On occasion, rampant political correctness leads even the most respected, mainstream publications to run articles that resemble rollicking parody.

Consider, for example, the following headlines and opening paragraphs from a recent (December 7) report prominently featured on Page 3A of USA TODAY:

“LATEST SHUTTLE CREW IS ONE OF DIVERSITY-

NASA Corps still has ‘a ways to go’

The seven astronauts on space shuttle Discovery will be undistinguishable today as they wait for liftoff clad in bubble helmets and orange launch suits, but their gear will mask a milestone: For the first time, two African-Americans will rocket into space together.

They’ll be joined on their 12-day flight by a half-Indian astronaut, making this the most diverse shuttle crew in recent years. The six crewmembers on September’s flight were white.

The composition of Discovery’s crew illustrates how far NASA has come in building an astronaut corps that reflects America…. ‘We’ve made some great strides, and this mission is an example of that,’ says former astronaut Winston Scott, an African-American who is vice president of the Engineering Sciences Contract Group in Houston. ‘But clearly there is a ways to go.’”

The article (by reporter Traci Watson) also features a little graph (this is USA TODAY, after all) under the amusing heading DIVERSITY IN SPACE, comparing “Percentage of minority groups in the U.S. population and astronaut corps.” Here, we learn the alarming news that Asians comprise 4.8% of the population at large, but only 3% of the astronaut corps! Even worse, African-Americans are 12.8% of the nation, but merely 5% of the astronaut corps. Apparently, we’re meant to feel horrified and guilty over such discrepancies.

Of course, the article never explains why anyone should worry about “diversity in space.” The miniscule number of African-American geeks who closely monitor space shuttle missions (and white space shuttle fans are just about as rare) will no doubt feel proud and inspired by the presence of two – count ‘em, two! – black astronauts on the same flight, but it’s hard to understand why this represents a significant development for the nation, for the African-American community, or for NASA. Why does the darker pigmentation of three of the seven crew members (one of the four white guys is a Swedish national, by the way) deserve recognition as a national “milestone?”

Worst of all is the suggestion that this racial representation represents “an astronaut corps that reflects America.” Does the crew reflect America in terms of education level, physical fitness, scientific background, leadership ability, or raw intelligence? One would hope not--- obviously, we need astronauts who are highly un-representative in all these significant areas. Why do we permit the suggestion that race – and race alone – determines whether or not a group “reflects America.”?

The obsessive focus on skin color as a means of classifying individuals may be well-intentioned, but it’s become an illness – an impulse to reduce truly important distinctions (values, philosophy, life experience, socio-political outlook, temperament) to irrelevancy while concentrating exclusively on the abstraction of racial identity. It tells you nothing truly significant about anyone to say he’s white (Irish or Rumanian?), or black (Jamaiican, Nigerian, Aborginal Australian, or American for 300 years?), or Latino (Cuban, Mexican, Salvadoran, or Puerto Rican?) or Asian (Chinese, Indonesian, Pakistani, or Vietnamese?). These white-black-Latino-Asian characterizations, so adored by bureaucrats and race hustlers, diminish our humanity, ignoring individual differences and life histories and shrinking people to the status of color-coded jelly beans.

Want a truly diverse shuttle crew? How about insuring representative divisions among liberals and conservatives, scientists and artists, right-handers and lefties, married and single people, faithful and atheists, pessimists and optimists, overweight and anorexic? Of course, this sort of diversity sounds ridiculous, since the only thing that matters in preparing astronauts for a journey into space is competence and the ability to work together as a team. Why should we allow an emphasis on “diversity” regarding race, when we’d never allow such insistence regarding any other categories – no matter how meaningful?

When officials say the astronaut corps has “a ways to go,” they’re not talking about excellence or ambition or achievement – they’re speaking only about race. How sad! Despite all the shortcomings and stupidities in the dubious shuttle program, we’re led to believe that NASA will have achieved nirvana if only they can insure that the racial make-up of the astronaut corps reflects the percentages in the nation at large.

Our tolerance for such inanity indicates that the whole nation has “a ways to go” before we move beyond our admittedly bigoted past and make the necessary acknowledgement that skin-color should count for nothing in space – or anywhere on earth, for that matter.