From Debra Saunders’ latest column in the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Is there such a thing as being too politically correct in San Francisco? Yes — but a public official has to overreach drastically to hit that mark. Everett Middle School Principal Lena Van Haren did just that when she chose to withhold the results of her school’s Oct. 9 student council election because students elected too many white kids. “It’s not OK for a school that is really, really diverse to have the student representatives majority white,” Van Haren told The Chronicle’s Jill Tucker, as her decision made national news. On Monday, Van Haren finally released the names of the winners.
Van Haren insists that she never intended to interfere with the results — she just wanted to wait to release them until the school had developed a plan to increase the student council’s diversity. One possible remedy would be to add seats so that African American and Latino students are better represented.”
Van Haren’s outrageous actions have made news across the nation, and held out as an example of progressive political correctness run amok. But the principal’s justification for her action isn’t any different, in principle, from the progressive politicians and activists who’ve successfully pushed for by-district council elections in Anaheim.
Van Haren initially cancelled the student council elections because she didn’t think the winners weren’t the “right” mix of colors: Everett Middle School students apparently aren’t race conscious enough and elected too many white kids. Now she wants to expand the size of the student council to ensure more African-American and Latinos kids are elected.
Jose F. Moreno, UNITE-HERE, OCCORD and other progressive elements of the coalition for by-district elections wee of the same opinion regarding the Anaheim City Council: Anaheim voters were electing too many white people and decided to re-structure the council to try and ensure the “right” racial-ethnic mix.
No real difference. Same principle being applied in different circumstances to achieve the same ends.
Adding to the symmetry is the fact that much of the campaign funding for Measures L & M campaign came from rich San Francisco progressives who think the racial attitudes of people like Ms. Van Haren are very enlightened, and that we are less individual human beings than we are members of racial and ethnic groups.
These policies and actions are at their core racist. Using race to define public policy at schools or at any level of government is racist. People in this country should have the freedoms to elect anyone based on their ideas and qualifications not the color of their skin. How have we managed to go so far backward?
Good question, wand.
This is why I always add chocolate chips to vanilla ice cream.
Did she do so as part of a court settlement with plaintiffs in a successful voting rights suit?
If not, it’s not really “the same,” is it?
Uh yeah, Greg. It is the same. As one of the racial pigeonholers and bean-counters yourself, maybe you just can’t see it.
Tell me, to take just one example: would the people who recruited Jenny Rivera to run twice in Anaheim City Council races as a means of splitting the Latino vote have done so if her name had been Jennifer Ridgecrest? Was that “race-blind” of them — or was it “racial pigeonholing”?
It’s not amazing to see an acolyte of Curt “Poll Guards” Pringle — the guy who got his start in electoral politics trying to suppress the Latino vote — trying to argue against a court-ordered settlement (unlike what appears in this story) to remediate past biased electoral practices. But it sure is amazing that you expect to be believed!
Well, Greg – since you think Jennifer Rivera was recruited to run, then tell us who recruited her? I mean, have you ever met her? Maybe you could take some fraction of the time and energy you expend on blogging and try verifying your assumption.
And I didn’t know you were around in OC politics back in 1988, and had first-hand knowledge of what went down in the election. Oh that’s right – you don’t. You’re just regurgitating the mythology that has evolved during the intervening decades.
Also, can you provide evidence of “past biased electoral practices” in Anaheim council elections? But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that reality suspends itself and you are actually correct that there have been been “past biased electoral practices” in Anaheim. Only a progressive like yourself would think we can make up for past biased electoral practices by implementing electoral practices that are still biased – but in a different direction. Is it a one-to-one ratio, Greg? If you think some past candidate wasn’t elected because he or she was a certain ethnicity, then it can be offset somehow by rigging the rules in favor of a candidate of that ethnicity? Really, that’s what progressive racial thinking boils down to: your side doesn’t really have a problem with government treating us differently and unequally based on our skin color or national origin; you just like to be in charge of deciding who the beneficiaries of the discrimination are.
I’m old school. I support equality before the law and a color-blind government that treats me as an individual citizen, not just as a member of a racial or ethnic group.
Don’t confuse Greg with logic and facts!
Nope. My information comes secondhand from multiple sources who were around and whom I’ve found reliable. Perhaps your blog and OJB can cooperate and commission someone to investigate objectively what happened?
I also wasn’t around in 1988 — but I’ve read newspapers stories, including ones in major media, describing it. I didn’t know that anyone still denied it. Well, by all means, let’s hash that one out too!
Here are the first three cites that come up — all to major news outlets — when I type “Pringle Poll Monitors 1998” into Google. You tell me what parts you deny.
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/oct/25/local/me-36101
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-12/local/me-571_1_gop-chairman
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/25/us/republicans-settle-suit-over-guards-at-polls.html
Hey, while you’re at it, let us know if you think that what they did was OK!
By the way, this sort of archival research is often considered an acceptable alternative to “being there at the time” — unless you were actually in the room at the time when planning and execution took place — in which event you do have an advantage as an eyewitness (which I encourage you to use!)
In other words, you’re saying its a fact that Curt Pringle staged the poll guards incident based on some people you spoke to who were around then and whom you choose to believe. Plus some old articles that don’t even support your claim that Curt hired uniformed poll guards. And you wonder why CATER keeps losing in court.