The End of "People of Color"

By Dr. Harold A. Black

blackh@knoxfocus.com

haroldblackphd.com

When the progressives sought to try to make the rest of us think that all minorities are just alike, they invented the term "people of color." It didn't matter that the term never made any sense, they foisted it on us anyway pretending that all minorities were oppressed and hence united in the cause. Yet minorities differ more than they are alike. The discrimination faced by Asian-Americans is different from blacks and Hispanics. Asians are being discriminated against in education but not in the classic sense. While blacks were once denied admission to schools on the lie that they were unqualified, Asians are being denied admission because they are too qualified. Entrance into elite secondary schools and universities is being limited because the schools would have – in their eyes – too many Asians and too few blacks and Hispanics. Thus, the schools want more people of color, so long as those colors are black and brown.

Instead of taking steps to address the root cause of the problem – improving the basic education of blacks and Hispanics – the bureaucrats have resorted to limiting the admission of Asians. Standards are changed, with test scores and standardized tests being deemphasized and replaced by subjective personal characteristics. When I was an active researcher in lending discrimination, I found that all of the lawsuits alleging discrimination in lending excluded Asians from their samples. If Asians were included, then the statistical evidence of discrimination would disappear. If Asian outcomes were compared to whites, then the statistics would often indicate that whites were being discriminated against. Thus, Asians are to be excluded from "people of color" because they have somehow triumphed over oppression.

Minorities are also different politically. While blacks remain mostly loyal Democrats, Asians are revitalizing the Republican Party in California. Lumping all Hispanics together is simply dumb. Hispanics are not a homogeneous group. Cuban-Americans are solidly Republican while Puerto Ricans are typically Democrats. Hispanic residents in border towns have reacted to the illegal immigrant invasion by voting for Republicans. Arizona, Texas and Florida all have solid numbers of Republican Hispanics while Democrats remain entrenched in California, New Mexico, New York and Illinois. Yet even in those states and nationwide, Republicans are showing strong gains in Hispanic communities. There is even some movement among blacks as economic conditions, crime and education are replacing social issues for black voters.

The recent brouhaha in Los Angeles vividly calls into question the supposed unity of "people of color". The city is mostly Hispanic and solidly Democratic. There is an ugly rift not only between the whites and the Hispanics but also between the Hispanics and blacks. The racial spoils are being fought over. Since the Hispanics are in the majority among the city's politicians, they have made themselves the favorite minority to the exclusion of blacks.

It used to be the case that the advocates of "people of color" envisioned a united front against "white supremacy." Instead, one minority group is not pitted against another in a racial spoils battle. This should come as no surprise. Since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., there have been few leaders in the minority communities that have preached about a harmonious coexistence between races working together to make all better off. Rather instead of trying to make the economic pie larger, the groups are acting as if it is a zero-sum game where in order to make one group better off you must make the others worse off.

The Biden Administration is a major culprit in the schism between the races with its obsession over diversity, equity and inclusion. Asians and Hispanics know that the Biden initiatives are aimed at blacks and at the very vocal LBGTQ advocates. Asians know that they are being excluded because they do not fit the poor and downtrodden mold. That Hispanics are being pandered to less than blacks is curious since they are the largest minority. No wonder they are demanding more of the spoils pie. The result is that "people of color" has been exposed as a leftwing pipe dream. It has never existed as a unified entity and now more than ever the term should be relegated to the scrap heap.

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