Have you heard about the UC Regents lifting the ban on Affirmative Action?

Martin Luther King Jr. himself would be disgusted. Martin Luther King Jr., a heroic man with a brilliant mind, paid with his life as he fought for people to understand that we should judge a person by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. Now, with the embracing of Affirmative Action, multi-culturalist policies gain further footholds in our institutions. Now color will come before content. Blacks, African-American or not, will be grouped into one lump of color. It is the most primitive of concepts. Caucasians will be penalized for injustices to people that were dark even though it happened long before they were born. The descendants of Abe Lincoln and General Grant who fought to free slaves will now be punished along with the other whites whose grandfathers may or may not have owned slaves. Say a white man in New York murders a black man. Do you go out and hang a white man in L.A. to see that justice is done? Say a black man becomes CEO of a company in Florida. Does a black man in Portland, Ore. reap the benefits? We are not grouped into teams here. The only true minority in the world is each and every individual person with his own thoughts, his own qualities, and his own faults. The opportunities of one person have nothing to do with another person. Equality is ludicrous and impractical as an idea. Equal rights must prevail, not equal opportunity. Besides, how equal an opportunity is it, if a black person is favored over a white, simply because he’s black?

The UCs want us to learn that brotherhood and kinship are separated along color lines rather than by intellectual ideas or common interests. Martin Luther King Jr. preached color blindness, a philosophy rarely emphasized in the media or in the schools. I love reading books, because I see only the character and talent of the author. I love watching sports because I see fellow Americans celebrating their athletic ability. But more and more, minority groups send messages and establish legislation that force me to think there are barriers and great distances between myself and my fellow Americans who look differently than I.

The idea that it is just or even wise to select students, hire employees or choose friends according to color or the culture of our grandparents is one of the most dangerous philosophies plaguing our country today.

I substitute teach as a part-time job. When I walk into a class, there are almost no students doing the pledge of allegiance. I ask, “Why?” And I hear, “I’m not an American, I’m Armenian, I’m Mexican, I’m African-American.” It is time to lose the hyphens and not encourage cultural separation in our institutions. Last year at a local school a group of Latinos started a violent riot because they only had a Latino Culture Appreciation Week as opposed to the African-American History Month. What brotherhood!! What appreciation!! United we stand, divided we fall. This country was built by immigrants. Nearly all of our ancestors were from other countries. People have always escaped their cultures and migrated here to become brothers in the American idea of freedom, the most advanced of concepts. To be … simply Americans.

Racism, by definition, is the act of judging any person by the color of their skin. Affirmative Action is among the most blatantly racist policies on the planet. Racism as a private practice is not illegal, but it is a dumb idea. If the UCs were private colleges, I would be outraged at their stupidity for institutionalizing racism! But my tax money supports the UC system! I want the UCs to choose the best students, not the politically correct color of the month. I am ashamed of the UC Regents. I am ashamed to be a UC graduate.

LUKE HEYERMAN