Word: henkin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Joshua H. Henkin...
Joshua H. Henkin's editorial of October 30, constitutes the beginning of an articulate rebuttal to Washington columnist Richard Cohen's assault on the individual rights of Blacks. At issue is the "ethical dilemma" faced by a Washington, D.C. jewelry store owner who wonders whether to admit a young Black man at the front-door buzzer. Henkin defends the rights of the individual not to be judged by his color, but he misses the preeminent point to be made here...
...Though Henkin does say that the individual rights of Blacks should be protected, he implies that Blacks as a group are victims of discrimination because they have not "made it" in white middle-class society. This assertion, I believe, is untrue. I propose that the majority of Blacks in this country are not members of the underclass. Not only are most Black people not poor, but most poor people are not Black...
Anyone who questions this fact should try looking at the often forgotten part of the nation that lies beyond the northeastern metropolis. There is a social reality beyond the Park Avenue/Harlem or even Beacon Hill/Roxbury dichotomy. Contrary to popular belief, and certainly contrary to Henkin's perception, most Blacks have done a pretty good job of pulling themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps in the little time they have had. And many achieved their gains before the end of legally sanctioned racism...
With just over two years left in the Reagan Administration, the battle is likely to intensify. "Sometime in the 1930s we recognized that the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the Constitution," says Columbia University Law Professor Louis Henkin. "Mr. Meese is trying to change the system % accepted by the American people." But times change, counters Eastland, and so does the court majority. "We're in a constitutional era where decision after decision is very close. It is a period of considerable ferment." Ferment indeed. "Mr. Meese must sit up nights thinking 'I haven't provoked the legal profession...