President Obama rarely misses an opportunity to insert himself into an issue. Last Friday, he appeared in the White House press room to comment on the George Zimmerman verdict. The president said he could have been Trayvon Martin. Not likely, given his private schooling and the way he was fast-tracked to success.

Back in 2004 I read about a police department in Florida dropping the swimming requirement for officer candidates in order to attract more “diverse” recruits. I thought I’d heard everything. Why lower the standard of safety because it disproportionately affected blacks? A swimming requirement is racially neutral. Offer interested, non-swimming candidates lessons and help weaker swimmers improve before they apply. Or does the government think blacks are incapable of learning and improving?

Last Thursday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled eight to seven that Michigan’s constitutional amendment that bans the government from granting preferences to or discriminating against individuals or groups on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in employment, education, and contracting, was unconstitutional. The measure had passed in 2006 with 58 percent of the vote.

On MSNBC's Ed Schultz program Friday night, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, said, of the Republican Party, "My party is full of racists … and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander in chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin … that's despicable."

For years I’ve spoken out against government racial preferences, euphemistically known as “affirmative action.” Sometimes I felt like a voice in the wilderness, shouting into the wide expanse and hearing only the echo of my own words. A government policy in which individuals receive favorable or unfavorable treatment from their government based on the color of their skin seems to be a low-priority issue.

"Distinctions by race are so evil, so arbitrary and invidious that a state, bound to defend the equal protection of the laws must not invoke them in any public sphere." - Thurgood Marshall

If black, Chinese, Hispanic, Pakistani, Saudi, Vietnamese, and other students can have ethnicity-based groups at taxpayer-supported universities, why can't white students? That question is at the center of a swirling "controversy" at Towson University in Towson, Md.

Oscar Stanton De Priest (1871-1951) was the first African-American elected to Congress in the 20th century. Like Barack Obama, he rose through Chicago machine politics. Unlike Obama, De Priest was a Republican firmly opposed to big government. He lost his seat in 1934 when African-Americans voted their empty pocketbooks and began a massive switch from the Republican Party that had claimed their allegiance for 70 years to the Democrats who have claimed their allegiance for the past 75.