Equal or Unequal? : Excerpts From the Duke-Hicks Debate

Excerpts from David Duke’s opening statement:

“Affirmative action does discriminate. There’s no question about that. There’s no argument about that. It discriminates against white people for jobs, for scholarships, college admissions, loan programs and scholarship programs of the United States of America. It discriminates because it takes people who are less qualified from minority groups and gives them favored treatment over better-qualified [candidates].

It is not about equal opportunity. It is not about equal rights. And we should make that very clear from the outset. It’s not giving people an equal chance because on its face it discriminates. The proposition before the people of California specifically outlaws racial discrimination. That’s all it does in terms of the public sector.

What’s going on right now is that white people, and I use that term--I think our Governor Wilson doesn’t use the term ‘white people’--there is a reverse racism going on in this country. White people, they face this discrimination and they use very nice terms to define it. When blacks faced discrimination of years ago, it was called just that--racial discrimination. Now the white people think this discrimination is called affirmative action.

Well, affirmative may be a nice term, a positive-sounding term, but the results are discriminatory.”

***

“Affirmative action does not help people simply who are poor or are oppressed. There’s a lot of poor white people in this country who come from very difficult backgrounds. There are white kids in this society who come from broken homes who have sickness they had to overcome. They had terrible difficulties, and then they go out and work hard, produce, and then they find themselves victims of racial discrimination.

And I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that discrimination against the black person is wrong based on his race and I say discrimination against the white person is just as morally wrong in our society.”

***

“Affirmative action is not making a better society. If you lower standards and indeed you are lowering standards on college campuses, you’re lowering standards in the business sector, you’re lowering standards across the board in this country. Everybody ends up suffering, both black and white in our country.”

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“We should not be second-class citizens in our own country. I will stand up for equal rights for all people in America, including white society.”

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Excerpts from Joe Hicks’ opening statement:

“The body of politics and programs now known as affirmative action came into existence over the past three decades as a way to counter long-standing discrimination and outright exclusion of women and minorities in entire areas of employment, education and business.”

***

“The 1990s version of social Darwinism: If you’re poor, it’s because you’re lazy. Homeless? Hey, that’s your problem. Victimized by discrimination? Hey, stop whining and just kind of get over it. What’s happened over the past two decades is not a gentler, kinder America. But a meaner, more intolerant America, driven by the politics of denial--the denial that racism and discrimination are still a fact of life for many of America’s people.”

***

“You hear from the foes of affirmative action, crying about quotas and preferential treatment, all of them fully aware that . . . preference is still enjoyed by America’s majority population. . . . Whites on average earn 60% more than blacks, are far more likely to have medical insurance and more than twice as likely to graduate from college.

Like during the time of Hitler’s Germany, tell the lie often enough and throw enough mess against a wall and some of it begins to stick.”

***

“Political opportunists seize on the legitimate economic fears of white men and tell them the enemy are immigrants taking their jobs and women competing for their jobs and unqualified, as we heard this morning, minorities receiving slots at universities and the workplace. It was and continues to be the politics of scapegoating.”

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Voices

“I don’t know of any multiracial society that truly works.”

-- DAVID DUKE

During the debate

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“That is the cry of every unqualified white guy who gets aced out of a job.”

-- JOE HICKS

During the debate

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“I am a supporter of Proposition 209. Having been born black, raised poor and education disadvantaged and during a time that we had no such thing as affirmative action, blacks were indeed succeeding. Maybe not at the rate that most people would want, but it was on our merit, our worth and our character.”

-- EZOLA FOSTER

President, Americans for Family Values

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“I personally don’t believe in affirmative action but to have a former KKK member represent my viewpoint simply stains what I believe in.”

-- STEPHANIE HOLLOWAY

CSUN student

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“I saw one officer get hit with a chunk of concrete about the size of a football.”

-- MARTIN POMEROY

LAPD deputy chief

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“You have FBI agents, SWAT team guys, even the bomb squad. It’s common sense they’ll all be here and some people will react to their presence.”

-- JERMAINE THOMPSON

President, CSUN Black Student Union

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“Most of the protestors don’t even go to school here.”

-- VLADIMIR CERNA

CSUN Student Senate president

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“It was foolish to bring him here and not think this would happen.”

-- LESLIE MOYER

CSUN student

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“They said this would educate the students. Do you see anything here educating students?”

-- PERRY ROD

President, campus Republican Club

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“This is not going to end. We need to continue this.”

-- HEATHER BERGMAN

UC Berkeley student

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“Besides the earthquake, it’s the next best thing to happen to the university.”

-- JOHN SILVA

CSUN student

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“We need to stick together, Latinos, blacks, whites and Asians. We don’t have to go in there and make fools of ourselves.”

-- RAQUEL JAVIER

Palmdale High School senior

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“I have an exam at 5 p.m. I don’t have time to protest.”

-- SERGIO HERRERA

CSUN student