New Orleans Reacts to Eddie Jordan Verdict

By Minister Willie Muhammad, from the Times-Picayune letters to the editor:

"The trial of the city's district attorney, Eddie Jordan, validates a belief that many black citizens have: that in this 'game of life,' there are rules that can be used by white people but are forbidden to those of a different skin tone. Eddie Jordan is being persecuted for doing what the white officials of this city have always done: Rewarding supporters."

Patronage hiring and firing has come before the Supreme Court on a number of occasions. Arch-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia argues that all patronage hiring and firing is acceptable, but he's never gotten the Court to agree with him on that. The rule is, you can pick your top advisors, people in an actual decision-making capacity, without whose cooperation you can't reasonably be expected to get anything done. For an excellent recent example of why that might be a good idea, consider this story, about a diplomat who decided to interfere with the hunt for the world's most wanted terrorist because of partisan disagreements with the administration. But you cannot dismiss the low-level types, the non-decision-makers, the janitors and receptionists and paralegals, the kinds of people who don't make major policy decisions, for purely political reasons. White or black, Republican or Democrat, that's the rule, and if you don't like it, complain to the liberal side of the United States Supreme Court.

"Last year prominent black preachers questioned how many city contracts go to companies that don't reflect the majority of the city's population. A trial like Eddie Jordan's would put fear into any person who may desire to change that pattern. He or she could be charged with reverse racism!"

This is a complex 14th Amendment issue, rather than (as above) a less complex 1st Amendment issue, governed by a different line of cases, and with different interests involved. In the First Amendment context, the rule is you can't be fired for what you think or believe, or for your political party. In the 14th Amendment context, the rule under Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena and City of Richmond v. Croson is that so-called "benign" racial classifications, those designed to benefit racial minorities, will be strictly scrutinized by the Court. That means a plan to distribute city contracting work according to race must be narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests. Part of that narrow tailoring means taking into account race-neutral alternatives, and you have to limit the plan so it won't last longer than the discrimination it's designed to eliminate.

All of that, as you can imagine, is enormously complex. It can't be adequately resolved in a three-paragraph letter to the editor. But the summary is that you can't flat-out discriminate in favor of any racial group, regardless of whether your motives are good or bad, unless you have a detailed plan to do it justly, and a darn good reason.

"This trial is part of an overall conspiracy to make black people, who are No. 1 victims of racism, look like the new racists."

Are you denying that black people may be racists? Because such a sweeping generalization about people, based on their skin color, would certainly be ironic at the very least, no?

I see that Supernatural Rabbit Scribe sticks to his belief that working to actively remedy past discrimination should be permissible. I agree with that point of view, but I want to attach an important caveat. Fixing past discrimination cannot, in my opinion, be accomplished through either reparations or quota-based affirmative action programs alone. The problem of race is primarily psychological. And if the victims of racism are given financial benefits but retain a state of mind that they are perpetual victims, that they cannot or should not try to solve their own problems, that the world or any external party owes them a living - then no financial benefit will outlast the first generation of beneficiaries, because the beneficiaries won't pass on to their children the important values that lead to wealth-retention: the importance of education, hard work, persistence, avoiding crime and drugs, respecting women and life in general, the consequences of hard work of refusal to work.

For that reason, any steps taken to remedy the effects of past discrimination (the severity of which I do not deny) must, in order to be actual solutions to the problem, must involve a culture-wide shift of attitude, rather than simple hand-outs. Let's fix the problems, sure, but let's do it in a reasonable manner. I don't think Minister Willie Muhammad's attitude reflects one that is serious about genuine remedies that can survive more than a generation.