The badge of inferiority known as Affirmative Action

                  Affirmative action is the tool of much of society to undermine the achievements of many minority students on campus. Often times when a minority is successful or if their presence is even acknowledged in an institution of higher learning, people can't help but bring up affirmative action. It's funny because people say minorities would stop being tokenized if affirmative action didn't exist. While I find that to be unlikely, my rebuttal to that is "why does the minority need to be tokenized in the first place." Implicit in the statement that minorities wouldn't be tokenized if affirmative action didn't exist is that every minority didn't earn their way into the University. You can even make this a weaker statement, but at the very least for their rationale to be solid you must think a considerable amount of minorities or at least a simple majority of minorities got into their institutions (we can assume minorities in top institutions, if that makes the conversation more amicable towards naysayers) because of their race/gender. This is an unfair assumption. Regardless of what your opinion of affirmative action is, it does not give anyone the right to decide which minorities deserve to be at an institution and which don't. To even engage in that kind of behavior is despicable.
                But Affirmative action is being employed in a more subtle way. It's being used to hijack conversations concerning minorities. This can be seen in the #BBUM thread, where articles concerning the twitter trend are riddled with affirmative action debates. These debates are not the message of #BBUM, but when we discuss only affirmative action on their pages (which is what tends to happen when affirmative action is brought up) a multitude of experiences are lost due to the selfish tendencies of a few individuals. Why is affirmative action the favorite talking point of many white and asian students? The discussion of affirmative action typically reinforces notions of white superiority and asian superiority over other groups such as black and latino students. Constantly the message that is given is that blacks and latinos are lazy individuals, who don't work hard enough, which is why they don't get into top universities. It is masked behind fake good intentions such as arguing that getting rid of affirmative action would help black students, it won't (as evidenced by current statistics of black enrollment here at the University). People will claim it will end the tokenizing of minorities. Unfortunately they don't realize that minorities aren't tokenized by affirmative action, but by people. People assume minorities couldn't get into their universities without the help of affirmative action and treat the program as poison that taints even the brightest of minorities. Instead people could stop passing judgement all together and only judge minorities based on the merit of their actions, but that is a foreign concept for individuals who want to feel like they've been cheated in the world.
        I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss affirmative action. I'm just saying that we need to stop bringing up affirmative action where it is not warranted. If a student of color brings up affirmative action in a value based framework (i.e. affirmative action is good or bad), then feel free to engage in a conversation about your thoughts. If you want to discuss affirmative action on your personal site or publication, go ahead, knock yourself out. But if affirmative action is mentioned in passing or as a historical context for some larger point, then you only serve to make the conversation about you when you decide to prattle on about affirmative action. Minorities don't have time to argue affirmative action every time someone decides they want to discuss it. Some minorities don't even care about the program. The point is that when people bring up affirmative action in contexts that have very little to do with it (or where affirmative action is one of many points being discussed) they typically only do so to degrade the minority they are talking to or to make the conversation about their needs, rather than the minority's needs. It's selfish and childish. Please stop. 

White allies exist

            BBUM# is trending and race conversations are beginning to bud everywhere. The response from many non-black students: feelings of isolation, rejection and unfair criticism. Regardless, there are some non-black students, specifically white (other non-black allies exist, this post just speaks specifically to white allyhood), who have respected and listened to what black students on campus are saying. However, this has brought back murmurs concerning the genuine nature of white allies. In the minds of many minorities, white allies are fraudulent and unable to ever be there for minority students. These murmurs need to stop.
           I cannot speak for all minorities. Hell, I can't speak for all Latinos. All I know is that I don't see an end game in an isolationist mentality. I don't see a possible world where we excise the White in our life. Nor do I ever want to see that kind of world. White can be a beautiful shade and while that goes without saying (White typically is considered to be beautiful), to think that we don't lose anything meaningful by denying white experiences in our lives is a bit short sighted in my opinion. The opportunity cost is high when we allow the majority of the unchecked white privilege flood into our lives, but our allies don't do that. Our allies are mindful of their privilege and work hard to learn more each and everyday, just as we work hard to learn each and everyday. Our allies understand the distance, but don't let the distance prevent them from engaging with us holistically. Our allies don't only see black, but aren't color blind. Our allies sing with us, dance with us, cherish us, live with us, love us. We are apart of their lives and they are apart of our community. They aren't Latino to be sure, but they aren't complete strangers. If you wish to take the route of nationalistic hubris, where you section yourself away from constructions of whiteness in general and as a result regrettably disassociate yourself with many white allies, then that's your prerogative. But I believe that to fight inequality and to build a better society we should make no compromises. This means my white friends won't be necessary causalities in my struggle against oppression.  

A Minority politic and the rejection of Neo-liberalist co-option

                       The term minority is a problematic one because it typically refers to all who aren't white male heterosexual, Protestant. However minority in the way I'm going to employ it, is going to refer only to racial differences. So a minority in the sense of this article is essentially only someone who isn't white. White is another term that's problematic because white can mean a whole host of things. Perhaps we can designate according to skin color or using heritage. For the matter of this article I will not construct some prerequisite. If you don't consider yourself white, then that's good enough for me. I feel that most minorities don't openly state they are white because it's a falsehood. White culture and white people don't have ties to them, except for that of the oppressor. Forcing them to take on that identity for the sake of their skin color would be inappropriate.
                     But the term minority even in a racial sense is a problematic term. Minorities do not coalesce well politically, making the "minority agenda" a complete fantasy in terms of actual political capital. Instead we often operate within our own particular racial groups (i.e. latinos, blacks, asians, etc). These political groups have an easier time realizing policy goals and demands, then the blanket bloc "minority". I am here to suggest a few things that will make the minority coalition much more tangible and also to warn minorities about the threat of white Neo-liberalist co-option.
                     Neo-liberalist go under many names. Typically they'll regard themselves as "bi-partisans" or even try to approach minorities through an age group such as "millennials". Neo-liberalist are the bastion of moderate politics, which will never recognize true racial difference. The Neo-liberalist agenda is one that subordinates the minority, especially people of color, for the sake of compromises that in the end help whites disproportionately more. The Neo-liberalist only acts in tandem with the minority when it benefits them, which is why their policy goals typically have huge economic pay-offs attached to them. I'm not asking to reject the policy goals of the Neo-liberalist. Instead I'm asking for a rejection of their coalition as one that we can be apart of. We cannot ever share with their political coalition because they are blind to how their coalition is still dictated by white leaders and white voices. Furthermore, no amount of token minority leaders within the group will change the fact that normative policy goals are oriented with whites in mind. It's not that they are brainwashed into believing a white normalcy is normal, it's that we are all brainwashed into believing that white normalcy is normal.
                    When we reject the white normative framework, we become self aware of how we were being duped and are allowed to make policy that is truly in our own best interest. But as I stated before, minorities don't coalesce. This is because most coalitions work within an affirmative framework. Most coalitions work within the context of what they want, not what they don't want. Latino's typically emphasize immigration legislation, while African Americans argue for structural changes concerning their neighborhoods. In an affirmative framework we have different policy goals, which leads us to not realize any particular policy suggestions as a minority bloc. However, if we move to a negative framework, then it becomes possible for us to collude and make unilateral demands. This comes via a "if it happens to them, then it can happen to me rationale". Policies like stop and frisk are damaging because they unfairly target minorities, specifically people of color. Once this is allowed, then the bar for what is unacceptable is moved and can easily move further. While I'm not suggesting that we will return to the days of Jim Crow, where cops had the social backing to call out people of color with loud voices (now they just do it with whispers and ambiguous language), I am suggesting that the problem will only become more pervasive. We can agree that disproportionate application of laws are also bad (e.g. drug sentencing laws). These are all issues as minorities we can put our foot down and make demands to end.
                 Our racial coalitions will compete from time to time (e.g. affirmative action is typically supported by African Americans and Latinos, but not by some Asians). That's fine. The political process is supposed to be one of competition. However, we cannot allow competition be the wedge for a Neo-liberalist co-option. A Neo-liberalist agenda would probably take the policy goals of a certain group and herald it as their own in order to break the impermeable minority bloc. For example, making affirmative action so that it's based completely on income. This will seem like it will take away stigma from Asians, when in actuality it will only serve to allow poor whites to be allowed into University at a much higher rate. The Neo-liberalist bloc isn't a conniving bloc that aims to hurt minority goals. If that's the characterization you're getting then you fail to recognize that the normative policy goals of white culture are inherently at odds with that of people of color. They are inherently appropriating and subordinating.
              Minority blocs will serve us well in the coming years as the political capital of the country shifts from a white majority to a minority majority. It's time we create a political group sophisticated enough to represent our goals, while not accidentally undermining our own goals by supporting a white Neo-liberalist agenda. Our individual coalitions can bicker and compete, but not at the expense of our group as a whole. Until we've dismantled the normative white super structure, the minority voter must be vigilant and cast their ballet only when they have a clear shot at equality.