Sacramento, CA—The Sacramento Bee, regrettably the only newspaper in California’s capital, covers little of what goes on in the legislature. Both the news and editorial pages of the Bee generally read like a Democratic Party newsletter. But one of the paper’s unsigned editorials recently provided a valuable service on an issue many of both major parties prefer to avoid.

Policymakers have learned to be wary of issues concerning race, lest they be charged as racists, the McCarthyism of our time. But this issue, while still emotionally explosive, has been needlessly complicated.

"The leading theory of human origins postulates that we are all descended from the same ancestral Eve," proclaims the Bee. "Thus, we are all related; we are all multiracial. To be precise—we are all one race."

It is refreshing to find this ancient and palpably obvious truth suddenly expressed with the joy of Archimedes. Swedes and Haitians, Kenyans and Moroccans, Bolivians and Thais, and Pakistanis and Scots, however different they may look, sound, and act, are all part of one race, the human race. The Bee has noticed, with approval, that people are beginning to act according to the truth that we are all one race.

So called mix-race marriages and births are on the rise, as a Public Policy Institute of California study has noted. In Sacramento county alone, 19 percent of births are multiracial. The U.S. Census Bureau, as the editorial notes, now allows respondents to mark more than one race and ethnicity. This is a welcome trend, and the Bee can see where the logic leads.

Since we are all of one race, those boxes for African American, white, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, and so on are really unnecessary. Says the editorial, "It would be tempting to rhapsodize about the melting pot and suggests doing away with all those nettlesome race boxes." But here the dialectic comes into play, explaining that "It’s too early for that," and conveniently giving no approximate date when it might be okay. "Race and ethnicity still really do matter in America," the writer explains.

Race and ethnicity continue to matter because, with some exceptions, the government continues to base policy on race and ethnicity. Supporters of these policies dislike equal treatment and merit. They want to allocate jobs, benefits, contracts, scholarships, and appointments on a racial spoils system. This is what keeps everyone confined in those nettlesome boxes, whether they approve of them or not. The politically correct are unwilling to square their practice with what they know to be true because of a groupthink vision that divides society into a creditor class and a debtor class, victims versus oppressors. In this vision, group membership, as determined by the government, overrides individual differences, effort, and choice. We can find examples of a better way in an area where talent and determination have always trumped race and politics.

In the mid-1940s, still the heyday of segregation, a patron of a jazz club asked bandleader and saxophonist Benny Carter whether his pianist was black or white. "I don’t know," Carter calmly replied. "I never asked." Neither should the government, especially the government of California, where Proposition 209 is the law. As for the current system with those nettlesome boxes, it’s kind of, well, racist.

— Lloyd Billingsley