White suspicion, black 'luck'

For decades, critics of affirmative action on both sides of the aisle have argued that the policy calls into question the talents and qualifications of the minorities who benefit from it. They insisted that it generates a cloud of suspicion around the successful black or Latino student or professional. It makes whites wonder whether their minority colleagues really "earned" their positions.

It turns out those critics are right about the suspicion part. And evidently you don't even have to be an actual beneficiary of affirmative action to be accused of having an unfair advantage. Geraldine Ferraro's remark that "if [Barack] Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position" was not racist per se; it did not presume racial inferiority on the part of any person or group. But it was remarkably arrogant, ignorant and, unfortunately, reflective of an all too common and growing sentiment in the post-Civil Rights era.

In 1999, the Seattle Times commissioned a survey that found 75% of whites agreed with the statement that "unqualified minorities get hired over qualified whites" most or some of the time. Two-thirds felt the same when asked about promotions and college admissions. Whether white disadvantage is real or imagined, the poll showed that a considerable number of whites feel threatened not only by the means of ascent but by minority advancement itself. Clearly, most minorities who advance up the professional ladder are not unqualified. (If you think that last sentence is incorrect, you probably are a true-blue racist.)

But what's most troubling about Ferraro's comment was that she seemed blind to its implications and absurdities. In retrospect, Ferraro's own claim to fame -- being tapped by a white male party "elder" to be the Democrats' vice presidential candidate -- clearly had the whiff of tokenism about it. Unlike Ferraro in 1984, Obama has built his run for high national office over many, many months, from the ground up, raising money and voter awareness on his own. Where then is the affirmative action?

If Ferraro had clarified her remarks (and she had oh so many television minutes last week to do so) -- perhaps explaining that what she meant was that Obama's blackness has played a role in his appeal -- she might have saved her role in the Clinton campaign, but she still would have been only partly right.