AFFIRMATIVE ACTION HAS GONE SOUR

I stand in opposition to affirmative action, not for its high-sounding goals or for what it once stood for. I oppose affirmative action for what it has become today. affirmative action as it is practiced constitutes nothing more than government group preferences for politically designated social victims. As race-based and gender-based preferences, affirmative action is wrong in and of itself, and I stand in absolute opposition to it.

Please understand, I am not some lone voice crying in the wilderness. I am part of a larger national effort to restore civil rights back to its earlier high moral standing and principle that no one should be discriminated against because of the color of his skin, gender, religion or national origin.

It is a sad testament of our times that it is necessary that I, just five years from the 21st century, must reiterate Dr. King's words of 30 years ago that we should judge people individually, not by the color of their skin but the content of our character. You would think by now people would already know this. But as so often is the case, what began as a modest social movement became a national revolution. Once the revolution ran its course, it became captured by special interests.

Affirmative action began as an idea to address the unique circumstances of black Americans, but today over 60 percent of the nation's population is eligible for affirmative action. Affirmative action now encompasses groups whose circumstances do not in any way compare to the legacy of black Americans. Furthermore, affirmative action for black Americans has been a failure in addressing the pathologies of crime, school dropouts and poor labor-force participation it was supposed to address.

The real poison of affirmative action has been that it has feed a mentality on the part of the designated groups of entitlement. It is sad to hear the so-called black leaders speak of black Americans' rights to a job, education or health care without any reference to the cost involved in meeting those demands or the preparation required of the individual to take advantage of opportunities.

The fatal flaw of today's affirmative action is that it no longer strives for equality of opportunity for all Americans, but seeks socially engineered numerical outcomes. Behind the rhetoric of affirmative action supporters is an agenda that people should be present in the labor market in proportion to their percentage of the population. This notion of proportional "representation" is quixotic at best and pure stupidly at worst. Nowhere in human history has there been a society where people have been spread across job classifications or conducted business in proportion to a group population.

The tragedy of affirmative action is that it has transformed the labor market into a political zero-sum game in which a person can only get a job at someone else' expense. affirmative action itself is the political wedge that keeps people apart because of skin color or gender.

Furthermore, we should not overlook the victims of affirmative action, starting with black students who are mismatched at universities they are not qualified for. Or the self doubt of whether or not their employment is based on their abilities or political calculations. Nor should we choose to forget the pain suffered by those who are denied opportunity to work or attend college because they happen to have white skin color.

In conclusion, I would state that affirmative action has served only to perpetuate the problem of the color-conscious regulating through racial politics of everything we do in life. It is not until we abolish all preferences in our civil rights policies and uphold the principle of equal treatment will we be able to go beyond racial politics and toward a new birth of freedom -- a freedom from paternalism and a freedom from guilt.

Michael Sessions is regional coordinator for Project 21, a black conservative issues group sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy in Washington, D.C. The Stoddard County native is a former Southeast Missouri State University student.