We fight for equality and are met with resistance at worst, and half measures at best. Often though it seems, the place where these half measures are given full effect and are enforced with the upmost vigor is in instances where they cut both ways, at times aiding the formerly oppressive class and hurting the group who first sought ameliorative laws. This may be just. This may be what “ought” to be done in a vacuum. However, this practice evokes an undeniable and deep frustration from those who have historically been given the short end of the stick if not otherwise beaten by it. Fairness has never fully applied to us in America. Our interests have never received honest singular attention.

Today, there exists an “injury gap” affirmatively created by a history of hate policy once openly sanctioned, designed, and enforced by a United States government that was representative in name only. This was a government not at all separate from, but was comprised of and beholden to, a majority defined by widespread private animus against the existence of autonomous black life. Today’s disparities in outcomes between races (experienced first-hand by many and supported empirically) are no accident. The insistence that these effects were unintended or simply tangential to policy is a lazy myth. The observable deficiencies between racial groups are not unexpected consequences of laws intended solely to prevent ethnic integration; the state of America’s implicit racial caste-ing today arose by design.

Acknowledging this state of affairs and its origins, we must admit that colorblind (re: caste-blind) structuring of remedial policies is irresponsible, insulting, disingenuous, and above all self-defeating. We, as all Americans, deserve more. We deserve an approach rooted in reality. Theoretical and ideological purity was never unquestionably important before. “Equality”, “Fairness”, “Justice”, the sanctity of “Judicial Restraint”, and the duty to equally safeguard citizens’ present interests in “Life”, “Liberty”, and “Property” were never principles strictly adhered to for the protection of black and brown people. These principles were consistently perverted or ignored to benefit white and irreparably harm non-white citizens (see: housing, voting, marriage, adoption, reproductive rights, police abuse, selective police protection, domestic acts of organized terror, slavery, lending, employment, property rights, imprisonment, military service, education, health care). This truth is how we got to where we are now. And to argue, that for the first time in the history of America, these principles are too holy, too untouchable, too deeply ingrained in the identity of our country to briefly be considered secondary to the interest of righting current ills precipitated by past and present wrongs is untenable to me and I think the rest of black and brown America.

-- RobertoRivera2 - 27 Mar 2015

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