The insistence of many progressives that the elimination of government racial labels and race-specific policies must await the complete extinction of racist sentiments in the American population reverses the cause-and-effect relationship. It makes no sense to say that race doesn't matter, on the one hand, while insuring that how the federal government classifies your race makes a difference in access to benefits or even to adoptive parents. The fact that there are still bigots in America should not prevent the federal government from treating all Americans as individuals. And if conservatives want to quote Martin Luther King Jr. and adopt the liberal integrationist position as their own, this is proof of the success of the civil rights revolution in transforming American thinking about race even on the right.
When the conservatives are using the old liberal arguments, it's time for the liberals to realize they won and celebrate. Treating people as anything but individuals is dehumanizing and immoral. It doesn't matter which way the government is currently tilting.
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