tate of the Association of Black Physicians, again according to the AP, “accused the medical board of disciplining black physicians more often and severely than their white counterparts.”
Now what if someone responded to Tate’s and Leslie’s race-baiting by raising this question:
“Is it possible that the medical board has disciplined black physicians more often than white physicians because many under-qualified black physicians attained their medical credentials due to affirmative action programs and simply aren’t as good as their white counterparts who didn’t enjoy such preferential treatment?”
I’m pretty sure anyone - well, any white person - who dared to ask such a question, as legitimate as it is in response to the accusation Tate made this week, would immediately be labeled by the likes of Leslie and Tate a “racist.” And that would only further inflame the racial tensions they already stirred up. So thank goodness no sane white person would ever dare pose such a question in writing.
Oops.
Posted on May 7th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
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