Government aid should be based on need, not skin color

Sure, you can out-earn someone else and still be subject to more “prejudice or cultural bias” than they are, but why should that be a major factor in how the government is distributing pandemic aid? And let’s be honest: If you run, say, a popular Pakistani restaurant, you can actually benefit from being from an interesting cultural group. (I should know, being a Pakistani who frequently visits them.) Unfortunately, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund is one area among many where government officials, mostly Democrats, are increasingly deciding that ancestry or the dicey category of “race” should be a significant factor in how the government deals out largesse. Witness, for instance, the city of Oakland, California, partnering with private donors to set up a guaranteed income pilot program that will offer unconditional $500 cash grants to low-income families. But there’s a catch: The program is only available to racial minorities. Is there any reason why poor white people would not need this money? The typical race-conscious progressive response is that minorities are simply worse off than white people, and while that may be true for some, it is certainly not true for all. Using racial stereotypes to approximate the condition of someone’s life has a dark history in the United States, and it remains unlikely to result in government policy that treats everyone fairly.
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