Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 18:55:07 -0500 Subject: M-I: NYT: Blacks Recruited to Fight Affirmative Action (fraud) From: jschulman-AT-juno.com (Jason A Schulman) New York Times December 17, 1997 Blacks Recruited to End Affirmative Action -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Article Clinton Offers Spirited Defense of Affirmative Action Forum Join a Discussion on Education and Affirmative Action -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By TIMOTHY EGAN EATTLE -- As migrant labor goes, the signature-gathering campaign against affirmative action in Washington state seemed to offer just what Arthur Tillis of Chicago said he was looking for: a chance to earn some Christmas money and see a different part of the country. But Tillis, who said he was homeless, had no sooner arrived in Seattle last week than he realized that being a trench worker in modern democracy was not at all what he expected. "I was getting cursed at by people and having a lot of trouble getting signatures," he said in an interview. "Then I finally read the thing real carefully and I said: Wait a minute. This is against affirmative action. It's a not a civil-rights thing like it says." As one of five blacks transported by bus to Washington state by the supporters of a ballot issue that would end most affirmative-action policies here, Tillis said he had never been told the true nature of the campaign. But he was told he could earn up to $600 a week, at 90 cents a signature. All five of the black signature gatherers interviewed told a similar story. Once they arrived in Washington state, some of the petitioners went into debt, and say they were forced to gather signatures just to get enough money to get out of town. "You want to know what this whole thing really cost me?" said Pro Mayes, an unemployed father of two from Rancho Tehama, Calif. "My pride. I was duped. And now I got nothing to bring home to my kids." The leaders of the campaign, Washington Initiative 200, say there was no attempt to recruit blacks as a strategic way to counter the perception that the initiative would be a setback for many minorities. Nor were petitioners misled, they say. It was simply a money-making proposition in a tight labor market, which forced the campaign to recruit far away from the state, they say. "The only way they could be misled is if they can't read," said Sherry Bockwinkel, the owner of the firm that pays and recruits signature-gatherers, on behalf of the campaign. "Petitioners are motivated by money. They tend to be lazy. If they say they were misled, they are lying." But part of the problem, the black petitioners say, is the language of the ballot question itself. It is called the Washington State Civil Rights Act. The proposed ballot title, at the top of the petition, says nothing about dismantling affirmative action. When Tyrone Wells, an 18-year-old high school dropout from Toledo, Ohio, read the title, he says he thought it was a pro-civil-rights ballot measure. "So I went out there on a bus and started trying to gather signatures, and people were cursing me," he said. "It is confusing." Wells returned home by bus a few days ago, in debt and discouraged. "They wanted some black faces," he said. "We were used." If supporters of the initiative can gather 180,000 signatures by Jan. 2, Washington could follow California as one of the first states in the nation to outlaw racial preferences in hiring, contracts and education. The initiative would require the state Legislature, which is Republican-controlled, to either pass the measure, or pass it on to voters for their consideration. The governor would have no veto power. On one level, the campaign has been a debate over a colorblind society, featuring radio advertisements by Steve Forbes, the publisher and Republican candidate for the presidency last year, and rallies at which William Bennett, a leading conservative philosopher, played host. But in the malls and on the streets where petitioners are frantically trying to gather the necessary signatures, the debate is more shrill and divisive. A vigorous campaign to dissuade people from signing the petitions has led to numerous verbal clashes. Opponents of the measure say that by recruiting poor blacks, the Initiative 200 campaign is essentially using affirmative action to try to end affirmative action. "It's not accidental that the people who were brought here are African-American," said Kathleen Russell, the campaign manager for No! Initiative 200. "They're playing the race card. And they're preying on people who are hard up, who are unemployed or homeless." John Carlson, a talk-radio host who is the campaign manager for Initiative 200, said race was not a factor in the petition drive. "You want people who are known as 'horses,' people who can get the signatures, and get them fast," he said. "You don't want people with little or no experience, of any race." The ballot measure, he said, deliberately borrows language from the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the landmark anti-discrimination measure of the last four decades. It is not misleading, he said. "This initiative will restore the moral principle of protecting all Americans from discrimination," Carlson said. Ms. Bockwinkel, who runs the signature-gathering firm, said a number of recruiters who were on a retainer to her found the black petitioners in the Midwest and California. They were offered bus fare to Seattle and motel expenses if they could produce a certain number of signatures. She said she did not know if they were told the exact nature of the campaign, but she scoffed at the idea that they were ignorant. "I handed them material about the initiative and told them to read it," she said. The people who traveled 2,000 miles from the Midwest or 800 miles from California say they were motivated by what sounded like a good deal. "The recruiter came to my house in California, he bought my family a turkey for Thanksgiving," Mayes said. "It thought this man is my friend." But once in Washington state, he says, he not only had difficulty getting signatures, but he fell into debt and had to borrow several hundred dollars from the campaign. He left Seattle on Tuesday on a bus, thoroughly discouraged by the experience. "Black people were mad, saying stuff like 'You ought to be ashamed,"' Mayes said. "White people in suits, they were taking it and signing it. But I'm just out there, in the end, trying to get signatures to get out of debt so I can get out of town." --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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