J. Pharoah Doss: Disturbing Black generational divide on the demise of Affirmative Action?

& The 1996 presidential election was expected to be a landslide victory for incumbent President Clinton due to the strength of the economy. Affirmative Action became a contentious national campaign issue after California’s ballot proposition 209 threatened to eliminate Affirmative Action in the state’s public sector. Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole publicly endorsed proposition 209, while President Clinton acknowledged that Affirmative Action had flaws but should be “mended, not ended.” Within Black America, the Affirmative Action debate evolved into a referendum on racism. After the Civil Rights Movement’s victories of the 1960s, it was understood that racism in America would not go away overnight and that Affirmative Action would be required to transition Black Americans from segregation to integration; however, as race relations improved over time, Affirmative Action would become unnecessary. In 1991, Orlando Patterson, a Black professor at Harvard, stated, “The sociological truths are that America, while still flawed in its race relations … is now the least racist White-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities than any other society, White or Black; offers more opportunities to a greater number of Black persons than any other society, including all those in Africa.”...