Indecent proposal: 'discrimination without the paper trail'

By Mayka Mei

Roy got mauled by a tiger. Arnold won the race. The daily news â€" still the original reality-TV. Recent events overshadowed an important special election ballot initiative that would have had a huge impact on California's ethnic and racial minoritiesâ€"â€"Proposition 54.

Thank goodness voters didn't let it go through.

Proposition 54 was a nice idea, but it was too much of a dream, too idealistic for any real-life, functional state government. For those who are unfamiliar with it, Prop. 54 was the "Classification That means no census questions about where you or your family members came from, and no fill-in-the-blanks that could potentially help a computer trace your personal history.

The drafting of the proposal was headed by Ward Connerly, current University of California Regent. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he's considered the architect of another controversial ballot issue from 1996â€"â€"anti-affirmative action Prop. 209.

So what would compel him to write such a proposal?

Prop. 54 supporters' main argument was that its passing would be one step closer to painting a "color-blind" society. Well, that sounds all fine and dandy, but is color-blind the direction that anybody wants to go?

Let's face it. Justice is not color-blind. Some of that ethnic and race-based data is crucial to the way our government works. Kevin Nguyen, the pro-Prop. 54 speaker at an on-campus debate, attested that the government does very little with the race-based data it currently has. However, studies have shown, and numerous organizations agree, that social departments like public safety, health care and education actually benefit from the ethnic information that census results provide.

Although the initiative made an exception for the collection of data for medical reasons, it had its limitations. It allowed only doctors to keep racial or ethnic data on their patients, and disallowed the use of population data in disease-prevention research.

For instance, what if a Latina woman is found unconscious by a stranger and is rushed in to an emergency room where she is not on file? If the woman cannot speak for herself, wouldn't it be helpful to know that Latinos are at a higher risk for complications due to diabetes? The doctor would know to be careful about using medication and procedures known to be harmful to diabetic patients. This information would be out-of-date or even unavailable if Prop. 54 was passed.

Under Proposition 54, the State Department of Justice would no longer require local police to collect data on victims and suspects. That data could help solve crimes and send necessary enforcement to areas where hate crimes are a major issue.

When it comes to ethnicity in the classroom, the California Public School Accountability Act is already designed to make sure that children reach standards of learning regardless of race or ethnicity. Not having this information available to the California Public School system would prevent school administrators from simple decisions like knowing where a Korean-speaking teacher would be best placed for teaching an English-as-a-Second-Language course.

And just how practical is that?

If Connerly sticks to his word and returns with a "revised" initiative in 2006, don't be fooled. Our society is not a melting pot where people's identities blend perfectly. Sometimes it really is worthwhile to know a person's race.

Passing Prop. 54 would not have propelled us into a color-blind society. It would have denied us the knowledge of where to focus our state's attention and, in the end, would have been tantamount to turning the other cheek to discrimination.