Prop 54: This is a Bad Idea

Next week, California voters will be voting on Proposition 54. For those of you who haven’t been bombarded already with anti-Prop 54 fliers and activists, Prop 54 is also known as the “Racial Privacy Initiative.” Its goal is to disallow the state government from collecting statistics on racial identity and demographic information in an effort to create a colorblind society.

Now, before writing this article, I knew basically three things about the initiative: my sponsor was against it, my AAMP mentor was against it, and the entire Pomona student body seemed to be against it. What a popular initiative it was.

Despite the incredible amount of anti-Prop 54 sentiment there is at Pomona, I decided to surf some pro-Prop 54 sites and see if I could see some advantages. The first website I visited featured an annoying opening line: “Instead of a nation of hyphenated-Americans, let us be one nation indivisible.” This just made me mad. I see absolutely no reason why I should be made to feel guilty because I identify my self as not just American, but as Taiwanese-Chinese-American. Though this quote did absolutely nothing to endear me to Prop 54, I did continue to surf around. A distinct advantage that I did see was that the idea had noble intentions: a colorblind, race-blind society. However, the more I read (both pro- sites and anti- sites) and researched, the more I began to realize that Prop 54 will be, in fact, detrimental.

First of all, Prop 54 will not eliminate racism, it will eliminate racial statistics. Racism is something deeply entrenched in the community psyche, it can not be uprooted simply by a law. Furthermore, nobody can deny that racism is still present in the United States. What, then, does a law like Prop 54 do for us? It eliminates the ability of the state government to measure racism. A company could be hiring only workers of one racial group, and there would be no way to collect statistics reflecting this unfairness. Ironically, Prop 54 will promote, or at least allow, exactly what it is supposedly trying to reduce—racism. Secondly, Prop 54 will hamper the state’s ability to provide quality services for its residents. For example, Hepatitis B is especially rampant among Asians. Without racial statistics, the government would not be able to give extra training to healthcare providers living in areas with high Asian concentration.

Finally, Prop 54 hampers diversity. For me, one important thing I considered when choosing a college was the diversity. If racial statistics were eliminated at the state level, students choosing to go to school at a state school would be denied one valuable piece of information. Choosing college is tough enough, why make it harder by withholding a potentially important information? Of course, the diversity issue also applies to many other aspects—not just choosing colleges.

Anyway, research completed, I felt I had a much better idea of the nuances of Prop 54. It is one of those things that has a good intention, but, if looked at deeply enough, has evident potential for negative effects. How will my vote go next week? No on Prop 54.