Prometheus 6

"...it is not the opinion of The Primary Source that there are no qualified black students at Tufts University or that any of the other generalizations in the song are true. I apologize that this carol did not accurately reflect the views of The Primary Source, and I take full responsibility for failing to edit it to ensure that it did."

If "it is not the opinion of The Primary Source that there are no qualified black students at Tufts University or that any of the other generalizations in the song are true," then the song was nothing more or less than an intentional insult. She's not only a racist but a coward.

You can't write shit like that and just say it isn't racist any more than Kramer can. But, as Steve M. says:

But shed no tears for Ms. Hoover -- she's already contributing articles and blog posts on a regular basis to The Washington Times. Hey, maybe it's even a good career move -- after all, isn't overseeing the publication of racist parodies at a right-wing college publication how Dinesh D'Souza got his start?

There's a discussion of this at BlackProf...seems there's some folk that would prefer the offense simply not be discussed, or to be treated as a serious argument. And The Debate Link is right on point. I can't improve on it at all.

But after reading about this controversy at Tufts University, I realized there is another issue in play here. The people who think less of Blacks or think them "undeserving" of their spots in elite colleges are the same as those opposing Affirmative Action! By and large, I haven't noticed the people who support Affirmative Action also subscribing to the view that Black students are inferior. So to the extent that there is a correlation between AA and views of Black inferiority, it's self-fullfilling! At Tufts, a conservative publication wrote up the following Christmas Carol "parody":

O Come All Ye Black Folk
Boisterous yet Desirable
O come ye, O come ye to our University
Come and we will admit you,
Born in to oppression;
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
Fifty-two black freshman.

O Sing, gospel choirs,
We will accept your children,
No matter what your grades are, F's, D's, or G's,
Give them all privileged status;
We will welcome all.
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
Fifty-two black freshman.

All come! Blacks, we need you, Born into the ghetto.
O Jesus! We need you now to fill our racial quotas.
Descendants of Africa, with brown skin arriving:
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
Fifty-two black freshman.

O Come All Ye Black Folk!

Made out as a critique of Affirmative Action, this carol reveals more than it intends to. It just assumes that all the Black students at Tufts are D or F students, underqualified, accepted only to fill a racial quota. Even under the most cynical view, this is highly doubtful. Satirical or no, it is still a racist poem, and the overlap between the anti-AA and anti-Black camps should be disturbing.

The point is that I don't think the people who subscribe to the view of Blacks as undeserving of their earnings are the ones best suited to dictating policy on reparative action for African-Americans. They should not benefit from a problem of their own making.