OPINION GUEST COLUMNIST: Who's been benefitting?

The verdict on the much-hyped, very much-orchestrated and remarkably executed Republican Convention in Philadelphia? It was a convention where the incongruities that surround the party and the suspicious aura of a meticulously planned-convention ganged up in a sham of a unified front to prop up the biggest bunch of articulated and insinuated BS in all of politics: that the G.O.P is an "inclusive" diversity-seeking party.

The evening of July 31, 2000 had to have featured the greatest number of African-Americans during prime time on a major TV network ever. They were mostly cheering and waving, holding up plaques emblazoned with declarations of unconditional devotion to Dubya and Dick, and of course, every roving camera lens gleefully sought them out. The most reprehensible display of audacity was during the elaborate introduction of Dubya's wife, when the entire spectrum of all of nature's shades and colors of school-age homo sapiens were conveniently convened on stage, singing Dubya's praises as they sat together in a classroom-like setting.

Perhaps the highlight of the night was when Colin Powell -- an amazing orator and well-respected figure in American politics -- came onto the platform and vehemently chastised the delegates for their negative stance on affirmative action and their fiery desire to build more jails to house those errant minorities. Powell sounded optimistic but oblivious to the fact that there is something intrinsic about him -- or his ideas -- that inherently excludes him from the fundamental interests of the party.

Essentially, Colin Powell expounded those issues that Republicans -- compassionate conservatives, non-compassionate conservatives, social conservatives, and whatever else conservatives -- half-heartedly smile at, indignantly swallowing their inclination to dissent and taking comfort in the thought that those issues will never be supported on their platform.

What the G.O.P stands for is utterly incompatible with the interests of minorities in this country. The Grand Old Party is the party of the status quo; the party whose platform quadrennially fights to maintain the status quo; the party whose idea of the American Dream purports restricting that dream to the status quo, and hanging the disadvantaged minorities out to dry without programs deemed "liberal" and "ludicrous" -- like affirmative action.

Their best argument against affirmative action is, on the surface, simple and cogent: affirmative action allocates an unfair advantage to certain people, making it counter-productive to the teachings of equality and detrimental to the fight against discrimination. But those who make this argument fail to realize that affirmative action is not a crazy liberal idea, but an idea first instituted by the forefathers by making the claim that "all men are created equal," while it was understood that this "truth" was held "self-evident" only by and only for white-skinned men.

Affirmative action existed legally for most of this democracy's history, unfairly giving the best of resources to the white-skinned members of society in every conceivable aspect of social, political and socio-economic relation, while banishing the dark-skinned members of society to the undesirable peripherals of society's resources. By segregating schools, refusing African-Americans admission to the best institutions of higher learning in the nation; by consistently discriminating against African-Americans in job-recruitment, by sticking the African-American passengers in the smoke-filled section of locomotives or in the back seats of buses; refusing to serve African-Americans in five-star restaurants or even small-scale eateries, affirmative action has always been the structural crux of this society, and those American ideals that are held "self-evident."

Isn't it ironic that this year's Republican Convention featured the coronation of an unqualified, wealthy, Caucasian male candidate who reaped the benefits of a sort of affirmative action all his life? His father's place in society's hierarchy got him into a prestigious Ivy League university -- where he bonked. His father's name and connections helped this lightweight get to executive office in Texas. And now it has him seeking the Presidency.

When I look at a candidate like Alan Keyes, an extraordinarily eloquent speaker, opponent of affirmative action, and staunch G.O.P supporter, I wonder why such a seemingly competent intellectual hasn't asked himself why he, clearly the best qualified candidate among last spring's crop of republican hopefuls, has been left in the cold while the least talented, least competent candidate with the familiar last name got the nod? That allegedly liberal, ludicrous, "un-Republican" idea is the reason -- "affirmative action."

When Colin Powell pointed out the paradoxical nature of his colleagues' opposition to affirmative action, and their indulgence in loading legislation with generous provisions for special interest groups, he affirmed something that society as whole either fails to see, or refuses to admit. Affirmative action is that dirty, little, liberal-yet-conservative secret that the forefathers taught us to encode and insinuate in laws, amendments, and declarations.

It has unofficially been a part of society and has been working in the favor of a specific demographic for so long, that when efforts are made to turn it in the favor of minorities in an attempt to achieve equality and a homogenous society at all levels, it suddenly assumes this anti-status quo, anti-white male, anti-G.O.P aura. But such is the nature of politics: An issue vehemently opposed by a political party's platform is advocated on stage by the embodiment of the inconsistencies that pervade the party and the convention -- Colin Powell -- and amazingly, it helps them.

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