Ward Connerly - Articles - Zimbio

Obama: McCain flip-flops by opposing affirmative action

Sun, 28 Jul 2008 09:00:00 GMT

posted by zaboye
By William Douglas

CHICAGO — Presidential challengers John McCain and Barack Obama sparred over affirmative action Sunday, with McCain backing an effort to end state and locally run minority preferences and Obama saying policies that consider race need to continue.

McCain, speaking on ABC's "This Week," said he backs a proposed ballot initiative in his home state of Arizona that would prohibit affirmative action policies by state and local governments.

The initiative is part of a nationwide attempt by Ward Connerly to have governmental affirmative action policies eliminated. Connerly, a conservative African-American businessman from Sacramento who led a successful drive to ban affirmative action in California, has been trying to do the same thing in other states.

Asked Sunday whether he supported Connerly's efforts in Arizona, McCain said "Yes, I do," adding that he had not seen the details of the proposal. "But I've always opposed quotas."

McCain's endorsement was an apparent shift on affirmative action. The Republican senator has spoken out against quota systems but he has also backed affirmative action in certain cases. He opposed a 1998 resolution in the Arizona legislature that asked voters to eliminate most preferences based on race, gender or ethnic origin.

"Rather than engage in divisive ballot initiatives, we must have a dialogue and cooperation and mutual efforts together to provide every child in America to fulfill their expectations," he said at the time.

Obama, speaking at the UNITY minority journalism convention in Chicago, accused McCain of flip-flopping and reminded convention attendees about McCain's 1998 remarks.

"And I think he's right," he said. "You know, the truth of the matter is, these are not designed to solve a big problem, but they're all too often designed to drive a wedge between people."

The Illinois Democratic senator said America has made progress on race relations but argued that there is still a need for affirmative action policies in the country.

"I am a strong supporter of affirmative action when properly structured so there it is not a quota, but it is acknowledging and taking into account some of the hardships and difficulties that communities of color may have experienced, continue to experience, and it also speaks to the value of diversity in all walks of American life," he said.

"I've also said that affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America, because, frankly, if you've got 50 percent of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn't really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids aren't going to college."

Obama said he would like to see affirmative action policies altered in a way so "some of our children who are advantaged aren't getting more favorable treatment than a poor white kid who's struggled more."

On another matter regarding race and ethnicity, Obama rejected any notion that he would back reparations or offer a formal apology on behalf of the United States for the enslavement of Africans or the mistreatment of Native Americans, should he be elected president.

The Canadian government last month apologized for the treatment that aboriginal children received in that country's residential schools. The Australian government issued a similar apology in February.

In 2006, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed "deep sorrow" over Britain's role in the African slave trade but stopped short of a full apology.

End "discrimination" by keeping universities predominantly white!

Tue, 30 Jul 2008 22:42:00 GMT

posted by amyru
Anti-affirmative action measures are on the November ballots for Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska. These measures are very deceptively called "civil rights initiatives," but would in fact ban affirmative action in these states.

Many people have been outraged by their choice of title, because they borrowed language from a very well-known movement that aimed to equalize whites and all minorities. Though opponents of affirmative action might see such programs as "discrimination," most people would not associate the words "civil rights" with ending affirmative action. There was an uproar recently when several people came out and said they accidentally signed a petition to get an anti-affirmative action measure on the ballot when the petitioner simply asked them, "Would you like to sign this petition to help end discrimination?" I don't think this deceptive language was a mistake, but rather a tasteless ploy to gain more supporters in a dishonest way. Even their websites are misleading because they are plastered with false images of "everything's okay!" by showing black and white children playing together. Sorry, but I'm not buying it... I highly doubt this is what Martin Luther King Jr. had in mind.

So now these measures are on the ballots, when perhaps people who signed to support it did not even realize what they were supporting. Avid supporters of anti-affirmative action measures include African-American "equal rights" advocate Ward Connelly, and John McCain recently announced that he supports ending affirmative action as well.

Ugh. God forbid we try to correct all the racism and oppression that litters United States history by finally giving minorities a fair chance to succeed in education and business.

AffirmativeAction.org

Ward Connerly Likes Obama (But Would Like Him More If He Didn't Have "Quota Cooties")

Mon, 1 Apr 2008 14:13:00 GMT

posted by blacksnob
Image from The Black Commentator

This is part of a black conservatives on Obama series at The Black Snob. Previous entries were done on Amy Holmes and Condoleezza Rice.

When it comes to white hot hatred towards any black conservative Ward Connerly probably raises the most hackles. Possibly even more than Clarence Thomas who’s had to endure a-many Judas calls in the black community. Connerly is the Affirmative Action defeating warrior declaring the time of race-based preferences has past. That we’ve moved on and things are better now, so we don’t need it.

A few people disagree with that, but so far Connerly has been successful at killing Affirmative Action in California, Washington state and Michigan. He has his “eyes on the prize” in five states this fall, pushing ballot initiatives in Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

He recently stopped by Truman State in Missouri, speaking on his efforts and was met with a hostile crowd who cheered, jeered, mocked and razzed him repeatedly. He even had to yell at one recalcitrant audience member, “Lady, would you please just shut up?”

So Connerly’s not liked. And he knows it. And a lot of people think his Affirmative Action fight isn’t about Affirmative Action at all, but money from the wealthy contractors and business men who are backing him in an effort to go back to the original form of “Affirmative Action” – white men first.

Connerly admitted at Truman State that minorities would likely suffer if and when Affirmative Action is ended in Missouri, but he still said it was the right thing to do.

Naturally, that went over like the proverbial lead balloon.

He acknowledged that eliminating or reducing scholarships for underrepresented minorities "will probably have a negative effect. But that's a public policy decision that has to be made." (Associated Press)

But whose name did Connerly toss out to prove that race relations had changed drastically for the better? None other than Barack Obama.

Connerly said this recently about Obama in a column for The Eureka Reporter:

(T)he presidential candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama is testimony that America is about ready to end the consideration of race in American life. In effect, he is the symbol of the American people “overcoming” race.

Surely, Connerly argued, things must have evolved in a black man is now running for president and actually leading in the race for the Democratic nomination. Surely race fissures have healed. A new day has dawned, so come on, black people, Connerly says, give ending Affirmative Action a chance.

Personally, I don’t like Connerly, but Affirmative Action is imperfect (but not for the reasons he's pushing). The real people who are likely to feel the sting are women who have benefited the most from the program. Minorities have as well, but not to the same extent. I don’t think we’ve crossed some shiny new day Rubicon where everyone is equal and everyone loves each other. Many those preferences, at least in the sense of college scholarships should be income based, considering poverty is the number one factor holding back many black students and white students for that matter. But to return to the status quo of the rich and the white male having everything as opposed to almost everything is a little ridiculous because we all know that’s what would happen.

That said, I wondered what Connerly really thought of Obama as he was tossing him out as the poster child for black advancement.

Here’s what I found.

In that same Eureka Reporter column, Connerly alternates between saying Obama is proof of our overcoming race, yet repeatedly states that people are intoxicated with Obama because of his race, charging those supporters with a form of “reverse racism” that would make them want a black male candidate more than a white woman:

Indeed, many Americans are prepared to vote for Obama because of his skin color or “race.” Again, while he has done nothing to suggest that he is seeking the presidency on the basis of that factor, it is a factor nonetheless.

The “diversity” game is being played at a very high-stakes level here. I fear we are either too cowardly to discuss it or too intoxicated by Obama’s rhetoric to see it. As is usually the case with what some call “reverse discrimination,” race invariably trumps gender. Given the choice between electing the first woman president or the first black president, the outcome could have been predicted by looking at how institutions traditionally have dealt with the pursuit of “diversity” in college admissions.

Former President Bill Clinton may have been right to characterize America’s love affair with Obama as a fairy tale. Unfortunately, as Frank Sinatra often sang, “Fairy tales can come true.” If that happens, I fear we will have difficulty recovering from the fundamental changes in our way of life that his policies will engender. If Obama prevails, who will be there to stand in his way should he go too far? Not the House of Representatives, nor Senate. Not the courts. He will have a Democrat-controlled Congress all too willing to confirm his nominees.

But to soften his Liberal lambasting of Obama, claiming his benefit from some sort of diversity malaria, Connerly also offers a tinge of his own admiration of Obama’s accomplishments.

To be candid, the Obama candidacy gives me a great sense of pride, not because he and I are brown-skinned and multiracial. I am proud because we live in a nation that is demonstrating that the color of a person’s skin is of little significance to us. For over a decade, I have been telling black people that they have it wrong when they characterize our nation as an “institutionally racist” one. I’ve argued that the American people are essentially fair and yearn to move beyond race into an era of “color blindness.” The Obama candidacy validates that point.

Obama deserves to be considered on his own merit — his ideas — and not his skin color. Just as we should not vote against a candidate based on the candidate’s skin color, “race,” sex, ethnicity or national origin, neither should we vote for one based on any of those factors. I fear, however, that a significant number of my fellow Americans are on the verge of doing just that.

Connerly also touches on how Obama needs to deal with the issue of Affirmative Action in Newsweek:

Affirmative action, he says, "is probably the most difficult race issue [Obama] will have to face." If the candidate denounces affirmative action, Connerly predicts, "his support among blacks will plummet from around 80 to 50 percent. Then, bear in mind that much of his support in Iowa, Vermont and Wyoming came from white males, who by a margin of 70 to 30 [percent] oppose affirmative action." The challenge is made all the more difficult by Obama's well-polished reputation for fresh thinking: this, some supporters say, is a perfect chance for him to break with the liberal orthodoxy. To this day, some of the conservatives from the Law Review wonder if Obama agrees with them on race-based affirmative action—a testament to his skill at projecting empathy, if nothing else. "But in politics you can only be a moderator for so long," says Connerly. Eventually, "you must become a referee."

So what do I think? I think Connerly is both right and wrong. It’s true that some people are attracted to Obama solely one what he symbolizes – America finally dealing with some of its racial demons. But many, many others, gasp!, actually agree with the man. After all, if Obama didn’t share the interests and ideals of his supporters there’s no doubt they would not be supporting him. After all, a-many conservative black politician has seen their candidacy’s fizzle due to people not wanting to vote for them simply because they were black. I don’t think anyone’s “high on hope” in the black community. Everyone was giving Obama the side-eye until he won Iowa. Black people liked him and agreed with his platform, but didn’t want to vote for him if he couldn’t get white people to vote for him. After all, there are a whole lot more white people in America than us. We’re only 12 percent of the population.

As for Obama on Affirmative Action, I’ve been shocked that no one has asked him about it during any of the one billion debates we’ve had thus far in the Democratic race. I think it will eventually come up and Obama will have to teeter-totter that line between blacks and women who still feel it’s a “white man’s world” and white men who feel they’re being unfairly ruled out as race profiteers and are being harmed by it.

Obama sort of addressed the issue in his race speech, but he didn’t give an answer. I don’t know if his support in the black community would drop as dramatically as Connerly predicts if Obama comes out against it. But Obama did come out for driver licenses for illegal immigrants and that didn’t hurt him at all. I know that Affirmative Action is a far more racially-loaded issue, but Obama can save himself by pushing preferences based on your income for colleges and retooling the laws a bit when it comes to states hiring contractors from female or minority lead firms to making things a bit more even handed. Or he could call for ideas on how to improve Affirmative Action or unveil his own plan to fix it. (I hope you’re reading this Barack. I’m tossing out pearls of wisdom here!)

But now’s the time to guess how Connerly would respond to these two big questions.

Chances on endorsing Obama? Nil. Connerly would never endorse Obama. While he’s half-assed proud, he’s also half-assed against Obama’s closet “Liberalism.”

Chances on voting for Obama? No chance again. Connerly is a firm believer that Obama isn’t much more than an Affirmative Action candidate, which is totally weird as he also holds Obama up as proof that we don’t need Affirmative Action. Did he get there because of his race or no, Ward. He can’t be both.

But you can’t really argue with him. He is a man living in a color-blind world. After all, he only sees in black and white.

Check back to The Black Snob all this week, concluding on April 14^th.

Sunday: Amy Holmes
Monday: Condoleezza Rice
Tuesday: Ward Connerly
Wednesday: Shelby Steele
Thursday: Alan Keyes
Friday: JC Watts
Saturday: Colin Powell
Sunday: Armstrong Williams
Monday: Michael Steele
Tuesday: John McWhorter
Wednesday: LaShawn Barber and Herman Cain
Thursday: Star Parker and Eric Wallace
Friday: A final analysis, “Who Would Clarence Thomas Vote For?”

Ward Connerly's Affirmative Action Initiative Fails to Get Enough Signatures in Oklahoma

Mon, 8 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT

posted by Onelove

Ward Connerly, the chief backer of a campaign to ban affirmative action in five states, said that he was abandoning the Oklahoma campaign due to a lack of signatures on petitions to get the issue on the November voting ballot. This is, essentially, a blow for his campaign. Connerly opponents, a coalition of traditional civil rights advocates including the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, hailed the his camp's decision, filed in court papers last Friday. They had contested the validity of petition signatures turned into and accepted by the secretary of state.

“We knew it was going to be a problematic campaign in Oklahoma, but we decided to roll the dice anyway,” Connerly said Monday in a telephone interview. “It was just a miscalculation. We’re not going to waste anymore time or money on it,” this year, he said. “We’ll be back.”

The decision to bail out of Oklahoma, where Connerly’s ballot initiative was expected to easily win approval this fall by the state’s overwhelmingly conservative voters, narrows his “Super Tuesday Equal Rights Campaign” to four states — Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nebraska. Voters would be asked to ban race and gender “preferences” in public college admissions and awarding of government contracts. This occurrence in Oklahoma may be an omen of things to come for the rest of the states.

The one state in the ‘safe’ column to date is Colorado, Connerly said. The other three are engaged in petition drives and, in the case of Missouri, a court fight. Connerly said he would now focus his money and energy on those states, in hopes of having proposed constitutional amendments on ballots in at least three states.

The surprise move in Oklahoma followed an early March court challenge by the ACLU and its coalition of Connerly opponents. In papers filed with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the coalition objected to the “signature count verified by the secretary of state.”

The Secretary of State said the Connerly forces appeared to have sufficient signatures to get on the ballot based on a numerical count, although there were “large numbers of duplicate names and addresses discovered well into the signature counting process” and that there were likely to be more.

The coalition charged the signature count was “defective” for a number of reasons. Some of the names were of people who were not legal voters in Oklahoma, they charged. Some of the signatures were from people who signed more than once. Some petitions were circulated by people who were not legal residents of Oklahoma, a violation of state law. Also, some signatures were not properly verified or notarized, the group claimed.

Connerly said Oklahoma laws are far more rigid that those of his other ballot initiative states and that made Oklahoma “problematic” for several reasons. There was the 90-day time frame the state set for getting signatures. Most states allow at least 120 days. The state requires all circulators of petitions be residents of the state. Most states don’t, he said. Oklahoma requires petitioners to secure enough valid signatures to equal at least 15 percent of the number of votes received by the highest vote-getter in the state’s last general election. Most states require a smaller percentage.

“Hell no, they didn’t defeat us,” Connerly said, when asked if the Oklahoma decision represented a defeat of his efforts by his opponents. “The process defeated us.” No, I don't think he will manage to get this initiative on all the remaining states.

Personally, I think that a person should be judged on their qualifications, which included experience, education and ability to get the job done, but we live in a society where it is sometimes who you know and not what you know that gets you the job. I will venture to say that most companies are fair in their hiring practices, but there are people who work for these organization who are not. The same holds true for education. Some black youths are at an economic disadvantage than their white counterparts and need some assistance to get into the best colleges and universities. For me, when I applied to Ohio University, I did not disclose my race because I wanted to be accepted based on my educational credentials, and I was. This is how it should be, but this is not the case many times. So, while affirmative action is very controversial, it is nonetheless needed in many cases in this country. We have come a long way, and have a long way yet to travel. Just my thoughts, you be the judge.....

When "Civil Rights" Means Ending Affirmative Action

Tue, 2 Apr 2008 17:07:54 GMT

posted by sheldonrampton

Ward ConnerlyPeople in Colorado who signed an anti-affirmative action ballot initiative petition are charging that petition circulators deceived them about the measure's real purpose and intent. The signature-gathering effort is part of a push by African-American conservative Ward Connerly to qualify ballot initiatives in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma that would end affirmative action policies and programs in those states. Signature-gatherers for Connerly's measure, which is deceptively titled the "Colorado Civil Rights Initiative," reportedly approached people in the Denver metro area by asking them whether they were "against discrimination." If a person answered "yes," they were asked to sign a petition that they were told would legally end discrimination in their state. Many signers were upset later when they discovered that the "Civil Rights Initiative" was really an effort to end existing affirmative action programs and policies that help level the playing field for groups like minorities and women, that historically have suffered the most from discrimination in employment, contracts and educational opportunities.