http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~calrev/archives/2002-2003/winter2003b/articles/article13.htm
Selling the Color of Skin
UCLA's bake sale demonstrates lunacy of affirmative action
By Dustin Frelich
There is a new race watch in America today, and the situation is even more tenuous on college campuses where admissions practices are under fire, the most well known of which being at the University of Michigan. But the University of California also has what can be said to be a quota system, fleshed out with a comparable point system, where having minority status can tip the balances in a favorable way.
With Supreme Court arguments planned for April 1 for Michigan's admissions processes, in which the Bush administration has even chimed in on, students at colleges nationwide are walking a fine line, not wanting to be on the receiving end of that dreaded epithet: racist. But not UCLA's Bruin Republicans.
They flew in the face of conventional wisdom, choosing to confront the politically correct instead of being held captive by its clutching grip, and held their very own "Affirmative Action Bake Sale." The idea behind the act was simple: demonstrate the absurdity of affirmative action by being absurd. The Bruin Republicans sold cookies to "Women of Color" for 25 cents, 50 cents to "Men of Color," $1 to white women, and, finally, $2 to white males and all Asian-Americans.
They also went one step further, labeling those staffing the bake sale table "The Man," "The White Oppressor," "The Self-Hating Hispanic Race Traitor," "Uncle Tom" and "Admissions Officer," whose job it was to "determine each customer's race, gender and general level of oppression," as said in their campus flyer for the event.
The idea was to create awareness about the true nature of the affirmative action process, where those who are given preferential treatment are done so for nothing other than the color of their skin (or gender, in this case). But this idea was lost on many, some of whom even went so far as to call the event a primer in race-baiting techniques.
"I am deeply saddened and disheartened at the activities of the UCLA Bruin Republicans. Unfortunately, this activity is consistent with the Republican Right's tactics to engage in race-based political discourse," said Art Torres, California Democratic Party chairman. "We have seen how Republicans have become emboldened by the comments of . . . Republican Party leaders promoting the absurdity that our nation would have been better off had the South won the Civil War. It is a shame Republican students at UCLA have chosen to mimic the extreme views of their Republican leaders."
Interpreting the comments of Sen. Trent Lott, of which Mr. Torres was partly speaking, to fit a specific agenda - namely, that all Republicans are racists or that Republicans wished "the South won the Civil War" - does not do justice to the debate, and it unveils for all the lazy intellectualism of Democrats in discussing the matter, relishing in name-calling and hoping the critical mind is absent.
"This event serves only to show that ignorance persists and that all political leaders must continue to work for equal opportunities for all Americans," said President Juan Carlos-Orellana of the Democratic Law Students Association. "Instead of reducing disparities in education and employment to mere dollars and cents, we call on all political leaders to join in an enlightened discussion on curing the societal ill of inequality in all forms."
Take note, you have just witnessed a classic logical fallacy called a straw man. Logic 101 teaches that disguising another's argument in packaging that is easier to defeat with arguments that have no merit in the original debate is a logical fallacy. Calling it "equality of opportunity" is a calculative maneuver on the opposition's part, and it is not done by accident. While "equality of opportunity" used to mean just that for much of American history, it has instead recently changed to mean equality of result. Whereas we used to want to make sure that all had the same opportunities, we now bend rules for the supposed disadvantaged in an attempt to have an equality of outcome, regardless of the effort of individual parties.
Take the University of Michigan's admissions policies. Did not all students applying to the school have their equality of opportunity in grade, junior and high school? And if they did not take full advantage of their opportunities, is it right to alter the admissions process to create an equality of result?
UCLA's bake sale perfectly showed the intellectual bankruptcy accompanying affirmative action programs. The outrage over the bake sale wasn't as such because of its policy, but instead because it brought the concept down to a level that is immensely easier to understand. And for that, those with affirmative action leanings are frantically conducting damage control, attempting to disguise the debate in fancy wrapping, hoping support they have long fostered will not disappear.
It sure did! Those UCLA campus Republicans ought to get some sort of a medal for this because they nailed it. They captured the absurdity and the insulting nature of race-based admissions perfectly. A perfect object lesson.
And, naturally, all that the lefty students could come back with was the warmed-over lazy platitudes that we've come to expect from them. As always, the right applies its intellect to reality and presents its case sharply and with humor, but the leftist zombies are too dense to get it. They just keep oozing along without even registering that they've been cut to ribbons.
Mega Kudos to the UCLA college Republicans.