Gen. Colin Powell is the most admired of all Americans and therefore a man unusually well positioned to bring much-needed clarity and candor to the debate about the status of race in the nation's life and laws. Alas, he is not providing either. This sad truth has been emerging in dribs and drabs, in brief passages in college commencement addresses, in asides buried in longer newspaper interviews. But it's clear all the same.
Powell recently sat for an interview with USA Weekend. One of the issues he was asked about was affirmative action. "For those who say preference systems are bad," Powell sneered, "I would love to take you through all the preference systems which are acceptable." Powell listed things like tax benefits for mortgage-interest payments and college- admissions bonuses for student athletes. "So we're not against preferences," he continued ("with a tinge of bitterness," USA Weekend adds). "We're just against any preference that is related to the color of a person's skin."
Well, yes, precisely so. Powell apparently believes he has identified the hypocrisy of those who espouse a policy of color-blindness. But he has only identified his own shallow understanding of the American creed (or his weakness for a faulty debating point). The Civil War was not fought to end football recruiting, and there is no constitutional amendment to ban discrimination against people who rent houses instead of buying them. Discrimination on grounds of race has a unique place in the catalogue of American sins. The effort to extirpate it in public policy has, as well, a unique place in American law. Too bad Powell doesn't get it.