'Freedom from Race' is a Dream

Ward Connerly, the author of Proposition 54, tells us that ignoring race and racial information will put us further down the road to the promised land. Unfortunately, he has giving us bad directions that will make it impossible for us to get there.

Before we embrace Connerly's information ban, so that we grant his children and grandchildren "freedom from race," let's take stock of what the data tell us about so many other children in California.

In Alameda County, black children are hospitalized for asthma at a rate five times the county average. Across this state, Native American children are twice as likely and Latino children three times as likely as white children to lack health insurance. California public schools serving predominantly students of color are more likely to lack textbooks, functioning toilets, or credentialed teachers.

To be sure, we've made progress since the March on Washington, four decades ago. But, for many, many children in California, the promise of this great democracy is still only a dream.