DISQUS

Come to think of it, the title of the Innis article and its entire premise is absurd. The government's destructive energy policies are not a conspiracy to discriminate against blacks, nor do blacks or "minorities" need energy more than whites or suffer from unnecessary restrictions on energy use and production any more than whites.

One *could* make the case that since blacks disproportionately live in urban areas that are well-served by public transportation while whites disproportionately live in suburban and rural areas that require them to commute longer distances, that whites are disproportionately hurt by rising energy costs. But that too would be an absurd argument to put forth against U.S. energy policy, even if there were a grain of truth to it, because race has nothing to do with the state of our overarching energy policy.

Whenever I read commentators who refer to policies that "disproportionately harm minorities and the poor" I wonder how it is so many apparently intelligent people believe that Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey are being harmed to a greater degree than the majority of Americans. After all, they are "minorities." If one really means only to refer to "minorities" who are poor, then wouldn't the term "poor" by itself suffice since it has the virtue of encompassing all people who are poor?