The debate continues over the nomination of D.C. Circuit Court Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court, not only because of his likely conservative position against abortion, but also his support of a “hard-line, anti-civil rights policy that opposed affirmative action while working under Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush,” according to law professors at the Alliance for Justice. Recently released documents show that when Congress voted the Congressional Gold Medal to Congressman Leo Ryan, after he was killed in the Jonestown, Guyana massacre, Roberts called the Congressman, “a publicity hound.” Over 900 mostly Black people from San Francisco were killed in that event. California State Senator Jackie Spier of San Francisco and San Mateo, who accompanied Ryan on that trip as his aide, was surprised and hurt to hear Roberts’s comments. What an insult! I sent her my condolences.

The conservative convictions of judges will have even greater significance when Chief Justice William Rehnquist is replaced on the Supreme Court. On May 9, 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the Washington State Dept. of Transportation (WSDOT) could no longer have race-conscious goals on federally funded projects. What’s left? Proposition 209 in California and I-30 in Washington “gutted” affirmative action in both state and municipal funded projects. “White male contractors already do 95% of state work, now they will do 95% of ALL work in California, a state with a 50% minority population,” states Will Bass, Board Member of the San Francisco African American Chamber of Commerce. “This is not fair. It’s becoming more like 1905, then 2005!” he continued.

To add “insult” to injury, WSDOT presented no evidence to defend the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program and did not appeal the court’s ruling, which could affect ALL federal programs in the U.S. 10 years ago, this would be “criminal!” Today, it is standard operating procedure, with racism at it’s highest. We’re losing ground.

“There seems to be no respect for a black face in America,” states frustrated Nannette Cutliff, of Walnut Creek, CA, relating to the neglect and slow response of the Federal Government to the mostly Black victims of Hurricane Katrina. Disrespect for black faces reign in other parts of the world too, as well as America, which is one reason why affirmative action is needed. First, it was the Japanese that depicted African Americans with big lips, a gold tooth and eating a watermelon. Next, Mexican President Fox remarked that Mexican immigrants in the U.S. did jobs “not even blacks would do.” Now the Mexican government has put on sale a commemorative stamp that depicts the racially offensive Black comic book character, Memin Pinguin, with gross distorted monkey-like features, a baldhead and big ears. The Black community of 50,000 Mexicans of African descent demanded that Fox apologize, and he refused. Fox is probably ignorant that it was Cortez with 300 Black men from Africa that discovered Mexico’s Baja California in search of an island of gold, ruled by the Black Amazon Queen, Califia. Baja California, as well as the State of California, are named after a Black woman. What an insult!

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