Berkeley GOP group in hot water for 'affirmative action' bake sale

americanthinker.com
September 26, 2011
Rick Moran

Definitely not politically correct. And, as you'll see, the liberals are having a hissy fit.
It's a bake sale being put on by UC Berkeley Young Republicans that is designed to be both humorous and thought provoking.

What they didn't expect were death threats:

During the sale, scheduled for Tuesday, baked goods will be sold to white men for $2.00, Asian men for $1.50, Latino men for $1.00, black men for $0.75 and Native American men for $0.25. All women will get $0.25 off those prices.

"The pricing structure is there to bring attention, to cause people to get a little upset," Campus Republican President Shawn Lewis, who planned the event, told CNN-affiliate KGO. "But it's really there to cause people to think more critically about what this kind of policy would do in university admissions."

Lewis says it's a way to make a statement about pending legislation that would let the California universities consider race or national origin during the admission process.

But the young Republicans have been on the receiving end of a fierce backlash. Reaction has been so negative they've been forced to cancel their customary lunchtime tabling duties, according to KGO.

This reaction from the pro-quota camp makes us wonder what planet this fellow lives on:

Tim Wise, author of the book "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son," calls the bake sale a "sarcastic and rather smarmy slap at people of color."

"There are a lot of ways to make a point about your disagreement with affirmative action," Wise told Lemon Saturday night.

"I get the joke," he continued. "How very original. It's been done for 15 years. The point that I think needs to be made ... is that by the time anyone steps on a college campus ... there has already been 12- to 13-years of institutionalized affirmative action for white folks, that is to say, racially embedded inequality, which has benefited those of us who are white. And it's only at the point of college admissions that these folks seem to get concerned with color consciousness."

If the gentleman feels that guilty about being white, I suggest he see a therapist. For the rest, the self-delusion necessary to deny that "affirmative action" permeates society, top to bottom, right to left, in all endeavors is shocking. In order to believe what this gentleman believes, you have to deliberately ignore what's going on around you and substitute a fantasy world where white people oppress minorities as part of a vast conspiracy to keep them down.

In schools from kindergarten to senior high, students are regularly and systematically exposed to race based decisions that start from the premise that white people are oppressors and that because of historically bad behavior, everything must be done to rectify it. And statements by this jamoke like, "there has already been 12- to 13-years of institutionalized affirmative action for white folks" is so far outside reality that we can properly question the gentleman's sanity.

If he wants to make a point about the historic imbalance between suburban schools (where white and black kids score equally well on standardized tests) and the travesty of minority schools in cities, then have at it. But recognize that "affirmative action" is a fact of life at every level in American society and that college admissions is just one more manifestation of the phenomenon.