Apart from a couple of sound bites during the presidential debates, both candidates have worked hard to remain silent on the issue of civil rights. For the few of us in America who judge our presidents based on their civil rights record, I have good news and bad news.
The bad news: The bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in an act of extreme partisanship, has decided to wait until after the presidential election to discuss the Bush Administration’s horrific civil rights record.
The good news: They released online a 180-page staff draft of their report, entitled “Redefining Rights in America,” and it is absolutely devastating.
The best news: Unlike the commissioners, I have no qualms about discussing their findings this close to Nov. 2. Call me crazy, but I think the people should know their president’s policies before they vote for him.
The commission reports that “President Bush has neither exhibited leadership on pressing civil rights issues, nor taken
actions that matched his words.”
When accounting for inflation, the six major governmental civil rights programs have lost spending power under Bush’s watch. He refuses to meet with civil rights leaders and to attend their events. He rarely uses his public platform to talk to the American people about civil rights issues, and when he does, it is usually part of an official duty, like commenting on a historically significant date.
Bush has tried to eliminate programs that are important to poor minority communities, like HOPE VI. He requested a $1 billion decrease in low income housing for 2005, according to the report. Bush has also attempted to end important programs for women, like the Department of Labor’s Equal Pay Matters Initiative and Title IX enforcement.
The report calls the
president’s commitment to Native Americans “inadequate” and says that such a lack of commitment “ensures that their education, housing and law enforcement conditions
remain substandard.”
None of the administration’s rhetoric has been backed up by actions. The stated objectives to increase federal grants to black colleges and increase minority homeownership are worthy goals, but Bush does not have a plan on how to achieve them. Bush has demanded no accountability to ensure that civil rights objectives are met or that laws are enforced. Why? Because he just doesn’t care.
The only thing remotely positive in the report is that the President’s Cabinet and judicial appointments have been relatively diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and gender, a commendable feat. However, as the report points out, minority status does not necessarily equate to an expertise with, or commitment to, civil rights. In fact, the persons of color that occupy positions within the Bush administration are uniquely hostile to civil rights.
This form of racial cynicism is rampant among Republicans. People of color are paraded in front of the media to criticize civil rights programs and champion programs that would hurt communities of color in order to deflect accusations of racial prejudice away from the party.
The ultimate goal is to control the context of the debate, to take an issue that is racial in nature and redefine it as an issue solely about philosophic or political differences. If they succeed, we won’t talk about, for example, the racial implications of the No Child Left Behind Act, because Rod Paige is Secretary of Education.
It is the same reason they put Condoleezza Rice in front of the cameras to parrot the administration’s view on slave reparations. A few newspapers, afraid that the public wouldn’t get the point, took the absurd step of describing Rice as “an African-American” in their
articles, without attributing race to anybody else, even other blacks. Subtle.
This “colorblinding” technique is popular even among white liberals who are more comfortable talking about economic issues than racial ones.
Bush further dilutes the civil rights discussion by painting things that have nothing to do with civil rights — like his
faith-based initiative — with the civil rights brush. As the report points out, the only way Bush’s faith-based initiative has
anything to do with civil rights is in a negative context because it condones religious discrimination in hiring.
Perhaps the most damning critique from the Commission on Civil Rights involves Bush’s apathy toward those who were illegally disenfranchised during the 2000 election. “As a result of the President’s inaction,” the report states, “little will change before the 2004 elections.”
Why isn’t John Kerry screaming this from the rooftops?

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