A Valuing of Differences : Affirmative Action Is a Step Toward Broadening the Tribe

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a momentous decision reached last term, voted 6 to 3 in favor of some race-conscious remedies in cases involving affirmative action. The ruling defeated the Reagan Administration’s efforts to ignore the history of racial discrimination in the workplace while simultaneously trumpeting a colorblind society.

The Administration’s policies are particularly ironic now, since as a nation we have finally begun to accept ourselves as a multicultural society. The wave of patriotism around the July 4 holiday, whatever its television excesses, self-consciously showcased an America that values racial and cultural differences.

The Administration’s posture is even more ironic when an increasing number of pragmatic (and conservative) business leaders are more openly extolling the benefits derived from a diverse work force. As a management consultant to Fortune 500 companies for more than 20 years, I believe that the Administration has overlooked the fact that these business leaders are influenced not only by social responsibility but mostly by increased productivity and higher profits.

A fragile thread is ruptured as people become more confused and polarized by the actions of the government. Those who need the support of affirmative-action programs feel devalued and mocked once again. For them a dormant rage is stirred. For others the government’s attacks undermine a moral imperative that is a vital underpinning to lasting change in a democratic society.

In this country, when entrenched social customs are changed, an underlying moral imperative must first develop. If the customs involve something as potentially explosive as patterns of behavior between blacks and whites, such an imperative is needed even more to make the change possible and peaceful.

After enough people share the same imperative, a political consensus is produced. Then, to provide a process for the desired change, history provides a psychological moment and laws are proposed and enacted. Orchestrated comments by Administrative spokesmen attacking affirmative action taint a process that, despite its bureaucratic flaws, is succeeding. The attacks also confuse people about the morality of the laws.

Thoughtful students of American history know that without affirmative action the talent, energy and enthusiasm of those who are not white or male still would be largely excluded from the workplace. Ours is not a colorblind society, has never been and, in the lifetimes of those living today, will not be.

Our society now openly acknowledges the many injustices suffered by blacks and other Americans. Even President Reagan, in defending the status quo in South Africa, compares it to how America had been until the civil-rights movement of the 1960s. However, in describing a present-day America, Reagan contends that all injustices and racism, overt and covert, have evaporated like a puddle on a hot sidewalk. He has forgotten that after the marches, confrontations and legislation there still exist the individual attitudes, assumptions, behavior and conventional wisdom that allow people to perpetuate and accept those injustices. These patterns have not suddenly disappeared.

Affirmative action is designed to provide a bridge from what was to what should be. It gives the country a process to deal openly with racial differences and diminish both black rage and white fear. To move so quickly to a stance of colorblindness almost openly courts an eruption of rage that so recently subsided.

Over the past two decades this country surely has made progress toward becoming a more just and equitable society. The first battles in this war against discrimination provided the opportunities to compete, and race-conscious remedies, such as affirmative action, led the way.

The next battles are less clear cut as individual Americans and institutions ponder more subtle questions of difference, chauvinism, prejudices and power-sharing. How do people let go of negative assumptions that have been held about groups and individuals who are different? How do racial, sexual and cultural differences get demystified and made a legitimate topic for discussion? These and other questions are only the beginning of the dialogue of healing that this nation must endure.

This next generation of affirmative-action issues will focus on access to power--and therein lies fierce resistance. Most of the institutional power in the United States has been held by white males. As men with different religions and non-American names have crashed the power circles they have had to diminish, hide and deny their differences. For women, people of color and particularly black Americans this has been the ultimate barrier. Skin color and sex cannot be hidden. These people know that they rarely will get access to real power until processes are in place to help existing power-holders value differences. Power preservation in any society is essentially tribal. In this multicultural society, processes have to be established to expand the definition of tribe to include all Americans, not just white men.

A central theme of our country is to be ever changing and dynamic while remaining true to its founding principles. Affirmative action embodies this theme in a land where differences are valued. To be colorblind is to be blind to history.