At the dawn of the modern civil rights movement, the goal was to force the government to follow the Constitution, and specifically the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides that "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."  In the 1970s, that morphed into the "make up for past discrimination" justification for racial and sexual preference affirmative action.

Today, the left has taken affirmative action full circle, and we're back to doling out college admission and professional jobs on the "Looks like Me" standard. 

The "Looks like Me" standard has been actively promoted by prominent business leaders, politicians, and influential activists.  After Kamala Harris ended her presidential campaign, California state senator Holly J. Mitchell said this: "I was saddened as a black woman elected myself.  Every day I experience the double standard of being a woman, and a woman who looks like me, engaged in electoral politics."  So much for the content of one's character.

Cory Booker had this to say after Harris dropped out of the race: "What message is that sending that we heralded the most diverse field in our history and now we're seeing people like her dropping out of this campaign?"  Qualifications be damned if one doesn't pass the "Looks like Me" test.

Julián Castro often plays the "Looks like Me" card, especially in times of tragedy.  "As we saw in El Paso, Americans were killed because you stoked the fire of racists," said Castro.  "Innocent people were shot down because they look different from you.  Because they look like me.  They look like my family."  "Looks like Me" allows you to play a kinder, gentler race card.

The Ivy League has promoted the "Looks like Me" narrative for some time now.  For example, Cornell University's Center for Hospitality Research released a study in 2016 titled "Do You Look like Me? How Bias Affects Affirmative Action in Hiring" with predictable conclusions. 

Here is an analysis of the study, by the Cornell Chronicle:

The report suggests that for organizations trying to improve the diversity profile of their workers, knowing the race of an applicant may help managers create a pool of desired applicants. But caution is required to prevent same-race bias or cross-race bias from becoming part of the hiring process. One approach to offset this effect is to recruit diverse candidates and add a blind evaluation component to the process to ensure that race is used to include, rather than exclude, qualified minority applicants, the researchers said.

In other words, the report recommends that employers practice, in effect, "inclusion through exclusion."  By favoring an employment candidate's race and sex, individuals without "protected class" status — i.e., white males — become excluded with official approval.  This type of policy leaves employers open for white male lawsuits under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

Unfortunately, qualifications are being portrayed by academics and political demagogues as "white skin privilege."  We have now entered a human resources Twilight Zone in which accomplishments are never honestly earned, and the government needs to pick winners and losers based upon identity-politics characteristics.  The soft tyranny of the "Looks like Me" movement shouldn't be taken lightly.  The demonization of any group of people is a trend that shouldn't be tolerated or celebrated, especially by government.  

Michael A. Bertolone, M.S. is a freelance writer focusing on civil rights issues in the workplace.  His other American Thinker pieces can be found here: https://www.americanthinker.com/author/michael_bertolone.

Image credit: White House via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.