Posted on 02/10/2003 9:40:53 AM PST by rdb3
PONTEFICATIONS
HOW WOULD THE REV. JESSE JACKSON RESPOND if he could prove that some of America’s largest corporations advocated racial discrimination against blacks?
Within hours the Rev. Jackson would be picketing such companies, demanding that they correct their racist ways, and urging the black community to boycott their products until their racism ends.
Take note of the following corporations, my friends, and remember their names the next time you decide whether to purchase or use their products:
Coca-Cola Company
PepsiCo
American Airlines
United Airlines
Eli Lilly & Co.
Pfizer, Inc.
Procter & Gamble Co.
Johnson & Johnson
3M
Dow Chemical
General Mills
Kellogg Co.
General Motors
Mitsubishi
Microsoft
Intel
Steelcase Corp.
Eastman Kodak
General Dynamics
Boeing
These are among more than 40 Fortune 500 companies that have taken a position openly supporting racial discrimination against Asian-Americans, Caucasians and Jews.
Their racism and anti-Semitism is not articulated this nakedly, of course. It is cloaked in disguise, but their discrimination is no less real for its camouflage.
These companies have all filed friend-of-the-court legal briefs in support of the University of Michigan’s policies of giving huge racial preference to applicants who are African-American, Hispanic or Native American.
By tilting the playing field in favor of these three groups, the University of Michigan has been discriminating against applicants of every other racial group – most commonly against Asian-Americans, whites and Jews.
So slanted has this process become that at the margin a black applicant with the same grades and test scores as a white would have more than 900 times greater likelihood of being admitted to the University of Michigan.
Because it imposed racial preferences with a numerical goal of creating a student body with at least 10 percent minorities, the University of Michigan almost certainly crossed the line separating legal affirmative action from illegal de facto racial quotas.
This is to be decided through two cases (Grutter v. Bollinger, 02-241 and Gratz v. Bollinger, 02-516) that commence oral arguments on April Fools’ Day before the U.S. Supreme Court. Friend-of-the-court briefs, including one from the Bush Administration, will be part of this deliberation.
President George W. Bush has come down firmly against the "flawed" affirmative action of the University of Michigan, calling its discrimination "impossible to square with the Constitution" and its requirement of equal treatment by government institutions regardless of race.
President Bush’s position is supported overwhelmingly, two to one by Americans asked in a February Los Angeles Times poll. Even this liberal newspaper’s pollsters found that Democrats supported Bush 44 percent to 39 percent, while Republicans supported the President by a seven to one margin. Even those identified as "racial minorities" by the poll supported President Bush by 46 percent to 41 percent.
So why have several major corporations gone out of their way to support a racist policy opposed by a majority not only of all Americans but also of the Democrats and racial minorities most likely to support it?
General Mills, like many of these companies, defends the University of Michigan policy not for its racism and anti-Semitism but, above all else, as a way to create the diversity of future employees its company will need to succeed at business in an increasingly varied and global marketplace. They want a policy that will help them sell more Honey Nut Cheerios in Harlem and Haiti.
Such companies, in other words, seem to be applauding the University of Michigan’s racism because it will save them time, money and effort in recruiting and training racially diverse employees themselves.
Their proclaimed motive is not even idealism, fairness, or the righting of old injustices. It is pragmatism and profit.
This seems a rather selfish, mercenary justification for discriminating against applicants of the "wrong" races by a government institution.
Several also note in their court briefs that by 2050 or soon thereafter "minorities" will become the majority in the United States. They see the University of Michigan’s policy as a way to raise their boats and profits on this inevitably rising demographic tide. They seem oblivious to polling that shows minorities themselves opposed to this official policy of racial discrimination, the kind of government unfairness that worked against them in the past and, they instinctively know, could turn against them again in the future.
As to Mitsubishi (the company that manufactured the Japanese Zero during World War II, one of Jerry Della Femina’s "wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor"), it seems insane that it is supporting a University of Michigan policy that systematically discriminates against Japanese-American students.
Racism can hypnotize people, as Adolf Hitler demonstrated. It blinds people to justice, fairness, decency, rationality, and humanity.
Those with open eyes recognize that the real target of all racists is the human race itself.
With your eyes now opened to which companies are giving de facto support to racism and anti-Semitism, the choice is yours as to whether you will support them with your dollars in the free marketplace.
I think the time has come to organize a boycott of these corporations who engage in this nonsense and allow themselves to be pimped.
Enough is enough.
T-minus 33 days until the birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
Like Whacko Jacko?
T-minus 33 days until the birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
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