To Yesha Callahan of The Root, actor Vince Vaughn's critique of affirmative action -- which is rooted in his libertarian political leanings -- is not worth engaging on an intellectual level as a debatable philosophical proposition. It's just straight-up invalid because Vaughn is "tall," "rich" and "white." (h/t MRC Business vice president Dan Gainor)
Callahan was reacting to comments the comedian's recent comments in a Playboy interview, wherein he argued that affirmative action is ultimately racist in that it "evaluat[es] someone based on race" rather than protecting their rights as individuals. As you can tell, her criticism is full of ad hominem invective that doesn't bother to address the substance of Vaughn's argument (emphasis mine):
Vince Vaughn normally plays a jerk in his movies. But who knew that Vaughn was a jerk in real life? According to Vaughn in his new Playboy interview, affirmative action is racist.So says the rich white man.
[...]
So says the rich white man who has never had to rely on affirmative action to get a job. Maybe someone should tell Vaughn that the people who have mostly benefited from affirmative action are white women, like his wife.
But lucky for him, Vaughn was born a tall white man who’ll never have to realize how hard it is when your skin is brown, and your education supersedes that of your white counterpart, but the job still goes to the white counterpart.
Now I wish I hadn’t watched any of his movies.
Where to begin?
Well, first, I doubt Vaughn was "born a tall white man." That would have been a dreadfully painful and surely fatal experience for his dear mother.
That part about Vaughn's wife? Well, when they wed, Kyla Weber was a real estate agent with Royal LePage in Calgary. Seeing as the real estate business is highly competitive and sales-driven, I'm guessing affirmative action had little if anything to do with her success.
Finally, the huffy "I wish I hadn’t watched any of his movies" closing line is pure childishness, the likes of which our friends on the Left like to denounce when conservatives start boycotting liberal actors or musicians for the sake of their politics.
Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a day when folks would be judged by the "content of their character" rather than their skin tone. It seems Ms. Callahan disagrees, at least in cases where the political views she doesn't like comes from someone of the wrong color.
Image of Callahan via her Facebook page.
