Racism and Fine Merlot

Last week, I drank with a racist.

At a cocktail reception for Harvard lawyers, she told my friend, an Hispanic lawyer, that retiring Hispanic judges should arrange whenever possible for an Hispanic successor. I gently asked her was that not a sort of racism? She made the usual arguments for affirmative action and for proportional representation of her ethnic (or linguistic?) group in the professions. I suggested that the process might taint the reputations of its beneficiaries. To that, she violently agreed. It was just awful how white professionals assumed that brown ones got their positions through affirmative action.

She appeared to be a bright person, so I was surprised that she stepped so swiftly and willingly into my logical trap. (It certainly wasn't original.) Maybe she is not old enough to remember a time when anyone dared challenge affirmative action in polite society. In any case, I waited for the other shoe to drop. I enjoy doing that -- smiling quietly until my opponent in rhetoric begins to make my own arguments for me. She obligingly backpedaled and told me that she did not advocate promoting people who aren't perfectly qualified. I heartily agreed with the sentiment and poured her another glass of Merlot. The wine was good.

Then I asked her if faced with a couple of qualified candidates, one Hispanic and one white and clearly better qualified, what would she do? After long hesitation, "Hire the white guy," she said. So we agreed; no affirmative action, right? Well, no. But she couldn't tell me why not.

Feeling that her side needed bolstering, I guess, she attacked with a dull, ugly weapon: "What do you know about it? What's your ethnic background?" That 'argument' was so pitiful that I again waited for the other shoe to drop, but she waited me out. So I asked in return, "If I'm Hispanic, you will agree with me more thoroughly?" "No," again.

She looked a little deflated, and I wanted to help. "How's this for affirmative action:" I asked, "the old white judge naturally finds a younger white guy to succeed him. There's a better qualified Hispanic candidate, and the judge isn't exactly prejudiced; he just knows and likes the white guy, a nascent good ol' boy." That enthused her. It happens all the time; it drives her mad.

I drank with a racist, and it wasn't so bad.