Wardell (Ward) Connerly: Arizona Legislature Should Reject HCR 2019; Affected, Nonmajority Citizenry Must Contribute to Debate and Assent to Any Decision.

Wardell (Ward) Connerly  is attempting one of his campaigns to prohibit “racial preferences” in Arizona (search Ward Connerly in the search box for my previous posts). Instead this time he is attempting to go through the legislature (Republican controlled House and Senate) (the legislation’s number is HCR 2019). At first glance, this move seems to address one of my criticisms of Connerly’s proposal. But I also think that any opening of taking away rights from another requires the full contribution and assent of the affected groups (the non-White population). Given the population of Arizona, only one race could be said to be preferred—White. Because of this, this bill is unnecessary.

Arizona (population: 5,130,632 (2000 Census) [NOTE: high number of “some other race”])

Race	Percentage of population	Number
White	75.5%	3,873,611
Black	3.1	158,873
Native American	5.0	255,879
Asian	1.8	92,236

Connerly makes his usual “deep south” speech with a twist: an appeal to the desire of self-sufficiency. Essentially, he states that self-sufficiency is a good, and then follows that with a statement that Affirmative Action is a threat against self-sufficiency. Thus, Affirmative Action is bad (and if the reader should agree, then that reader should also support his prohibit “racial preferences” initiative).

Here is the quote:

“We can look at people’s needs, their income, their social condition rather than presuming as we do now that my brown skin means that I can’t compete with you, that you somehow, in your benevolence, give me something not on the basis of my accomplishment but on the basis of your generosity.”

Connerly’s arguments willfully ignore reality and are not believable. Connerly’s argument in favor of self-sufficiency only supports the current hegemonic power structure. Self- sufficiency only applies to those who control the governance, the industry, and the money flow in the society. There is only one group that possesses that power—Whites (due to its supermajority presence in the country) (The election of President Obama does not affect, but rather supports, this argument (see the selection of his staff)).

Because of Connerly’s own funding, his self-sufficiency argument is disingenuous.  Connerly,  for example, receives millions through his contributors (www.bigmoneyconnerly.org, produced by the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC)).

As Connerly demonstrates, the Horatio Alger story cannot exist because no one makes it in the world without the support of other people.  I wish the fantasy would go away into the rubbish bin.

The reader should read Connerly’s view of his racial status [New York Times article].

By society’s measure, he emerged black from the gene pool, a peculiar arithmetic that Ward Connerly insists he has never understood.

”One drop of blood does it,” he said, reviewing the computation: 25 percent black plus 37.5 percent Irish plus 25 percent French plus 12.5 percent Choctaw equals 100 percent black. ”I suppose I could claim to be Irish, but who wants to stand there and argue the point every time? So I’m black.”

Cocoa-brown skin is the product of his amalgamated ancestry. And however much a hindrance the color may have been in other endeavors, it now offers him a paradoxical advantage, for Mr. Connerly has become the nation’s most active opponent of racial preferences. His blackness, he agrees with some reluctance, grants many whites a kind of absolution, allowing them to protest affirmative action ”without having to feel like they appear racist.”

The linked article further erodes Connerly’s credibility on this subject.