Is Obama Going To Establish Separate Government Structures Based On Race?

by B. Christopher Agee 

For all his campaign rhetoric promising a post-racial society upon his ascension to the White House, many Americans feel no president has done more to divide the nation along ethnic lines.
According to recent reports, a proposal that could go into effect in Hawaii would only bolster those apprehensions. The Obama administration is reportedly considering the implementation of an independent tax and legal structure that would apply only to the state’s native race.
The plan was revealed near the beginning of the long Memorial Day weekend, leading many to assume Obama is once again trying to further his agenda by subterfuge.
“There is no constitutional basis for conferring such status,” said civil rights spokesperson Carissa Mulder; “and Congress has repeatedly refused to confer this status.”

She concluded that this announcement “seems to be yet another case of the Obama administration ignoring the law to achieve its policy objectives.”
Others feel such policies could easily be expanded to include other races, effectively dismantling the efforts throughout the 20th Century to create equality of all Americans regardless of skin color.
“If you can do that with groups that are already part of the mainstream, you can balkanize the country,” explained University of San Diego law professor Gail Heriot.
According to documents released late last week, the goal of this proposal is “to more effectively implement the special political and trust relationship that Congress has established between that community and the United States.”

While Heriot noted the intention probably has roots in the protection of land revenue distributed to native Hawaiians, she noted that, unlike Native Americans, that land is not considered a reservation because members of the group are fully American citizens. As such, there is no precedent for establishing a separate government for members of the race.
If successful, this move would force through the basic objectives contained in a bill that has been stalled in Congress since the beginning of the decade. The Akaka bill, named for native Hawaiian Sen. Daniel Akaka, sought to implement similar racial segregation but was rejected by a significant number of legislators and civil rights activists.
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Informing And Equipping Americans Who Love Freedom