Re: Riots and Racists and Looting...OH MY!!!
It seems to me that one of the main reasons that race relations in the US are where they are today is a direct result of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He had a genius for taking an uncompromising moral clarity and expressing it in such a way that people could easily understand it, were forced to agree with it, and were inspired to help him turn his dream into reality.
I am convinced that at the early stages of affirmative action, he would have stood athwart it, raised both hands, and shouted “no, no, no, no, NO! You are doing it WRONG!”
The syllogism of affirmative action as it was implemented goes as follows:
a) Black people are not performing up to academic standards
b) We want black people to perform up to standards
c) Therefore, we will lower the standards so that more black people can meet them.
Dr. King would have railed against that logic and insisted upon the following instead:
a) Black people are not performing up to academic standards
b) We want black people to perform up to standards
c) Therefore, we will embark upon whatever remedial education and training is necessary until black people can meet these standards just as well as anyone else.
His unique genius and powers of persuasion would have forced people to agree with the latter formulation and reject the former. Our country would be very different today as a result
