1/1/11

Race-Ethnicity Parasitical Gigs

Apply for any job, licenses, permits, benefits or loans in America; register for any school or college, for membership in any club or organization, and in addition to your name and age you will be asked to give your race. Now this at first sight this bit of information seems innocuous enough, until you realize that behind it there are numerous people in both the private and public sector--statisticians, politicos, journalists, marketers, lawyers, bureaucrats of every sort—who are parasitically ( can’t find a kinder word to describe it) making a living from it.

An egregious case that comes to mind is that of a columnist for the Washington Post who for 30 years running has built a career blaming every ill and failing of African Americans in the District of Columbia on white people. The high rate of teen-aged pregnancy, unwed mothers, gang violence, street crime, illiteracy, unemployment, drug addiction, HIV infections, AIDS, fatal breast and prostate cancer, and all the rest is somehow the fault of white people. African Americans are totally blameless. Once, when said columnist could not fabricate a half-credible back-link to Jim Crow and Slavery, he seized on the fact that many of the streets in DC were named after white people, as if the average black resident of D.C. knew or cared who these people were.

Consider, then, this modest proposal: delete the race check-boxes from all application and registration forms; eliminate the category of race altogether and classify Americans as one people, as is the case in multi-racial Brazil. This not only would render many parasitical occupations irrelevant, but also contribute significantly to budget deficit reductions at all government levels; and, in the long run, perhaps, hopefully, obviate racial discrimination in America.

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