Good Intentions; Frightening Results
Peg on Feb 05 2008 at 6:00 am | Filed under: Eugenics, Law, Peg's Page, Race, Society
This morning, I read a column from the Wall Street Journal about race.
Just when we thought we’d heard everything from the diversity police, here they come trying to prescribe even the color of charity. The California Assembly last week passed a bill sponsored by state Representative Joe Coto to require foundations with assets of more than $250 million to disclose the race, gender and sexual orientation of their trustees, staff, and even grantees. Look for this to arrive in a legislature near you.
A Berkeley-based advocacy group called the Greenlining Institute hatched this idea because, allegedly, racial minorities aren’t well enough represented in California policy debates. John Gamboa, Greenlining’s executive director, blames foundations for failing to donate enough money to “minority-led” think tanks and community groups and businesses, and he hopes this legislation will “shame” them into giving more. What counts as a minority-led organization? According to Greenlining, the board and staff should both be more than 50% minority.
Obviously, some people find this to be a good idea; it would not have passed otherwise. I, however, find it frightening.
Not long after the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC opened, I visited. While some of the focus, obviously, of the museum is Europe’s Holocaust, much of the museum also highlights the varied offshoots of classifying human beings by their race and religion. Several of the exhibits are immensely powerful. One of those is a photographic explanation of how Nazis classified humans by race.
The exhibit shows photographs of people from all over the world - and describes how Nazis classified them. Measure the skull, look at how the eyes are spaced, judge the pigment of the skin …. That’s how they ultimately selected between people who were worthy of being part of their “Master Race” - and those who should be shunned, tortured - and/or murdered.
While I know that the intentions of those who pass a law such as the one above are intended to do good, I am confident it will achieve anything but. Ultimately, the simple classification of humans into these separate races creates a pernicious cloud above all of us.
Who is the ultimate judge of someone’s exact racial DNA? Why should that make a difference in the charitable work that those individuals are doing?
We are - every one of us - members of the human race. I implore these lawmakers to revisit their despicable law harkening back to the thoughts of the Nazi era and junk them. The shape of someone’s nose; the curl of their hair; the color of their skin. Absolutely none of it should have any bearing on their worth as a human being.
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