Are minorities getting too many breaks?

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.
• Position: Column

THE NATION clearly is getting fed up with crime, welfare as a way of life, panhandlers, and the professional homeless who take over the benches and sidewalks of city parks. It also has lost patience with minorities who, at the expense of others, have been getting perquisite after perquisite. Yet, the government is in a state of denial about reining in the excesses to which minority programs have given rise.

Although the push to give minorities a break--a "handup," so to speak--was legitimate and well-intentioned, it has turned into little more than a handout, resulting in a virtual shakedown for ever-increasing "entitlements." In fact, many blacks are demanding reparations from the government for "centuries of racism."

Among the entitlements minorities are seeking are job quotas, increased preferential admission to colleges, and loan and mortgage breaks, all with a reduction of eligibility standards. They are aided by the courts in gerrymandering and redistricting to get minority officials elected. In a rural Maryland county, a Federal judge let voters cast up to five ballots each, as part of a cumulative voting plan to get more blacks on the county commission.

Native Americans pay no state or Federal taxes on tribal business income, including the windfall of millions of dollars that reservation casino gambling generates. (In Arizona alone, individually or collectively, they also own a quarter of the land.) With the recent revised and more liberal legal definition of "Indian," thousands now are seeking official listing on tribal rosters. The Cherokee Nation, for example, has increased membership from 10,000 in 1977 to 155,000. There is good reason for doing so, as tribal members get the largess of health care, scholarships, day care, employment preference, and, in some cases, per capita payment from gambling and oil and gas revenues. Recognizing a good thing, Indian radical Dennis Banks "retro-enrolled" his 20 children in the Chippewa Tribe.

The Denver Police Department is courting gays and lesbians to join the force in proportionate numbers to their presence in society. Everywhere, minorities are seeking a quota system that specifically was and still is forbidden by law. In order for liberals to get around the quota prohibition, the Clinton Administration expressed the desire to "look more representative of America" in its makeup. Under strong pressure from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, many organizations have fallen...