The Color Bind: California's Battle to End Affirmative Action. - Review - book review

The Color Bind: California's Battle to End Affirmative Action By Lydia Chavez (University of California Press, 1998. 320 pp. $16.95.)

The affirmative action debate has overwhelmed the civil rights movement. In The Color Bind, Lydia Chavez explains how the Proposition 209 campaign of the 1996 California elections transformed the remedies for racial discrimination into a political wedge issue A journalism professor at the University of California at Berkeley, the site of much of the battle, Chavez has told the story well.

The successful ballot measure serves as a case study for her contention that "the initiative process" fails to serve populist purposes, but instead "permits wealthy special interest groups to bypass the deliberative process and change laws in their narrow interest." The result is disregard for "the rights of vulnerable minorities," as well as "the long-term interests of the majority."

The affirmative action debate, however, is about both much more and much less than affirmative action itself. Chavez's book should make readers more aware of the complexities that underlie this seminal public policy issue.

Affirmative action symbolizes more than the programs themselves. Opponents of what they call "preferences" use them to represent their sense of a declining country, loss of a common culture, and opportunities denied to white men. In response, proponents of the programs claim that African Americans still suffer significant racial discrimination that requires awareness of race At stake are different visions of equality.

Yet the public debate over affirmative action rarely touches on these issues. Sponsors of "the California Civil Rights Initiative," recognizing that affirmative action actually attracts a consistent consensus, objected whenever their measure was described as favoring its abolishment. Their adversaries tried to make ex-Klansman David Duke the face of the "yes" side in negative television advertising, mistakenly suggesting that prejudice was the only cause of ambivalence toward affirmative action.

While sympathetic to affirmative action, Chavez is hardly an advocate; the best characterization of her stance would be "not neutral, but fair." She calls the leaders of the anti-209 campaign "neither Bolsheviks nor saints," but pragmatic organizers anticipating a majority non-white society. Chavez laments that the anger over affirmative action has not inspired action to advance racial justice She does not, unfortunately, offer even a sampling of the data that show blacks and whites face differing life prospects, or review disputes over how to respond to such facts.

Her goal instead is to explain how affirmative action failed in the voting booth despite its success in corporate boardrooms, on college campuses, and with Congress. Even California Governor Pete Wilson and Presidential candidate Bob Dole had approved of affirmative action until they endorsed Proposition 209. But the citizens of California stopped affirmative action with the strength of a constitutional amendment.

According to Chavez, the twin themes that form the "color bind" are demographic realities and political ambitions, rather than racial discrimination or civil rights.

Chavez reviews the numbers Although whites may soon lose their majority status in the Golden State, they hold political power now and may continue to do so in the foreseeable future despite changing State demographics. At about half the population, whites nevertheless make up 88 percent of the registered electorate and 78 percent of the actual voters Two thirds of white men voted "yes" on Proposition 209, as did half of white women. Overall, people of color voted "no."

The author also reveals the strategies that those favoring and opposing the initiative used. Like Richard Nixon, who implemented affirmative action to divide traditional liberal constituencies of labor and blacks, Governor Wilson used the "angry white male" vote to achieve a political comeback.

The Clinton administration, caught between avoiding a challenge from Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and the need for the Electoral College votes of the nation's most populous State, chose to avoid taking a strong stand on affirmative action, if possible. For instance, advisor George Stephanopoulos "promised that the president would soon unveil a new commercial to address" affirmative action, calling it "a critical issue in a critical State." The ad turned out to "[feature] Jim Brady talking about Clinton and gun control," but "no one asked him to explain the logic."

Chavez discusses aspects of the Proposition 209 campaign that deserved more attention than they were given in the daily news. She offers a behind the scenes look at efforts to write alternative initiatives, shedding light on tensions between civil rights leaders in San Francisco and Los Angeles. She also analyzes the important role that gender played in the campaign.

Chavez omits a few ironies of the fight from her account, probably for the sake of providing a larger canvas and context. Two of these immediately come to mind. One was when claims of an author of the proposal that he'd been an innocent victim of reverse discrimination proved unfounded. Another was the telling fact that, although University of California regents ended affirmative action prior to Proposition 209, the University continued to pursue special admissions for children of alumni and other "connected" applicants.

These are small quibbles. Because of its comprehensive treatment of California's Proposition 209, Chavez's book is likely to become the standard history of this important ballot initiative.

Frank H. Wu, an associate professor of law at Howard University, is co-author of Beyond Self-Interest: Asian Pacific Americans Toward a Community of Justice, a policy analysis of affirmative action. He is guest editor of the Books Department in this issue of the Civil Rights Journal.

COPYRIGHT 1998 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
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