Tag: history

By on 1 Comment

Heather MacDonald writes that Donald Trump took “the most important step it can to restore meritocracy. to American society” by eliminating disparate-impact. When exactly was there a meritocracy in the United States? Certainly no time before 1964 when discrimination against people of color and women was legal. Not directly after the passage of Civil Rights laws in 1964 when White resistance to the new laws was so fierce it required the implementation of Affirmative Action in order to ensure that Whites complied with the new law. Since MacDonald finds any tool that aids people of color a boost is an affront to meritocracy, it certainly isn’t the recent past So MacDonald needs to identify the golden age of meritocracy in USA because from the evidence I can see, there never has been a meritocracy.

MacDonald glosses over 200 years of American History. She assumes that the 1964 Civil Rights ended discrimination and nothing more needed to be done. For her racial prejudice is obvious, racists are obnoxious assholes in a Ku Klux Klan robe screaming the N word. It certainly couldn’t be nice middle class whites who hire employees or admit students to Ivy League colleges. They wouldn’t be caught dead in a Ku Klux Klan robe, so how could they be prejudiced.

The advantage of the public bigots is that they are easy to identify. The problem is the more prevalent form of racism that Blacks encounter is from polite and powerful White who, just the same, might be disinclined to hire someone different from them. They don’t say we are picking a White over a Black. They know the game. They say that the White guy is just more qualified for the job than the Black guy. For this reason, discrimination is difficult to prove. This is the barrier that Blacks face. MacDonald doesn’t appear to be bothered much by this more subtle form of racism or even acknowledge that it might exist.

Disparate-impact was one of the tools that the government used to show discrimination. If an employer has never hired Blacks, year after year, in a community where the population is 25% Black, then the government can see that there might be a problem with discrimination in hiring. Without disparate impact, how does MacDonald propose to identify non-compliant businesses and schools?

She doesn’t. She views discrimination as a phantom problem that doesn’t occur any more so there is no reason to investigate. People are only looking for the best – Black, White, Man, Woman. Race and Gender don’t matter only quality. Well, maybe, but how do we know this is happening unless we evaluate?

Finally, for the record, there will never be a meritocracy as long as rich families hand over their businesses to their children. It is never going to happen as long as some people have connections and others don’t. It never is going to happen as long as people with money can buy their children’s ways into universities. It never is going to happen when White middle class people can avoid “bad” school districts. It never is going to happen as long as poor Black children are given a second rate educations while White middle class children are given a first rate one.

How does MacDonald feel about those problems? Until she addresses them, I don’t believe that she gives a damn about meritocracy.

By on

There is nothing more annoying than a white man whining about how badly white men are treated. So I don’t encourage reading Matt Walsh’s cri de coeur about how people should be thanking white men for all the good that they have brought to the world. But, if you must, the rundown can be found below:

” I am proud to be a white man. I think that if anyone’s writing an article singling out white men, it should be to thank us. After all, as I said recently, this country could not exist without white men.”

“The vast majority of the greatest pioneers, inventors, thinkers, leaders in the history of Western civilization have been white men.”

Isn’t that a mouthful of bullshit? There are so many juicy targets here, I don’t know where to begin. His basic premise is both wrong. All you have to do is google inventions by Blacks, then change Blacks to Asian, then change Asian to women, and you will find significant inventions from members of all these groups. So what exactly does he mean when he writes “Nearly every good thing you have in your life — everything that makes your life safer, more comfortable, more enjoyable — was given to you by a white man.” Walsh has written a tricky sentence here both allowing him to acknowledge that non-white men may have contributed something to civilization while, also, allowing him to repeat his false assertion of “everything.”

Then there is White Men tend to tell stories that make White Men the heroes. So, when he talks, for instance, of the pioneers he is failing to acknowledge that these White Men followed paths that the Native American population already travelled and, in some cases, they were assisted by a Native American guide. This changes the story significantly. Lewis and Clark didn’t just wander into the woods and find Oregon. Non-Whites told them where to go. But Lewis and Clark got to tell their story in a way that it looks very much like White Men found the pathway across the continent when they were traveling paths used for centuries by non-Whites.

Most importantly, since White Men have been the most powerful people these past few centuries, it also stands to reason that they are responsible for every bad thing that has happened too — like industrial pollution, World War I, World War II, Racial Prejudice, and the subordination of Women. When you are in charge you have to take the good with the bad. Walsh wants you to thank white men for the good while ignoring the bad. It is a much more complicated legacy than Walsh would have you believe.

Which makes his whining so irritating. Poor White Men. No one appreciates them. Get out your handkerchiefs.