An Initiative That Can Accomplish King’s Dream : Civil rights: Affirmative action has come to mean double standards and color-based prejudice.

Political organizers in California are amassing their troops on both sides of an initiative that promises to send shock waves throughout the nation. It’s called the California Civil Rights Initiative and if qualified for the ballot and passed, it would bring an abrupt end to affirmative action as we know it.

With an extraordinary economy of language, the text of the initiative reaffirms that there should be no discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender--and then expands the concept by mandating an end to preferences on the basis of these criteria as well.

Why should any African American support such an initiative? For three reasons:

* In one of his most arresting speeches, Martin Luther King Jr. said that even if his Jewish brothers and sisters told him they didn’t need his help to fight bigotry, he would still “take a stand against anti-Semitism because it’s wrong, it’s unjust and it’s evil.”

Is it right to require Chinese applicants to an elite high school in San Francisco to score 10 points higher than blacks on entrance exams to qualify for admission? Is it just that white males in certain occupations are precluded from even competing for opportunities because their skin’s melanin content roughly approximates that of those who once discriminated against blacks? It it fair to deem the son of an affluent black family disadvantaged because so may other blacks live in poverty--while declaring a poor, young white male privileged because he looks a lot like the CEO of the nearest Fortune 500 firm? Isn’t the notion of creating social policy based on skin color the very evil King gave his life to end?

The benign intentions and lofty ideals that gave birth to affirmative action have, in a perverse twist of executive orders and legal interpretation, betrayed the intent and spirit of King’s dream.

* Beyond the lofty principles of social rectitude lie more pragmatic considerations; perhaps the most important is the perception that affirmative action is synonymous with lowering standards. Tales of “race-normed” test scores, waived minimum standards to meet de facto racial quotas and substandard performance by minorities have become part of the lore of affirmative action.

Daily, the purveyors of self-esteem argue that the stigma of black inferiority is among the most insidious remnants of slavery and segregation. So any racial policy that reinforces this stigma should be viewed with suspicion if not contempt. Moreover, it’s doubtful that any genuine respect or perception of equality between blacks and whites can ever be attained in the presence of social policies that seek to force acceptance of double standards and de-emphasize merit.

* Finally, we black Americans must lift our heads a bit, look to the horizon and ask ourselves where these policies are leading us. Do we like the world these policies are creating? Are we comfortable with the racial legacy we’re leaving for our children? Are these policies ultimately moving us toward a country that will one day fulfill King’s dream, or are they sinking us deeper into the morass of color-coded opportunity, racial enmity and Balkanization?

My conviction is that if King were alive today, he would once again go up to the mountain top and look over to the other side. He would then descend, and with passion, wisdom and eloquence prevail upon us to halt. “Turn around,” he would stay, “for the path we are currently on does not lead to the Promised Land.”