I know this is probably bad for me

The link to P6’s post is bloggered so here it is in its entirety:

Monday, August 04, 2003
But what do you do in the meantime?

Yes, it would be better if race were not a factor.
But what do you do in the meantime?

Yes, it would be better for Neanderthals to learn to respect women as fellow humans.
But what do you do in the meantime?

Yes, it would be better if businesses became such good citizens that regulation became unnecessary.
But what do you do in the meantime?

Yes, it would be better if everyone who wants to work has a job.
But what do you do in the meantime?

Yes, it would be better to make all schools safe for embattled gay children.
But what do you do in the meantime?

Yes, it would be better to judge only on merit.
But what do you do in the meantime?

And now, a bit about California’s Prop 54 “The Racial Privacy Initiative,” which it seems will be on the same September 7th ballot with the Davis’ recall. P54 has been described as the “son (or maybe nephew) of California's Proposition 209, which prohibits race preferences in public education, hiring and contracting, and which was also sponsored by Connerly -- rests on similar premises: that the continued counting of individuals by race perpetuates racism rather than allowing it to die. His measure, he says, would move the state toward becoming a race-blind society.”

From the July 26 Contra Costa Times:

A controversial initiative that bans state and local governments from collecting racial data should receive a boost by appearing on the October ballot to recall the governor, say opponents of the initiative.

University of California Regent Ward Connerly, who chaired the successful campaign to end state-sponsored, race-based affirmative action in California, has dubbed his latest measure the Racial Privacy Initiative.

He argues it's the next logical step in achieving a "colorblind society" because it would stop the government from classifying residents by race. Originally scheduled for March, it was moved up when the recall qualified this week.

The initiative, dubbed Proposition 54, is a proposed state constitutional amendment that would prohibit most public agencies from collecting information about individuals' race, ethnicity or national origin.

It seems benign on the surface, opponents say, and therefore the less time the public has to learn about it, the more likely voters are to approve it.

Opponents argue it will thwart anti-discrimination efforts statewide by limiting the data gathered by health agencies, education officials and law enforcement.

The full text of P54 can be seen here, but here are the essential bits:

Prohibition Against Classifying by Race by State and Other Public Entities

Section 32 is added to Article I of the California Constitution as follows:

Sec. 32

(a) The state shall not classify any individual by race, ethnicity, color or national origin in the operation of public education, public contracting or public employment.

(b) The state shall not classify any individual by race, ethnicity, color or national origin in the operation of any other state operations, unless the legislature specifically determines that said classification serves a compelling state interest and approves said classification by a 2/3 majority in both houses of the legislature, and said classification is subsequently approved by the governor.

(c) For purposes of this section, “classifying” by race, ethnicity, color or national origin shall be defined as the act of separating, sorting or organizing by race, ethnicity, color or national origin including, but not limited to, inquiring, profiling, or collecting such data on government forms.

(d) For purposes of subsection (a), “individual” refers to current or prospective students, contractors or employees. For purposes of subsection (b), “individual” refers to persons subject to the state operations referred to in subsection (b).

(e) The Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) shall be exempt from this section with respect to DFEH-conducted classifications in place as of March 5, 2002.

(1) Unless specifically extended by the legislature, this exemption shall expire ten years after the effective date of this measure.

(2) Notwithstanding DFEH’s exemption from this section, DFEH shall not impute a race, color, ethnicity or national origin to any individual.

(f) Otherwise lawful classification of medical research subjects and patients shall be exempt from this section.

Not surprisingly, the usual array of folks are opposed to P54, including the NAACP, ACLU, and Anti-Defamation League. Planned Parenthood Los Angeles says:

Without critical information on race and national origin health officials and researchers will not be able to understand and eliminate differences in health among racial groups. For example:

- Infant mortality is highest among African-Americans
- Nearly half of all Native American/Alaskan Native women do not receive prenatal care until late in their pregnancies
- Latinos are the most likely to be uninsured of all racial groups
- Asians/Pacific Islanders have the highest tuberculosis rates of any other racial group
- Vietnamese women have the highest cervical cancer incidence rates of all women
- White women have the highest breast cancer incidence rates of all women

And according to PPLA, the following groups also oppose prop 54 because the “health exception” is too narrow:

…California Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics-California District, the California Academy of Family Physicians, the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, the California Healthcare Association, the California Primary Care Association, the Health Officers Association of California

The California Nurses Association is also opposed and the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium reasons:

Since 35% of APAs live in California and comprise over 12% of the state's population, it will have a devastating effect on the ability of policymakers to identify and address issues on a national level. This measure damages the ability in California and nationwide to address disparities by race or ethnicity in healthcare, hate crimes, employment discrimination and other crucial areas, and will ensure continued and growing disparities. Furthermore, the 'safety-valve' exemptions, such as the public health exemption, are too narrow to be of any value."

Healthcare experts agree that there are significant disparities in treatment, disease patterns, and risk behaviors between different racial and ethnic groups. Policymakers in California and nationwide only began to understand the need to collect health data on the APA community by race and ethnicity within the past decade. Until they began collecting that data, it was not known, for example, that cervical cancer was a particular issue with Vietnamese women, who are five times more likely to develop cervical cancer than the general population. Barring the collection of data takes away important tools and information from healthcare providers in treating different populations. Any 'fixes' to the Proposition proposed after passage would require a constitutional amendment - a historically difficult task to accomplish.

The vast majority of hate crimes occur because of a person's race or ethnicity. Asian Americans have been especially vulnerable to acts of hate violence. According to NAPALC's 2001 Audit of Violence Against Asian Pacific Americans, 25% of hate crimes committed against APAs nationally occurred in California. Proposition 54 would prohibit gathering and analyzing data, severely limiting the ability to track and fight hate violence against APAs in California, as well as, on a national level.

Now. The other side of the story from the folks who think P54 is a good idea:

From Racial Privacy, the organization that is mobilizing in support of the proposal:

Passage of RPI will do many things: save our state budget over $10 million, end government’s preferential treatment based on race, and junk a 17th-century racial classification system that has no place in 21st-century America. But most importantly, RPI’s passage will signal America’s first step towards a color-blind society…

The California Constitution forbids state government from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any citizen based on race. Therefore, since government has no reason to classify persons by race, why should it even ask us for the data? Like religion, marital status or sexual orientation, race should become a private matter that is no business of government’s. Think how refreshing it would be to throw out the entire system of checking little boxes.

As the most ethnically diverse state in the Union, California has the most to gain by compelling its government to treat all citizens equally and without regard to race. The latest U.S. Census divides Americans into a whopping 126 different ethnic/racial categories. How many categories should Californians put up with?

And from an op-ed by James Landrith, founder, editor and publisher of the Multiracial Activist:

These categories, used to enforce slavery laws, disgusting anti-miscegenation laws, the one-drop rule, and the internment of Americans of Japanese descent were not created for the greater good of humanity. As someone who can check more than one box on government forms that collect "racial" data I am forever aware of their origins. I can't escape the thought that these boxes were used to segregate and persecute some of my own ancestors. Those opposed to scrapping the boxes are lying when they assert otherwise. This last vestige of our evil slavery heritage must die a necessary death. It is time to break with the past and let this evil go….

If we truly wish to defeat "racism" we must first deal with the "race"-think born of such classification schemes. In order to further that goal, we must abandon yet another vestige of our pitiful slavery heritage - "racial" classifications.

From the August 4th, Wall Street Journal:

… Mr. Connerly has said the goal of his current initiative is to get the state government "out of the racial classification business" and move us one step closer to a colorblind government. The backers of Prop. 54, he says, "seek a California that is free from government racism and race-conscious decision making."

That sounds like a core American aspiration, or at least it was until racial preferences became a political industry. Mr. Connerly can take comfort in the fact that many of his current critics -- educators, civil rights groups, Democratic public officials, liberal journalists -- also predicted catastrophe if Prop. 209 passed. They claimed, for instance, that minority enrollment at state universities would plummet without racial preferences. It didn't happen. Both minority enrollment and, more importantly, minority graduation rates, have increased.

Now these same folks are claiming that if Californians aren't forced to check off some hyphenated-American box on a government form, medical research will suffer and anti-discrimination laws will go unenforced.

Not true. The Racial Privacy Initiative makes exceptions for data collection in both areas. If black mothers in Oakland are suffering uniquely high infant-mortality rates, nothing in Mr. Connerly's measure would prevent a proper response. Nor would it have any bearing on the large body of federal law -- the Voting Rights Act or the No Child Left Behind Act -- that require the collection of racial data for enforcement purposes.

Some of our friends (scholars James Q. Wilson and John McWhorter) object to Prop. 54 on the grounds that racial statistics are essential to social scientists like themselves. They have a valid point that statistics showing racial progress can rebut political demagogues.

But that must be measured against the damage done by explicit state endorsement of racial categorization. As for the statistics, Prop. 54 affects only state entities. Reams of racial data would continue to flow from federal agencies -- like the Census Bureau and the Education Department -- or any nongovernment sources in California wishing to provide such information.

It is true that these limitations make Mr. Connerly's crusade largely symbolic. Still, the reaffirmation by American voters that racial distinctions should be irrelevant to government policy would be welcome right about now. All the more so given the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold racial discrimination at the University of Michigan. The decision effectively requires the nation to view itself (at least for another 25 years) through a racial prism that many Americans already find obsolete. ..

And now for some commentary by your hostess.

It seems the case for P54 boils down to:

- We want to live in a color-blind society so let’s start legally imposing it.

- As more US citizens intermarry and more and more multi-racial children are born racial categories are increasingly irrelevant [The 2000 Census offered 63 different ways to self-identify and found that 40% of people under 25 belong to a racial or ethnic category other than "non-Hispanic white.]

- The most recent scientific data on the human genome indicates that there is virtually no genetic difference between the races

- P54 allows for collection of racial data for medical purposes.

The case against p54 boils down to:

- the medical exception language is not sufficient to protect data collection necessary from a public health point of view

- The success, or efficacy of [or, in fact, the need for] social policy designed to address racially significant inequities or injustices is impossible to monitor without collecting race data.

So really, there are two central issues – one a question of fact and one a matter of philosophy. Question of fact: does the law as written allow for the sufficient collection of racial data that both sides of this argument recognize as useful for purposes of public health and medical research. I certainly don’t know the answer to that question but I am prone to listen to the folks who have a more educated opinion on the matter- the formal medical establishment. Who seem, at this point, to oppose P54.

The matter for philosophical debate is more complicated, naturally. And it really comes down to how you answer the question P6 asks, “But what do you do in the meantime?” The ills of society [crime, drug abuse, poverty, illiteracy, violence, ill-health] still seem, in one way or another, to disproportionately plague people of color in the US [and ABROAD but that is a topic for another time]. It would be nice if that wasn’t true. But what do you do in the meantime? Does ignoring that fact make the problem go away? Stopping the collection of racial data doesn’t change these facts, it just makes us less well equipped to deal with it. How can you address a problem that you can’t define? And, if we are going to get really honest about it… How can one not be suspicious that an unwillingness to define the problem using the lens of race won’t evolve into an unwillingness to solve the problem at all? Disarming the folks that are working to improve the nation to the benefit of all [but most particularly the least visible and least powerful] of the data they need to make the case that such improvement is needed … well it is hard to see how that isn’t just a tool of them that gots to sweep the problems of those that don’t under the rug.

I spent a good bit of time on some radical anti-racist woman’s communities on-line. One fundamental rule of these communities was – if a person of color is telling you that something is racist you had better damn well take her word for it. Because a white person simply doesn’t have the radar required to know. Now of course, this kind of absolute dictate can be abused by individuals and was the cause – one way or the other – of quite a bit of interpersonal upset. However, I think it points the way to an important principle to keep in mind. When it comes to P54 and its stated goals to move towards a non-racist society, I am going to pay really close attention to what actual targets of racism have to say. And organizations that represent people of color and their allies are speaking with one voice: Defeat P54. As a white woman who doesn’t even live in the state of CA, that voice carries a whole hell of a lot of weight with me. When the scientific data about whether a particular procedure is painful is ambivalent, the Doctor better damn well listen to the patient on the table that is telling him it hurts like hell.