Opposing affirmative action remains the respectable vehicle for resisting black competitive success

Evidence

The election of Barack Obama should be understood as the logical conclusion of a form of black politics that has guided much of African American life since the dawn of the twentieth century. You can’t draw a straight line from the founding of the NAACP in 1909 and the National Urban League in 1910 to Obama’a political ascendance; there are real differences between these moments and a lot happened in between. What connects them, however, is the underlying political philosophy of black liberalism: a view that takes broad-base inclusion of black people into American life as its aim without closing the value gap. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 410 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Black athletic prominence can reinforce rather than challenge the racial status quo; Martin Luther King’s legacy was invoked to justify opposing affirmative action — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2197; The scale of affirmative action’s actual impact fails to explain the intensity of opposition — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2030 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• The left once opposed affirmative action as an individualistic sell-out #complicates (0.80)
• Black liberalism seeks inclusion without closing the value gap #complicates (0.75) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 410