“None of you would change places with me and I’m rich! That’s how good it is to be white!” says comedian Chris Rock.
This letter is in response to Inez Petersen’s admonishment to avoid voting for supposedly “woke” school board candidates who use the term “equity” in their voter pamphlet blurbs. (“Don’t vote ‘woke’ in school district race,” published July 19).
Ms. Petersen argues that “equity doesn’t work at the highest level in the land.” What does that mean? Inez is reaching and using a poor equivalence by attempting to connect wokeness to the recent Supreme Court case SFFA v. Harvard & UNC. It was a party of Asian students (who were being used and exploited) who brought the case because the Asian students argued too many deserving Asian students were being overlooked for admission to Ivy League schools. Admission rates to Ivy League and professional schools are typically single digits.
I know that Ms. Petersen knows white women are the biggest benefactors of Affirmative Action policies in college admissions and employment. I also know that Inez knows more white students with mediocre academic credentials benefit from legacy admissions policies by Ivy League and professional schools than Black students. Black students have disproportionately the lowest number of AA admissions to Ivy League and to professional schools. Whites continue to needlessly scapegoat Black students in every admissions category. This practice is misguided, tiresome and soporific.
Most marginalized people of color don’t have access to a network of invisible ladders and guide ropes in society that many privileged white college and professional school applicants take for granted.
Ms. Petersen: Do you agree that the term “woke” means “to take a stand and be active; challenging injustices and racism in our communities and fighting hatred and discrimination wherever it rises”? (Merriam Webster Dictionary). Does this make you uncomfortable? Resentful? Fearful?
Many Republicans, so-called Evangelicals, white nationalists, MAGAs and Deplorables desire to dismiss and erase three centuries of American history of legal and documented discrimination against a class of people in this country by hijacking and misusing the word “woke.”
Fourteen year old Emmett Till’s brutal and horrific murder in 1955 woke a nation that inspired the civil rights movement. Before this, the American South might as well have been the dark side of the moon. Racism being preached in churches, law enforcement being instrumental in racial terror and white nationalism were all fundamental parts of a secret in America that was routinely not found in mainstream media.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority’s fantastical opinion commanding from the bench, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” Ms. Petersen’s arguments about equity and wokeness contradicts Roberts’ opinion. Her argument is the very reason why we need to apply equity and to be mindful of including all Americans in admissions and in employment practices.
Ms. Petersen should be more concerned about far-right hate speech that drives crime committed by right-wing white extremists; distorted notions of patriotism; and holding Trump and the Republicans accountable for their failure to uphold their oaths of office.
Stanley McKie
Enumclaw
