Jesse Jackson, Dave Bing, and others meet at the Detroit Yacht Club to discuss their disadvantaged status!

Today's, September 29th, Detroit Free Press has an incredible story about minority business enterprise. It seems that yesterday the Reverend Jesse Jackson representing Rainbow Push, his organization that is supposed to help all disadvantaged minorities to get a piece of the business pie, met at the Detroit Yacht Club with representatives of the OEM automotive industry and its tier one suppliers to challenge those companies to "spend more" with minority business enterprises. According to the article GM, Ford, and Chrysler already buy 13% of their total "spend" from certified minority business enterprises. What was left out of the article was that since Jackson and his "supporters" have already bled GM and Ford nearly to death mainly to benefit a few wealthy minorities and their white "mentors" it has become time to step up the pressure on Toyota.

I can imagine the confusion in the minds of the representatives at that meeting of the foreign "transplants," Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, BMW, and Suzuki. All of those companies are focused on profits. Not a single one of them employs a UAW member! All pay high salaries to their American workers and give generous benefits. All of them also hold their suppliers to high standards of quality, on-time delivery, and competitive pricing.

I guarantee that all of the transplant companies do and will continue to buy from any supplier that meets their standards. By doing so they insure that they will continue to make a profit and employ tens of thousands of American workers.

In the meantime the companies that have caved into the Rainbow Push are broken and stumbling towards the end. They are going bankrupt, laying off tens of thousands of workers, and pulling back on pensions and health insurance pushing thousands of families into destitution.

Jesse Jackson dined at the Detroit Yacht Club last night, slept in a luxury hotel suite, and chatted with his friends and supporters who live in mansions in Bloomfield Hills. Who is a better friend to the disadvantaged, Toyota's purchasing department that gives business to a variety of companies that employ tens of thousands of minorities in every level of labor and management or Jesse Jackson, most of whose friends live in luxury and employ very few, if any, minority managers in their "minority companies."

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Preservation of Women's Rights under the MCRI

Max McPhail of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative Committee has kindly sent the following talking points memo written by MCRI supporter, Jim Fett, of the Citizans Research Council(http://crcmich.org/PUBLICAT/2000s/2006/rpt343.pdf). Please read the excerptys below carefully, before you fall for the scare tactics of the opposition.



"University Programs - UM has a Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) program that operates a number of K-12 outreach programs in support of females in science and engineering disciplines. These programs emphasize gender, are targeted to girls, and promote female scientists and engineers, but they do not exclude boys that wish to apply. UM also has a Center for the Education of Women (CEW) which offers free education and employment counseling, among other things. Even though its emphasis is on women, CEW services are available to men as well as women. Based on the language of the proposal, it would appear that these programs could continue as long as they continue to allow male attendance" (Citizens Research Council, 22).


"Athletic Programs - Athletic programs in public education (at the K-12 and
university level) should not be affected by passage of this proposal...Athletic
programs are protected by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which
states:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from
participating in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under
any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Title IX regulations mandate that all schools accepting federal funds must comply
with this legislation" (Citizens Research Council, 25)

"State Employment Trends - By 2001, females earned an average of $0.92 for every
dollar earned by males (this figure was $0.76 in 1977).

Salary parity for minority state employees has historically been high. In 1984,
minorities earned $0.94 for every dollar earned by a non-minority employee; in 2001,
that figure rose to $0.99 for every dollar" (Citizens Research Council 28).

Affirmative Action "If this amendment passes, it will not outlaw all affirmative
action programs in the state. Michigan statutes contain numerous references to
affirmative action and minority status or gender. Only those that grant preferential
treatment to individuals or groups on the basis of minority status or gender would
be invalidated by this amendment" (Citizens Research Council, ii).

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Thank you, George Will and the Washington Post, for giving us a National Perspective on the MCRI

A Fight To Define Equality

By George F. Will
Sunday, September 24, 2006; B07



DETROIT -- A feisty 29-year-old white woman and a pugnacious 67-year-old black man are performing two services this autumn for Michigan and the nation. Their Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) is promoting colorblind government. And they are provoking remnants of the civil rights movement, which now is just a defender of a racial spoils system, to demonstrate its decadence, even thuggishness.

In November Michiganders will vote on this ballot initiative: "A proposal to amend the state constitution to ban affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes." Almost identical measures were passed by referendums in California in 1996 and Washington state in 1998, in similar conditions to those here: They were opposed by both parties, all so-called civil rights organizations, most newspapers and many business leaders. What is different in Michigan is the involvement of a particularly nasty organization and an egregiously political judge.

At age 19, Jennifer Gratz, denied admission to the University of Michigan, fought the university all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It endorsed her argument that it was an unconstitutional denial of equal protection of the law for the university to add 20 points to the scores of black, Hispanic and Native American applicants. (The maximum score was 150; a perfect 1600 SAT earned just 12 points.)

Ward Connerly is a California businessman and former member of the University of California Board of Regents. He propelled to victory the measures mandating colorblind government in California and Washington state.

With Gratz as its executive director and Connerly lending hard-earned expertise, MCRI collected 508,000 signatures, more than ever have been gathered for a Michigan initiative. In response, some opponents of MCRI have adopted four tactics, none of which involves arguing the merits of racial preferences and all of which attempt -- in the name of "civil rights," of course -- to prevent Michiganders from being allowed to vote on MCRI. The tactics have included:


· Pressuring signers of MCRI petitions to say they did not understand what they were signing. Some talk radio stations have broadcast the names of signers, and opponents of MCRI have gone to signers saying, "Did you know you signed a petition against equal opportunity?" Two who recanted their signatures, saying they had signed without reading the measure, are federal judges.


· Violently intimidating the state Board of Canvassers, which certifies that initiatives have qualified for the ballot. The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action by Any Means Necessary (BAMN) disrupted the board's deliberations, shouting and overturning a table. Video of this can be seen at http://www.michigancivilrights.org .


· Asking a court to rule that MCRI committed "fraud" because many who signed the petition supposedly were confused -- the signers were presumably not competent to read and understand the initiative, the full text of which was printed at the top of each petition. A federal judge -- Arthur Tarnow, a Bill Clinton appointee -- sadly said he could not rule that way because, although he thinks MCRI is a fraud, whites as well as blacks were confused about it, and even if all signatures gathered in majority-black cities were invalidated, there still were enough signatures to qualify it for the ballot. So Tarnow contented himself with an extrajudicial smear of Gratz, charging that her "deception" had confused all Michigan voters, regardless of race.


· Michigan ballots are printed by counties, so BAMN says it is asking local officials to assert an extralegal "moral authority" to leave MCRI off the ballot.

Because the plain language of MCRI is appealing, some opponents argue that MCRI would have terrible "unintended consequences." It might, they say, eliminate single-sex public schools (Michigan has none; eight of 3,748 schools have a few voluntary single-sex classes) and breast-cancer screening or might stop a Department of Natural Resources program aimed at helping Michigan women become hunters (the initiative concerns only hiring, contracting and public schools).

Given the caliber of opposition arguments, it is no wonder a Detroit News poll published Sept. 15 shows MCRI with an 11-point lead. Gratz says that if her group is outspent "only" five to one -- Connerly was outspent that heavily while winning in Washington state -- MCRI will become Michigan law.

Anti-MCRI demonstrators chant, "They say Jim Crow, we say hell, no." So, the rancid residue of what once was the civil rights movement equates Jim Crow -- the system of enforced legal inferiority for blacks -- with opposition to treating blacks as wards of government, in need of infantilizing preferences, forever. To such Orwellian thinking, Gratz and Connerly -- and soon, perhaps, Michigan -- say: Hell, no.


georgewill@washpost.com

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The Negative Economic Consequences for Everyone of Affirmative Action

I see the economic consequences of affirmative action as generally negative for everyone. Very few people benefit economically from affirmative action. The few who do are overwhelmingly white, and they are usually the wealthy and special friends of contractors, purchasing agents, and politicians. These facts are becoming obvious, and so, I think, are the actions of those accountable locally for how taxpayer dollars are spent. The story below comes from Ashville, Tennessee’s local newspaper.

It is evidence of the beginning of the end. It is also evidence that the MCRI is based on societal evolution. There is give and take as ideas are tried and discarded after a while when they don't work. The vehemence of the anti-MCRI forces comes from a deep, and correct, appreciation by them that the party's over. They have to move out of the house and get a job on their own.

_________________________________

Wednesday, 09/20/06
Airport may stop minority contracts program

By JANELL ROSS
Staff Writer


The Nashville Airport Authority, jittery about mounting court rulings that have curtailed other contractor diversity programs, may vote today to suspend a program that has helped female- and minority-owned businesses get millions of dollars in local airport contracts since 2002.
The vote will push Nashville into a long-simmering national debate about race, gender and access to public contracts just as the airport board is scheduled to sign off on a $37 million terminal renovation contract crucial to the facility's future.






"It disturbs me that they would undertake these steps," said Marilyn Robinson, executive director of the Nashville Minority Business Center, a group dedicated to minority business growth. "If someone challenges you in court, so what, you face that. But you don't dismantle a program for fear of what someone might do."
The authority will consider temporarily suspending a program that has set annual goals for small, minority-owned and female-owned businesses to get a share of airport business. Last year, the goal was 6.29 percent of contracts awarded, and airport officials said the final numbers came in closer to 20 percent.
Last year, that program resulted in $1.5 million of $7.9 million in airport contracts funded locally going to the targeted categories. Airport officials said female-owned firms saw the biggest gains.
Under the airport's program, contractors on local projects have been encouraged — though not required — to use small, female- and minority-owned firms to help them complete portions of construction, renovation or service contracts. Small, minority- and female-owned firms also have been encouraged to bid directly.
But such initiatives have been under attack from the white, male-dominated construction industry in the courts for the better part of two decades, and airport officials say they have been worried about being caught up in similar legal challenges here since at least last summer.
"This issue — the debate about whether contracts financed with tax dollars paid by all ought to support the business ventures of all — isn't new," said Anthony W. Robinson, president of the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense Fund. The Washington, D.C.-based organization is supported by foundations and mostly minority-owned firms.
"It has only increased in intensity … as the country has become more politically conservative. Then the (U.S.) Supreme Court started agreeing with this concept of reverse discrimination. It's got traction," said Robinson, who is not related to Marilyn Robinson.
Federal court cases from Washington State, Houston, Richmond, Va., and numerous other venues have thrown out or forced changes in contractor diversity quotas or goals by state or city governments since the late 1980s.
In the scramble that has followed, many cities, states and other government agencies have modified their programs.
Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority President Raul Regalado declined to comment about the potential change coming up for discussion at today's meeting.
News that the authority is about to consider a nine-month suspension of the goals associated with its diversity in contracting program is just beginning to filter outside of the organization.
"I can't say I had heard anything about that," said Bill Young, executive vice president of the Tennessee Associated General Contractors, which represents major construction firms.
But Young said he thinks most contractors would hire minority- and female-owned firms for some work anyway, even though he said it's a headache to find them because so few are qualified, licensed or adequately bonded. Still, he thinks some of the firms would get jobs because of the demand for labor.
"I am not so sure it's going to matter. In this market, there is so much work (large construction companies) are just looking for somebody, anybody who is qualified to help them do the job," he said.
Also on today's airport agenda, the authority will decide whether to accept Brentwood-based Ray Bell Construction's low bid of $36.7 million for the upcoming terminal renovation.
Keith Pyle, president of Ray Bell, said his firm would voluntarily use some small, female- and minority-owned firms on the job.
Minority contracting goals, but not mandates, also exist in Metro and state governments, and play a role in how contractors' bids are evaluated by agencies letting work.
At the airport, though, efforts to document how the authority's diversity contracting program has operated beyond the most recent fiscal year have been difficult.
Information on the diversity contract award program was not collected during fiscal 2003, said Michelle Tatom, the airport authority's manager of minority affairs and contract compliance.
She was hired last year.
Tatom said program performance has been "relatively strong," but she couldn't immediately provide data for fiscal 2004 or 2005.
The policy up for a vote today would eliminate numeric goals for the rest of this fiscal year and set up a test of who gets how much money in the absence of the rules. If there's a significant drop in contracts for women, minorities and smaller firms, the old program could be revived, Tatom said.
"We will have to see what the data show," Tatom said.
Some contractors who have gotten work under government initiatives say goals can help firms starting out.
Wayne Ammond, vice president of operations at female-owned Mark IV Enterprises, said public contracts are an important stream of work to new companies and those without contacts.
"When you are just starting out," Ammond said, "government contracts, that's definitely one way into the marketplace. But they aren't easy to get." •

My colleague, Diane Carey, adds: "What does 'encouraged but not required' mean? Sounds to me like the thugs at the doors of shops saying, 'You're going to need protection and we gently suggest that you pay us for it.'"

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Women, Unions, and Affirmative Inaction

The Wall Street Journal reports today, Tuesday, September 19, 2006, that Federally mandated disclosure forms the filing of which was fought bitterly by the labor unions has revealed that(under the regime of affirtmative action) 93% of the highest paid union executives are men.

The first question any woman member of a labor union should ask is "Why?" The second question should be "Why am I still a member of such a male dominated, greed and power driven organization?"

Affirmative action has bred a culture of affirmative inaction in the unions that operates by paying (excuse the pun) only lip service to such concepts as equality and then, under cover of that hypocrisy, doing business as if this were 1924 in Alabama.

It's 2006 in Michigan.

Vote for Proposition 2.

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Frightening women by telling "lies by leaving out truths."

Diane Carey sent this letter to the Saginaw News today in response to a faulty op-ed written by the president of the Saginaw League of Women Voters:

As a woman from a family of working women and mother of a girl majoring in finance, I take offense at Sherrill Smith's negative opinion of Proposal 2, which was littered with "lies by leaving out truths."

She didn't mention that Proposal 2 applies ONLY to public agencies. Private programs, scholarships, organizations and businesses are not affected. If I want to have a scholarship for one-legged Hispanic females majoring in moondust, I'll be free to do so.

Fair housing and lending programs will not be affected. Again, Proposal 2 ONLY applies to hiring, contracting and education. Why did Sherrill leave that out?

About programs encouraging people to enter non-traditional professions, I'd like to know why the government is wasting money on this. Where is the person in America who doesn't know he or she can go into any profession at all? If you can find this dope, please call me!

She says, "Even gender-based health screenings could be affected." But Prop 2 does NOT affect health programs. It affects ONLY hiring, contracting, and education.

And she's flat-out lying about California, which still has health programs, women's screening and prevention, women's sports in college, and every single county has at least one women's shelter. No "opportunity slammed shut" at all. Check for yourself: www. state.ca.us

Prop 2 will end race- and gender-based preference by our state. Michigan needs to be a state where everyone is free to live without counting quotas. It's about time. Vote Yes on Proposal 2.

Diane Carey
RaceFreeZone.com

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Race and Conservatism

Click on the title above, "Race and Conservatism," to see an article by a writer, John Derbyshire, who produces clearly written popular books about very difficult subjects in mathematics, will explain to you why people don't tell pollsters the truth about their thoughts on the value of affirmative action in contemporary America. It's not that they are racists. It's that the subject of race cannot be addressed in public in America except in knee-jerk liberal social engineering or victimology terms without the speaker losing status and credibility.

Read the whole article, and it will explain to you that Americans who question the effectiveness and value of affirmative action are in the vast majority and are not racists but practial people who think that everyone should have the same opportunities in life to get ahead on their individual merits, abilities, and ambition.

The MCRI will win in November in Michigan, because it is the right thing and the proper thing for government to be color blind, and everyone knows that and everyone believes that.

Read the entire article. It will tell you how we got into the situation where we can't even discuss an alternative to affirmative action without fear of criticism and ostracism.

Ordinary Americans are fed up with political correctness,the newspeak, about race. Its time to end institutionalized discrimination. Vote for the MCRI.

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Thank you for the compliment and the forum

Last night, Greg Brodeur appeared before a Delta Kappa Gamma Society women's
group of teachers at Carman Ainsworth HS in Flint, and faced off with an
affirmative-action advocate. This is the note we received this morning from
the coordinator.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Delores DiGiacomo"
To: "Diane Carey"
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: questions


> Dear Diane and Greg:
> Thank you again for providing us with a chance to hear
> both sides of the Michigan Affirmative Action
> Initiative. It was great hearing you speak so
> eloquently, and it was nice to meet your family {some
> in person and some through words). Having been a
> public speaking teacher for about 20 of my 39 career
> years, I am well qualified to recognize a speaker who
> knows how to hold an audience's attention, and I think
> you did a great job of doing so. There were many who
> disagree with your opinion (as I am sure you might
> guess), and I thought you handled the questions and
> the other speaker with respect.
>
>
> Thanks again for helping me out in a pinch, and doing
> so with class. You represented you point of view
> well, and I was happy to meet each of you. Good luck
> to your son in his studies. He seemed like someone
> committed to serving the community. Apparently he has
> had a great example.
>
> Sincerely,
> Delores Di Giacomo, President, Delta Kappa Gamma
> Society International, Mu Chapter Alpha Iota, Michigan
>
> >> Diane and Greg
>
>
> __________________________________________________
>

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Black people are smart enough to vote on initiative

Diane Carey brought the op-ed column below, originally published in the Detroit Free Press, to my attention today, and I think all of us need to read and re-read it until the lesson is learned. Diane writes "Dr. Allen is one of Michigan's pre-eminent scholars in his field, and also happens to be black. He takes offense at the assumption that all blacks think and vote in lockstep. So do we."

Published: August 17. 2006 3:00AM
Local columnists
Black people are smart enough to vote on initiative

August 17, 2006


William Allen
Michigan's black voters are under assault in a calculated campaign of deception and disrespect by the group BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) and its political allies (including the Michigan Civil Rights Commission) who oppose the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

Using the big lie of "fraud and corruption" in the process of gathering signatures to put MCRI on the Michigan ballot in November, these organizations argue that black voters who signed or would have signed the petition are too dumb and corrupt to have done so knowingly and therefore should not be permitted to participate in the democratic process.

This political campaign is a repeat of historical efforts to deny the civil rights of black citizens.

These efforts mirror exactly the campaign of Hoke Smith for governor of Georgia 100 years ago. Smith began his political career running on the backs of blacks with an enfranchisement campaign. When he concluded that he could not win that way, he ran a campaign on the theme that blacks were too dumb and corrupt to be allowed to participate in the democratic process and therefore should be disfranchised. Smith's creation of a culture of disrespect for blacks led to the Hoke Smith effect -- the culture of violence that led to in the Atlanta pogrom of 1906 in which scores of black citizens were bludgeoned, shot and lynched.

This is a civil rights issue and not just an issue of political and legal maneuvering. The lawsuits against MCRI that allege fraud in signature collection have themselves been built upon fraudulent misrepresentation. Consider the testimony under oath of the Rev. Nathaniel Smith, who was induced by BAMN to testify that he was misled by MCRI contractors to represent the initiative as a civil rights initiative intended to perpetuate affirmative action preferences (squarely contradicting the very language of the initiative).

Smith's testimony is dubious on its face, since he claims to have induced hundreds of black citizens falsely to sign the petition but offered no testimony that he signed it himself. A black man who supposedly believed the initiative was good for black citizens, and so represented it, apparently did not consider that important enough to sign the petition himself.

To the contrary, as my own experience demonstrates, the initiative was honestly presented. It is in fact the case that black citizens, including myself, did sign the petition knowingly. Moreover, many black citizens believe that it deserves to be voted on. Therefore, the legal claims that black citizens could not knowingly wish to hold such a vote is an attempt on the basis of race to deny them the right to vote, against the guarantees of the 15th Amendment.

Citizens who truly desire to defend the participation of black citizens in politics will condemn and resist this means-justifies-the-end approach to politics, based on creating a culture of disrespect for black citizens. Our rights are too valuable to be left vulnerable to the tactics of political radicals.

The mission of our organization, Toward a Fair Michigan, is precisely to defend the democratic process and open, fully informed deliberations. TAFM therefore effectively condemns BAMN and its political allies who seek to undermine the democratic process. TAFM says, "just let us vote."

Dr. WILLIAM ALLEN is a professor of political science at Michigan State University and chairs Toward a Fair Michigan, which supports the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. Write him in care of the Free Press Editorial Page, 600 W. Fort St., Detroit 48226 or

oped@freepress.com.

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Justice Tarnow, an oxymoron

Reader, Norm Hozak, of Midland, Michigan, comments today in the Bay City Times on
the MCRI balot issue decision by Federal U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow last week. Any one of you who does not think that judicial appointments are most president's greatest legacy need only to ponder what group of political hacks gave birth to Arthue Tarnow and Anna Diggs Taylor. Jimmy Carter apparently did not grow beyond politics during his presidency.

_________________________________

Voice: Norman Hozak, Midland

After nearly two weeks of deliberation, U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow grudgingly ruled that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) should be allowed on the November ballot. This ruling reinforces the decisions of every legal authority for the state of Michigan.

After arriving at the only reasonable conclusion, Judge Tarnow could not resist injecting his personal bias. Most distressing was Tarnow's conclusion that fraud was committed when no such proof was established. Tarnow's commentary was nothing more than campaigning from the bench, and the citizens of Michigan should be outraged that a federal judge is so willing to abuse his power.

Tarnow's accusation that ''MCRI targeted all Michigan voters for deception'' is ludicrous. I personally spent many unpaid hours readily collecting signatures on MCRI petitions in 14 Michigan counties. I found that all people easily understood the proposal and were interested in signing based on their personal experience with discrimination in public college admissions or employment.

Hopefully, our democratic form of government will survive the deception and thug tactics of the MCRI opposition. Then the residents of Michigan can take action to help eliminate discrimination by voting ''Yes'' on the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (Proposal 2) on Nov. 7.

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