Free Race Matters by Cornel West Page B

the quality of their skills, not the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.
    The new black conservatives assume that without affirmative action programs, white Americans will make choices on merit rather than on race. Yet they have adduced no evidence for this. Most Americans realize that job-hiring choices are made both on reasons of merit and on personal grounds. And it is this personal dimension that is often influenced by racist perceptions. Therefore the pertinent debate regarding black hiring is never “merit vs. race” but whether hiring decisions will be based on merit, influenced by race-bias against blacks, or on merit, influenced by race-bias, but with special consideration for minorities and women, as mandated by law. In light of actual employment practices, the black conservative rhetoric about race-free hiring criteria (usually coupled with a call for dismantling affirmative action mechanisms) does no more than justify actual practices of racial discrimination. Black conservative claims about self-respect should not obscure this fact, nor should they be regarded as different from the normal self-doubts and insecurities of new arrivals in the American middle class. It is worth noting that most of the new black conservatives are first-generation middle-class persons, who offer themselves as examples of how well the system works for those willing to sacrifice and work hard. Yet, in familiar American fashion, genuine white peer acceptance still preoccupies—and often escapes—them. In this regard, they are still affected by white racism.
    The eclipse of U.S. hegemony in the world is also an important factor for understanding black conservatives’ views on foreign policy. Although most of the press attention they receive has to do with their provocative views on domestic issues, I would suggest that the widespread support black conservatives received from conservatives in the Reagan and Bush administrations and Jewish neo-conservatives has much to do with their views on U.S. foreign policies. Though black conservatives rightly call attention to the butchery of bureaucratic elites in Africa, who rule in the name of a variety of ideologies, they reserve most of their energies for supporting U.S. intervention in Central America and the U.S. substantive aid to Israel. Their relative silence regarding the U.S. policy of “constructive engagement” with South Africa is also revealing.
    The black conservatives’ stance is significant in light of the dramatic shift that has occurred in black America regarding America’s role in the world. A consequence of the civil rights movement and the black power ideology of the sixties was a growing identification of black Americans with other oppressed peoples around the world. This has had less to do with a common skin color and more to do with shared social and political experience. Many blacks sympathize with Polish workers and Northern Irish Catholics (despite problematic Polish-black and Irish-black relations in places like Chicago and Boston), and more and more blacks are cognizant of how South Africa oppresses its native peoples, how Chile and South Korea repress their citizens, and how Israel mistreats the Palestinians. In fact, the radical consequences for domestic issues of this growing black international consciousness—usually dubbed anti-Americanism by the vulgar right—frightens the new black conservatives, who find themselves viewed in many black communities as mere apologists for pernicious U.S. foreign policies.
    We can further understand the rise of the new black conservatives by highlighting the structural transformation of the U.S. economy. The contraction of the manufacturing sector and the expansion of the service sector of the labor market has