We made mention of it this morning in the Morning Constitutional, but there is a significant amount of grumbling in some circles over how Miss Michigan, Rima Fakih, an Arab-American, won the Miss America pageant last night. We did note Adam Serwer’s excellent comments, but Ta-Nehisi Coates over at the Atlantic goes further and uses this example to unveil the racism behind those who immediately think she must have won because of affirmative action, and affirmative action critics in general:
That aside, I think it’s obviously fine to have a debate about the effectiveness and justice of affirmative action. But so often you see the anti-AA side’s logic extending out from a premise of white supremacy. Thus whenever a non-white person succeeds at something that is regarded as the province of whites, there’s some sense that the fix is in.
AA-critics usually argue that such logic is actually the fault of AA, because it generates suspicion. But this criticism reflects a rather shocking ignorance of racism. The sense that whites are being cheated in favor non-whites is as old as slavery itself. White Confederates framed the War as an attempt to cheat whites out of their God-given right to subjugate black people. When colored troops hit the field fighting for the Union, and managed to win a few battles, white Confederates reacted with disbelief, the great diarist Kate Stone said.
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The point is that the narrative of white supremacy holds victimhood sacred. It paints whites as the truly put-upon class and asserts that non-white success–black, brown, red, yellow and now “Muslim” — is mostly achieved through vile and despicable means.
I mean, really, if you’re not reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s generally awesome stuff already, just go ahead and start.
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