Wham, BAMN, Thank You Ma'am

By Alston Ramsay | Friday, January 23, 2004

Martin Luther King Day has come and gone. Well...not exactly. We're still in the midst of Dartmouth's twenty-one day celebration, but Monday did see Shanta Driver deliver the culminating keynote address. For those not in the know, Ms. Driver is the National Coordinator of United for Equality and Affirmative Action (UEAA) and the National Director of—be forewarned, it's a mouthful—the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (BAMN).

I'll spare you the suspense: BAMN is not a respectable organization. Nor, it seems, is Ms. Driver. I'm not making this assertion based on BAMN's support of affirmative action; there are robust arguments on both sides of the issue, regardless of where I stand. Rather, a closer look at BAMN reveals an organization bereft of any scruples, and perfectly content to wave the 'racist' card as the sole rationale for their self-proclaimed "New Civil Rights Movement." Perhaps this was driven home most poignantly when, during the question and answer session of her address, Ms. Driver admitted that BAMN's characterization of affirmative action opponents as "racists" and "segregationists" was correct. She even added an epithet of her own: "Right-wing assholes."

It sounds absurd—believe me, I know, the comments were directed at me—but her organization's race-baiting is much worse than that displayed during her impassioned speech. The first sentence of their defense of affirmative action—published in the Liberator, their official newsletter—reads: "Racism and sexism necessitate affirmative action." For those who may question the policy, a "mixture of ignorance and prejudice forms the basis of all opposition to affirmative action." One might expect, somewhere, to find a logical defense of affirmative action, but the website is almost entirely filled with hate-filled screeds with little or no substance—unless you count gratuitous charges of racism. A few examples will suffice.

Ward Connerly, the black California conservative who has fought affirmative action policies for years, receives some of the nastiest vitriol. In handouts he is called the leading spokesman for the "well-financed, corporate-backed, far-right-wing national campaign to end affirmative action," labeled "notorious" and "fanatical," and caricatured unflatteringly as a marionette. Ms. Driver, in the course of her speech, called him an "Uncle Tom" because he is presently trying to place an initiative on the Michigan ballot that would ban race-based affirmative action. (He was successful with a similar measure in California, which was subsequently overturned.) Never fear though, BAMN is on the case, intent on "Defeating the segregationists' attempt to nullify the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Grutter."

One of BAMN's most recent endeavors is a boycott of Coors. Yes, that's right, Coors the beer company. We must all make "clear to Coors that racism is bad business [and] can therefore play a very important role in reversing the whole period of right wing and racist attacks on affirmative action and integration." You see, according to BAMN, Joseph Coors gave $100,000 to Ward Connerly, and thus Coors—the company, its employees, and anyone who enjoys a cold one—must feel Ms. Driver's wrath. BAMN does not mention that last year the Coors Foundation gave $7.5 million in charitable contributions to organizations like the Girl Scouts, Kiwanis, Hospice, the Colorado Minority Engineering Association, the I Have a Dream Foundation, Youth at Risk, et cetera. Racist indeed!

One more declaration, just for sport: BAMN is committed to abolishing the death penalty because it "is the execution of the irreversible final step of a corrupt judicial process; corrupt by virtue of the classist and therefore inherently racist nature of the US injustice system." Injustice system—very clever.

Beyond this, BAMN is virulently opposed to the Iraq War ("No to the War, Yes to Affirmative Action!"), wants to eliminate all standardized tests (using them is "baseless and arrogant"), and really loves conspiracy theories ("The unbridled cynicism of the resegregationists' effort would make a Judas blush [and] has become a central component of Republican national political strategy").

These various policies may seem like strange bedfellows, but that's an earmark of extremist groups like BAMN: cobble together any number of disparate policies under a single banner. And then, rather than offer reasonable discourse, throw a slew of grossly exaggerated slurs at your opponents: Those racist, classist, sexist, segregationist, right-wingers are at it again! (N.B. All these slurs are repeatedly used by BAMN to describe anti-affirmative action stances; check their website if you don't believe me.)

BAMN and similar organizations are logically bankrupt, which brings us back to Martin Luther King Day. Ms. Driver, her organization, and even Dartmouth think they have a monopoly on King's message and his legacy. They invoke his memory to legitimize all their stances, and they use this carte blanche to yell racist, classist, or segregationist at anyone—Rev. King is on their side, afterall. But is he?

Ms. Driver preaches incessantly about the "New Civil Rights Movement," which describes itself as "a new, militant, integrated, mass civil rights movement." In the Liberator, BAMN warns that supporters must "Prepare for the War" so that they can "continue the struggle for equality when necessary even in spite of the law. [They] will make use of the law when and where [they] can, but never subordinate [their] struggle to it." I will not fall prey to the same trap and put words in Rev. King's mouth, but some aspects of his legacy are crystal clear: His Civil Rights Movement was based on passive resistance and civil discourse. BAMN's verbal atrocities and bellicose posturing, however, are much closer to groups like the Black Panthers than to Martin Luther King.

I'd like to think Dartmouth didn't check Ms. Driver's credentials before inviting her to honor Rev. King; it would at least provide an explanation. I know better. This celebration, originally intended to commemorate a great man and a great cause, has become just another platform from which liberal activists pursue their various agendas, safely shrouded under the guise of King's "legacy." Surely, anyone who embraces Shanta Driver and her ilk as the natural successors to Martin Luther King, Jr. affronts his memory and the holiday named in his honor.

Wham, BAMN, Thank You Ma'am

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