By: Ted Xenakis – 4/24
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
These words should ring loudly in the hearts and minds of all Americans, although, given the declining trajectory of America’s public education system, that assumption is no longer a given. These words, of course, are from our Declaration of Independence, that document we celebrate with our modern-day rockets red glaring.
Sadly, some have called our celebration of independence a white supremacists’ holiday, and the recent creation of the federal holiday known as Juneteenth is a reminder that many in our woke society still bear the pains and chains of white guilt.
That is not to suggest that those pains and chains are in any way commensurate with the real pains and chains of African Americans during the age of slavery and the many decades after its abolition.
In many critical aspects, the ideal of equality for all engendered in our founding documents was anything but. Rather, when America was born, equality was the exclusive province of white males who were landowners.
Nevertheless, it was a revolutionary concept put into practice as western society emerged from a feudal structure dominated by kings and lords to a more egalitarian and enlightened framework championed by the likes of Thomas Paine and others.
From the birth of America until today, there has been an inexorable movement to bring the ideal of equality to all Americans.
This movement was always sparked by the civil protest of those groups who were left on the outside looking in upon America’s promise of equality. The Suffragettes, the Civil Rights Movement, Same Sex Marriage, and other causes have expanded the circle of Americans entitled to the benefits of equal protection under the law.
It seems that finally America has begun the true fulfillment of the proclaimed self-evident truth that all people are created equal. Sadly, having attained this lofty goal, at least in its legal framework, progressives in today’s America want to cut off the legs of this hard-fought legal pedestal.
While bubbling beneath the surface for a decade or more, this attack on American equality rose to the surface on Joe Biden’s first day in office when he issued his “Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”
The order exclaims that there are “entrenched disparities in our laws and public policies, and in our public and private institutions…. And that America is rife with “systemic racism.”
Exactly what is systemic racism? And what system is this executive order talking about? I suggest that the system is the legal system in America. The same legal system that got its start in the English Common Law and then our Constitution.
Despite initial barriers to achieving true equality at the founding of America, our legal system has marched toward establishing a “system” that guarantees everyone equal treatment. The prohibition for governments and private groups to discriminate against a plethora of protected classes is as much a bedrock of our system as the 14th Amendment itself.
There was a time when racial segregation in schools and public places was legal, a time when homosexuality and interracial marriage were illegal, a time not too long ago when same sex marriage was illegal. These legal obstructions to equality have been stricken down in our march toward a system that is anything but racist or otherwise discriminatory.
With the advent of “equity” as the new basis for government action, as well as private entities who benefit in any way from government funding, America has undone all of the good of the past two hundred plus years since its founding.
Equity means the automatic disqualification of people based simply because of their gender or race. A prime example was Joe Biden’s nomination for a Supreme Court Justice. He stated unequivocally that his selection would be a woman of color.
This pronouncement meant that any qualified man and any qualified white woman was immediately disqualified because of the gender or race. Is that what we want to embrace in America? Is that equal treatment under the law as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment?
Do we really want to resurrect the racial, gender and other identity barriers that plagued America for so long?
I for one say no!
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