Happy Thatcher Day!

Happy Thatcher Day to you all. Thirty years ago today Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister , so it's awfully nice of the government to give us a bank holiday to celebrate this great event. I think she was great but even opponents of hers would acknowledge that she got to number 10 through her own efforts, rather than because someone opened the door for her.

So when white liberal* Michael Tomasky writes a laudatory article about how "brave" white liberals (narcissist anyone?) introduced affirmative action which then allowed women and minorities to rise up in society one has to question whether this is true.

In fact seeing as we are constantly told that the women in America aren't doing as well as those in Europe, where Affirmative Action doesn't occur on such a widespread basis, it is hard to reconcile the facts with the tribute he gives to his own courage.

The changes with respect to ethnic minorities aren't as easy to compare with other countries because the US ethnic issues are pretty much unique, but it is true that the racial gaps were closing more quickly in the three decades prior to AA than in the three subsequent decades.

Tomasky is writing about this because of a current case before the Supreme Court where white firefighters were denied promotion because of their race, firefighters are popular so rather than support this discrimination he proposes that class should become a factor in AA. Therefore affirmative action will cover blacks, women, Hispanics, working class whites.... already this includes more than 75% of the US population!