What to do about the numerous white ethnic societies that exist in the United States to celebrate their heritage? Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans and German-Americans watch out!
We have been taught undesired and quite frankly hypocritical lessons by four presidents in a row and perhaps it is now time that we be left alone!
When the so-called war on domestic terrorism was declared quite early on in the Joe Biden Administration it provoked a wave of dissent from those who recognized that it would inevitably be used to stifle free speech and target constituencies that do not agree with the White House’s plans for sweeping changes in how the country is governed. Some rightly pointed out that every time the Federal government declares war on anyone or anything, to include drugs, poverty, or even Afghanistan, the results are generally counter-productive. But others noted that once fundamental liberties are taken away they will likely never return.
At first there were reports that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were increasing their investigations, many centered on the so-called U.S. Capitol “insurrection” of January 6th, which it now appears might have been in part incited by the FBI itself. The scope of the inquiries into how perfectly legal opposition groups operate and proliferate in the U.S. soon broadened to include opponents of much of the social engineering that the Democrats have brought with them to change the face of America. “Hate” or “extremist” groups and individuals became the targets with “hate” and “extremism” liberally defined as anyone whose identity or agenda did not coincide with that of the Democratic Party.
This effort to root out “domestic terrorism” needed a focus and that came with what was claimed to be an intelligence community joint assessment in March which labeled “white supremacists” and “anti-government extremists” as “the two most lethal elements of today’s domestic terrorism threat.”
In March of 2021 the Democratic mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaaf,announced a“Guaranteed Income Pilot”program to give $500 per month to low-income residents if they are the right skin color. They offered nothing for poor white families in Oakland.An estimated 10,000 white residents in Oakland are stuck in poverty, earning less than $12,880 a year. Poor is poor; it afflicts all races.
A disturbing behavior is starting to reappear on the political stage in recent years. It is not a crowd-pleaser for most onlookers. It is more like bad political theater that meshes cheap horror films with dark comedy and few people are laughing.
For some unearthly reason, Democratic Party politicians are now acting as if it is okay to fight racism with racism. Of course, that is an absurdity, a completely nonsensical farce. It is like trying to fight rape assaults with more rapes, or preventing murders by murdering more people. Nobody can fight the evils of racism with the ugliness of racism. But some in the Democratic Party leadership want to do exactly that. They have declared that it is perfectly acceptable to engage in blatant racist behavior, like spiteful Klansmen on their way to a cross burning. Like churlish bigots, these Democrats want to “even the score.” In their minds, imitating prejudicial conduct will somehow atone for past racial discrimination, which ironically was perpetrated against blacks, Catholic and Jews by mostly bygone Democratic Party firebrands.
The most glaring example of this attempt to fight racism with racism is Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a longtime Democratic Party leader in Chicago. On May 19 of this year, she sent a letter to the Chicago media declaring that she would “exclusively” provide “one-on-one interviews with journalists of color.” She refused to accept personal interviews with reporters who had the wrong skin color. Much of the news media looked the other way, some congratulating her for highlighting the lack of diversity in newsrooms.
To hide her virulent racism, Mayor Lightfoot unleashed the specter of racism to promote so-called “equity,” a word often thrown under the bus to protect the foolish and the power hungry. But there is more. She acted as if wanted to inflict revenge. She wanted an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth in her quest for “justice”. She apparently believes she can engage in outright bigotry because others did so in the past. In this way, she echoes the response of Democrat Governor George Wallace, who barred black-skinned children from entering public institutions of learning. Democrats cannot seem to get past their warped sense of justice. Incredibly, some media outlets actually agreed with Mayor Lightfoot’s racist rants. They were eager to defend her racist policies, singing praise for her noble stand to fight racism, contending that too many news reporters were born with the wrong skin color.
But Mayor Lightfoot’s unprofessional action is not an isolated incident perpetrated by Democratic Party leaders. No, the list is almost endless. For instance, on March 23, 2021, Democratic Senators Duckworth and Hirono pledged to vote “no” for any Biden nominees unless they were of particular race. They refused to confirm any white nominees, engaging in the ugly trend of “anti-white racism.” Denying jobs to people who have the wrong skin color is not only racist, but violates Title VII of the1964 Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits employers from discriminating against employees and job applicants based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.” Due to public criticism, both Democrats eventually backed away from their racist demands. More and more Democrats now oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In March of 2021 the Democratic mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaaf,announced a“Guaranteed Income Pilot”program to give $500 per month to low-income residents if they are the right skin color. They offered nothing for poor white families in Oakland.An estimated 10,000 white residents in Oakland are stuck in poverty, earning less than $12,880 a year. Poor is poor; it afflicts all races.
The state of Vermont expanded vaccine eligibility to individuals 16 or older who identified as Black, Indigenous or a person of color. Vermont discriminated on the basis of race in distributing lifesaving vaccines that are mostly paid by public agencies. Again, whites were not eligible. Extremely racist!
In the 2021 President Biden’s Covid-19 pandemic stimulus package discriminated against certain races in getting financial aid. The Democrat-written law stipulated that only “socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers” based on race, could get financial aid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The stimulus limited funding to only six races and leaves out whites. Clearly a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Democratic Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, confessed that he was one of the men who wore either blackface or KKK robes in a photograph from his 1984 medical schoolbook page. Despite the racist photo, Governor Northam refused to step down. Only true racists would refuse to atone for past indiscretions. Northam was the little racist Democrat who could. Then again, Democrats have traditionally been the defenders of black slavery, segregation, Ku Klux Klan, racism, racial supremacy, violent insurrection, voter suppression, and lynching.
And to top this off, California Governor Gavin Newsome and Democratic Party legislators attempted to legalize racial discrimination in 2020. They placed a ballot initiative (Prop. 16) to allow California to legally discriminate on the “basis of race and sex.” They called it “affirmative action,” but it was actually a latent method to discriminate by race. It lost at the ballot box, but Democrats raised over $25 million in order to pass a blatantly racist measure.
Nonetheless, many on the progressive left are currently championing the spread of Democrats’ dubious “enlightened racism,” which often bolsters their anti-racist credentials. Others are playing along with this charade, hoping that nobody will notice how incredibly insensitiveit is to speak in fluent “Racese.” It is indeed a crazy world of epic portions. Once deemed the most tolerant people in the world, Americans are now lambasted for things that long-dead ancestors might have done. Who would have guessed that Democrats would be extolled as the rescuers of those minorities who suffered the most from the cruel whip of the Democrat party’s scourge?
With a talent for Orwellian doublespeak, Democrats are now eager to drag their racist skeletons out of the closet, dust off their Confederate patina, and assert that their rediscovered racism is actually good for diversity and equality. Apparently, the racist apple has not fallen far from the Confederate tree.
In March, and again in April, 167,000 immigrants were caught crossing our southern border illegally. The invaders are now coming not only from Central and South America but also from Africa, the Islamic world and the largest and most populous continent, Asia. And their destiny may be to replace us.
For as the endless invasion proceeds, native-born Americans have ceased to reproduce themselves. Not since the birth dearth of the Great Depression and WWII, when the Silent Generation was born, has the U.S. population experienced such a birth decline as today.
After nine people were shot to death by a public transit worker, who then killed himself in San Jose, the latest mass murder in America, California Governor Gavin Newsom spoke for many on the eve of this Memorial Day weekend.
“What the hell is going on in the United States of America? What the hell is wrong with us?”
Good question. Indeed, it seems that the country is coming apart.
In May, Congress, to address a spate of criminal assaults on Asian Americans, enacted a new hate crimes law to protect them.
May also witnessed a rash of assaults on Jewish Americans to show the attackers’ hatred of Israel and support for the Palestinians in the Gaza war.
The terms “racist” and “racism” are now commonplace accusations in political discourse and a public square where whites are expected to ritually denounce the “white privilege” into which they were born.
In the year since the death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter “Defund the Police!” campaign, the shootings and killings of cops and citizens in our great cities have skyrocketed.
In March, and again in April, 167,000 immigrants were caught crossing our southern border illegally. The invaders are now coming not only from Central and South America but also from Africa, the Islamic world and the largest and most populous continent, Asia. And their destiny may be to replace us.
For as the endless invasion proceeds, native-born Americans have ceased to reproduce themselves. Not since the birth dearth of the Great Depression and WWII, when the Silent Generation was born, has the U.S. population experienced such a birth decline as today.
At the same time, a war of all against all in America seems to raise the question, to which recitation of the cliche — “Our diversity is our greatest strength” — no longer seems an adequate response:
Is there no limit to the racial, religious, ideological, political, cultural and ethnic diversity the nation can accommodate before it splinters into its component parts?
In professions of religious belief, atheists, agnostics and secularists have become our largest “congregation,” followed by Catholics and Protestants, both of which are in numerical decline.
Diversity of faiths leads to irreconcilable, clashing opinions about morality on the most divisive social issues of our era: abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, etc.
Racial diversity, too, is bringing back problems unseen since the 1960s.
America was almost 90% white in 1960, but that figure is down to 60% and falling. In 25 years, we will all belong to racial minorities.
Are we Americans still united in our love of country? Do we still take pride in what we have done for our own people and what America has done for the world in the 400 years since Jamestown?
Hardly. Part of the nation buys into the academic and intellectual elites’ version of history, tracing America’s birth as a nation to the arrival of the first slave ship in Virginia in 1619.
We not only disagree about our history; some actually hate our history.
That hate can be seen in the statues and monuments destroyed, not just of Confederate military heroes but of the European explorers who discovered America, the Founding Fathers who created the nation, and the leaders, from Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt, who built the America we became.
Yet, tens of millions from all over the world still see coming to America as the realization of a life’s dream.
Some look at Western civilization as 500 years of colonialism, imperialism, genocide, slavery and segregation — practiced against people of color. This is the source of the West’s wealth and power, it is said, and that wealth and power should be redistributed to the descendants of the victims of Western rapacity.
For many, equality of opportunity is no longer enough. We must make restitution, deliver reparations and guarantee a future where an equality of rewards replaces an equality of rights.
Meritocracy must yield to equity. Elite high schools, such as Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, Stuyvesant in New York and Lowell in San Francisco, must abandon their emphasis on grades, tests and exams to gain admissions and prove progress.
And these schools must be remade to mirror the racial and ethnic composition of the communities where they reside.
And a new cancel culture has taken root in America.
Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, a CNN commentator, was fired for suggesting that Native American institutions and culture played no significant role in the foundation and formation of the American Republic.
“We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes, we have Native Americans,” Santorum said, adding: “There isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”
Impolitic though this rendition was, was it wholly false?
Something is seriously wrong with a country that professes to be great but whose elite cannot abide the mildest of heresies to its established truth.
Contrary to a widespread idea, President Biden does not intend to guarantee “equality in Law” of all Americans without distinction of race. On the contrary, he intends to be the champion of “racial equity”, that is to say a form of equality between, not individuals, but what he considers as distinct racial groups. In this article, Thierry Meyssan will use the term “racism” in its literal sense and not in the common sense of “discriminatory behavior”. He will show that by announcing their intention to extend “racial equity” to the whole world, President Biden and the Democratic Party are threatening world peace.
In a federal state, somewhere in the world, the Department of Education decided to teach in primary and secondary schools that humanity is divided into distinct races.
Although these races are distinct, it is possible to mate them and give birth to children. However, these children will be sterile, like the mules of a donkey and a mare. This is why federal government statistics include whites, blacks, etc., but no mixed-race children.
Since there is an implicit hierarchy between these distinct races and, unfortunately, half-breeds are not sterile, they are automatically counted as belonging to the inferior race. The superior race must be preserved from all defilement.
This federal state was the Nazi Reich, but it is also the United States of Joe Biden and his Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona.
We are witnessing the return of the “scientific racism” that caused the Second World War and its 70 million deaths. No one seems to be aware of the danger, however, and many people think that the U.S. Democrats are examples of openness to others.
Let us remember that the racism of the 1930s had all the trappings of science. It was researched in many scientific institutes and taught in universities in both the United States and Western Europe. To preserve the master race, many “modern” states had banned interracial marriages before World War I.Commemorative medal designed by Karl Goetz (then ranked on the left). On the obverse, a caricature of a black French soldier with the motto “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”, on the reverse, a German woman bound and raped under a French helmet. This openly racist piece was distributed by a few right-wing organizations and by almost all Western left-wing organizations.
Racism is neither of the right nor of the left
In the collective imagination, racism would only develop in right-wing nationalist circles. This is absolutely false.
For example, at the end of the First World War, France occupied the Ruhr coal region militarily. Among the troops were Africans from Senegal and Madagascar for two years. Soon a protest movement developed in Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada to denounce the ignominy of the French who placed 20,000 blacks to dominate the German whites and rape their women. This racist movement was led by the main anti-racist figure of the beginning of the century, E. D. Morel [1], and gathered all the international feminist organizations in large demonstrations [2].
In France itself, socialists joined this racist movement, including Karl Marx’s grandson, Jean Longuet, a journalist at L’Humanité and future leader of the SFIO (Socialist Party).
It must be admitted that, in troubled times like the interwar period or the one we are living today, people follow their impulses whatever their ideas. They are often in complete contradiction with themselves and do not realize it.Democratic President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) was the designer of the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations. He favored the Klu Klux Klan within his party and established racial segregation.
The slavery and racist past of the American Democrats
In the United States, slavery and racism were mostly defended by the Democrats against the Republicans.
The Democratic Party platforms of 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852 and 1856 asserted that abolitionism diminished the happiness of the people and endangered the stability and permanence of the Union. The 1856 program declared that the member states of the Union may or may not practice domestic slavery and write it into their constitutions. The 1860 program describes the efforts of abolitionist states that refused to arrest runaway slaves as subversive and revolutionary. The 14th Amendment granting full citizenship to freed slaves was passed in 1868 by 94% of Republican Party legislators and 0% of Democratic Party The 15th Amendment, which granted the right to vote to freed slaves, was adopted in 1870 by 100% of the members of the Republican Party and 0% of the members of the Democratic Party In 1902, the Democratic Party passed a law in Virginia removing the right to vote from over 90% of African Americans. President Woodrow Wilson instituted racial segregation of federal employees and mandated a photo on every job application. The 1924 Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City was called the “Klan-Bake” because of the influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the party.
Things did not really change until 1964, when, just after the Kennedys’ efforts, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. This was a painful turnaround, as Democratic lawmakers managed to block the legislation for 75 days.The “1619 Project” is an operation of the New York Times Magazine. It aims to rewrite American history.
The articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND).
Because after every single unconscious-bias training that has ever been done, nothing’s ever improved.’ As is the custom nowadays, Michael issued a public apology before tendering his resignation. This is a shame because his comments were not that far wide of the mark. As I explore in a new report for Civitas, the anti-racism training industry does little to improve outcomes for BAME people and, worse, breathes new life back into racial thinking.
‘Complete and utter crap.’ That’s how Bill Michael, until recently UK chair of global accountancy firm KPMG, described the concept of unconscious bias to his apparently stunned staff. ‘There is no such thing as unconscious bias’, he elaborated. ‘I don’t buy it. Because after every single unconscious-bias training that has ever been done, nothing’s ever improved.’ As is the custom nowadays, Michael issued a public apology before tendering his resignation. This is a shame because his comments were not that far wide of the mark. As I explore in a new report for Civitas, the anti-racism training industry does little to improve outcomes for BAME people and, worse, breathes new life back into racial thinking.
A review commissioned by the Government Equalities Office to analyse the effectiveness of unconscious-bias training found that ‘there is currently no evidence that this training changes behaviour in the long term or improves workplace equality in terms of representation of women, ethnic minorities or other minority groups’. The Harvard Business Review likewise notes that ‘even when the training is beneficial, the effects may not last after the programme ends’. Worse still, mounting evidence points to workplace diversity training actually having unintended negative consequences.
Yet increasing numbers of employers insist their staff undertake anti-racism training. A survey conducted for the Guardiansuggests that over 80 per cent of all UK-based companies run training sessions specifically on unconscious bias. Virtually all Fortune 500 companies offer some form of diversity training. The diversity industry has become a global phenomenon, extending its reach to many millions of citizens, with online courses targeting many more. In many schools, universities and workplaces, attendance at anti-racism workshops is mandatory – or effectively mandatory when non-attendance makes your position untenable.
Racism at work
This massive rollout of diversity training is not only taking place without any evidence of its effectiveness — it is also happening at a time when, by all measures, race has never been less of a barrier to advancement in the workplace. Yet the absence of both legal discrimination and explicit prejudice are no hindrance to the rise of the race experts. Binna Kandola, author of Racism at Work, explains:
‘The racism in organisations today is not characterised by hostile abuse and threatening behaviour. It is not overt nor is it obvious. Today racism is subtle and nuanced, detected mostly by the people on the receiving end, but ignored and possibly not even seen by perpetrators and bystanders. Racism today may be more refined, but it harms people’s careers and lives in hugely significant ways.’
‘Complete and utter crap.’ That’s how Bill Michael, until recently UK chair of global accountancy firm KPMG, described the concept of unconscious bias to his apparently stunned staff. ‘There is no such thing as unconscious bias’, he elaborated. ‘I don’t buy it. Because after every single unconscious-bias training that has ever been done, nothing’s ever improved.’ As is the custom nowadays, Michael issued a public apology before tendering his resignation. This is a shame because his comments were not that far wide of the mark. As I explore in a new report for Civitas, the anti-racism training industry does little to improve outcomes for BAME people and, worse, breathes new life back into racial thinking.
A review commissioned by the Government Equalities Office to analyse the effectiveness of unconscious-bias training found that ‘there is currently no evidence that this training changes behaviour in the long term or improves workplace equality in terms of representation of women, ethnic minorities or other minority groups’. The Harvard Business Review likewise notes that ‘even when the training is beneficial, the effects may not last after the programme ends’. Worse still, mounting evidence points to workplace diversity training actually having unintended negative consequences.
Yet increasing numbers of employers insist their staff undertake anti-racism training. A survey conducted for the Guardiansuggests that over 80 per cent of all UK-based companies run training sessions specifically on unconscious bias. Virtually all Fortune 500 companies offer some form of diversity training. The diversity industry has become a global phenomenon, extending its reach to many millions of citizens, with online courses targeting many more. In many schools, universities and workplaces, attendance at anti-racism workshops is mandatory – or effectively mandatory when non-attendance makes your position untenable.
Racism at work
This massive rollout of diversity training is not only taking place without any evidence of its effectiveness — it is also happening at a time when, by all measures, race has never been less of a barrier to advancement in the workplace. Yet the absence of both legal discrimination and explicit prejudice are no hindrance to the rise of the race experts. Binna Kandola, author of Racism at Work, explains:
‘The racism in organisations today is not characterised by hostile abuse and threatening behaviour. It is not overt nor is it obvious. Today racism is subtle and nuanced, detected mostly by the people on the receiving end, but ignored and possibly not even seen by perpetrators and bystanders. Racism today may be more refined, but it harms people’s careers and lives in hugely significant ways.’ Podcast ‘Lockdown is an assault on our humanity’ spiked
According to experts like Binna, racism today is so subtle people need training to perceive it, yet so devastating it does irreparable damage to people’s careers. It exists in indifference, in the things people do not say, yet it is apparently evident in every aspect of our daily lives.
The insistence that racism exists nowhere but is present everywhere, that it can be found within people who ‘do not engage in expressing negative views about minority groups’ but actually ‘believe in greater integration’, and even within individuals who ‘may consistently support policies that promote diversity’, comes directly from critical race theory. Legal equality may have been achieved. And, as Bill Michael found to his cost, expressing a thought that so much as questions contemporary anti-racist orthodoxies can see you out of a job. But the race experts insist they are needed now more than ever. They alone have the power to uncover a ‘legacy of racist ideas, actions and imagery which lives on publicly in stereotypes – and privately in our unconscious minds’ (2).
Unconscious bias
The existence of unconscious bias is a foundational principle of today’s critical race theory-inspired diversity movement. Apparently – and despite us not even being aware of it – our minds harbour all manner of prejudiced thoughts put there by society and culture; through our upbringing, education and our interactions with other people. Proof of these bad thoughts comes out in implicit-association tests (IAT) that track response times when we match certain images, words or phrases with people of different characteristics. Unsurprisingly, the idea that the content of the unconscious mind can be revealed through a rapid-fire computer test is highly contested. The American Psychological Association acknowledged over a decade ago that people’s IAT scores vary from one test to another and are often context-dependent. Yet still the testing continues.
What’s more, the notion that unconscious bias triggers prejudice and discrimination implies there is a direct link between our implicit attitudes and our actions. Yet research has shown that test scores purporting to measure implicit attitudes do not effectively predict actual discriminatory behaviour. Either the contents of our unconscious mind cannot be accurately measured, or people are able to exercise self-control and do not automatically act out the contents of their unconscious.
If unconscious-bias training is simply ineffective then it could be written off as just a harmless waste of time. But it is also making pseudo-scientific claims to be revealing the inner workings of our brain, in the workplace or an educational setting. In the context of racism being one of the biggest sins a person can commit, unconscious-bias training is therefore far more dangerous than mere time-wasting. Implicit-association testing breaches the rights of individuals to freedom of conscience. It holds people to account not for their speech, their actions or even their thoughts – but for impulses they have no control over. Ultimately, unconscious-bias training is divisive; it pushes us to see each other as members of racial groups and, in a bid to make all interactions conscious, it risks preventing the spontaneity and informality that leads to genuine friendship.
Microaggressions
Often, unconscious-bias training is followed by instruction in how to avoid microaggressions. A link is drawn between the two: it is because of our unconscious biases that we unintentionally mistreat people who are different to us. Microaggressions range from mispronouncing someone’s name or asking where they are from, to not making eye contact or not sitting facing a particular colleague in meetings. Diversity trainers teach that the cumulative impact of these slights can have a devastating psychological toll on the individuals targeted.
Training and awareness-raising around microaggressions sensitise BAME people to offence in slights they may otherwise have brushed off or not even noticed. The message is that even the tiniest miscommunication can cause serious harm. The idea that inculcating such extreme sensitivity may be unhelpful is rarely considered. While BAME people are taught to perceive offence, white people learn that not only their speech but their body language may reveal a deeply hidden racism. The only way to counteract this, they are taught, is hyper-vigilance. This further complicates and problematises spontaneous relationships. The risk is that black people come to be viewed – and to perceive of themselves – as especially vulnerable and sensitive to offence. In the workplace, this may lead colleagues to retreat from forging the informal connections that can lead to opportunities for promotion or make managers less likely to offer the feedback that may lead to better performance.
Allyship
Active-bystander or allyship training is the latest fad of the race experts. Unlike unconscious-bias training, which focuses on the unwitting perpetrators of racism, or microaggression workshops, which often focus on the feelings of the victims, active-bystander training considers the role of witnesses to racism. The starting point is that, in failing to act or speak out, witnesses compound the pain inflicted by the original act. Active-bystander training aims to give people the skills deemed necessary to challenge unacceptable behaviours. Specific skills taught include: overcoming fear and paralysis in challenging situations; using the right words and expressions when challenging behaviours; and tackling ‘micro-inequities’, including eye-rolling, sighing, constant interruptions and unconscious bias.
Again there is a huge disparity between behaviour – eye-rolling, sighing – and assumed emotional response: ‘fear and paralysis.’ Through training, people are taught that this reaction is proportionate but, far from being normal, living and working with this degree of sensitivity is itself paralysing. Allyship training is yet another intervention that racialises workplaces and reinforces the notion that everyday interactions may be acts of aggression when carried out by white people and leave people of colour suffering irreparable harm. Worse still, active-bystander training may infantilise BAME people by institutionalising an expectation that they need others to speak up on their behalf.
Counting the costs
Diversity training is a massive industry. But not only does it make little difference to either social equality or workplace relations — it may actually make things worse. Yet despite this, being an expert anti-racist is a highly lucrative business. Successful entrepreneurs like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X Kendi in the US, and Reni Eddo-Lodge and Afua Hirsch in the UK, earn vast sums of money through books and workshops. One investigation claims that DiAngelo ‘has likely made over $2million from her book’, but that ‘the speaking circuit is where she is cleaning up… [A] 60-90 minute keynote would run to $30,000, a two-hour workshop $35,000, and a half-day event $40,000.’ It goes on to note: ‘Ibram X Kendi, whose book has jockeyed with DiAngelo’s on the bestseller list, charges $150 for tickets to public events and $25,000 for a one-hour presentation… Former Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has charged between $30,000 and $40,000 for public lectures.’
Ta-Nehisi Coates and Carlos Watson talking about ‘Leadership and Legacy’ at Carnegie Hall, NYC, 29 February 2020.
Sitting below these elite hustlers come myriad academics, experts and workplace trainers who make money from race. For employers, the costs of diversity training go far beyond simply paying for a guest lecturer. They also include the wages of staff directed to spend time in workshops rather than focusing on generating revenue. So why are businesses queuing up to spend all this money? No doubt many well-meaning bosses genuinely believe diversity training will bring positive outcomes or assume that in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests they must be seen to be doing something. But the specific nature of critical race theory-inspired training, in bringing together identity politics and therapeutic practice, also holds significant benefits for employers.
Identity politics meets therapy
Critical race theory lends academic legitimacy to the race experts and provides a theoretical basis for the content of their literature and workshops. Their practice, on the other hand, draws from techniques that originate within therapy and counselling. The non-judgemental starting point of diversity training is that ‘we all have unconscious bias’ and the very fact that this bias is unconscious means we are relieved of all responsibility.
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn argues that from the emergence of sensitivity training in the 1940s, through to encounter groups in the 1960s, the ritualised practices that now epitomise the diversity industry ‘cannot be understood apart from the culture of therapy’ (3). She suggests that, in the 1960s, ‘psychotherapeutic techniques became widely accepted as appropriate for an ever broadening range of everyday issues or “life problems”’, based on ideas that had been developed in the decades beforehand. Race relations comprised one such life problem considered resolvable through therapeutic practices mediated by experts who offered enlightenment through training.
The therapeutic practice that forms the basis for most diversity training means familiar patterns are observed irrespective of the specific focus of the workshop. In order to introduce new ways of thinking and behaving towards others, people must first be made self-conscious about their existing relationships. People are taught to see themselves not as individuals, nor as friends and colleagues with interests in common, but as representatives of racial groups. Then, with spontaneity replaced by self-consciousness, attention is drawn to the differences between groups. Sometimes this process involves participants being asked to verbalise stereotypes they have encountered – even if they do not, nor ever have, accepted or reinforced those stereotypes themselves.
Next, participants are informed that there are racialised differences in the emotional responses people demonstrate when confronted with such stereotypes: black anger and white guilt. And then finally, trainers lead participants through a process of acceptance and validation of these emotional responses. Lasch-Quinn argues that black anger and white guilt are validated on the assumption that no individual is responsible for their feelings: it is society that has created stereotypes and fuels prejudice. When it is accepted that stereotypes, not individuals, are responsible for racism, then the trainer can offer instruction in approved interracial etiquette that focuses upon acknowledging and managing emotional responses in an acceptable way.
When considered in this way, expecting diversity training to reduce instances of racism may be to miss the point. The aim, it seems, is not a solution to racism but a reconciliation to its existence and a commitment to seeking it out where it remains hidden, thereby exposing yet more problems to be resolved through further rounds of training. All criticisms of this process are explained as ‘white fragility’ and serve as evidence of the need for yet more training. The sole aim of the diversity industry thus appears to be its own self-perpetuation. Each new iteration provides additional moral weight and, of course, revenue, for the professional anti-racists.
The benefits, not just for employers but for school leaders and university managers, of fuelling this industry are numerous. Diversity training breaks down any sense of solidarity between people and makes the formation of spontaneous bonds far less likely to occur. Individuals learn to be vigilant of their own behaviour, to appraise the actions of others and report indiscretions to managers far more effectively than any clipboard-wielding time and motion monitor. Through unconscious-bias training, employers gain access not just to our labour, or even our intellect, but to our emotions. They are then able to position themselves as therapeutic arbiters not just in our relationships with others but also, more significantly, in our very sense of who we are. The mandatory nature of much diversity training means schools, universities and the workplace are transformed from sites of education or labour into places for the inculcation of a particular ideological approach. Critical race theory – truly the gift that keeps on giving – means that if you take part in training you will discover you are racist; but refusal to participate is also a sign of your racism.
Employers not only have free rein to intervene in workplace relationships but they can also take the moral high ground while doing so. Whether through conviction, calculation or cowardice, the diversity-training juggernaut rolls ever onwards, to the detriment of all but a tiny elite.
Your Baby Might Be A Racist, Says AZ Department of Education
*Before you ask, no, WIBC has not been purchased by the Babylon Bee.
Bad news, parents. It turns out your newborn infant might be a racist.
Yes, the Arizona Department of Education has determined in its infinite wisdom that racism develops in children as young as three-months-old.
Oh, we know what you’re thinking: “How can my baby be a racist? It hasn’t even determined what gender it is yet.”
Well, fret not, parent of racist diaper-filler! There is hope.
The Arizona DOE has created a helpful toolkit to counter your baby’s racist tendencies before he crawls off and joins the Klan.
The toolkit shows a spectrum of children from birth to ages over six, with the title “They’re not too young to talk about race!” It cites a study that shows at birth, “babies look equally at faces of all races. At 3 months, babies look more at faces that match the race of their caregivers.”
SCOOP: The Arizona Department of Education has created an “equity” toolkit claiming that babies show the first signs of racism at three months old and that white children “remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness” by age five.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 2, 2021
The kit also includes recommended readings that suggest that white people are “ignorant, color-blind, and racist,” according to Discovery Institute scholar Christopher Rufo.
The document also cites a book by Beverly Daniel Tatum that says there are “only three ways to be white: ignorant, color-blind, and racist.” Because these options may prevent people from wanting to identify as white, there needs to be an “antiracist white identity.”
And you thought canceling Dr. Seuss was the dumbest thing you’d hear this week.
Mock n’ Rob have more in the clip below. (Go to link)
In this course, Robin DiAngelo, the best-selling author of White Fragility, gives you the vocabulary and practices you need to start confronting racism and unconscious bias at the individual level and throughout your organization. There’s no magic recipe for building an inclusive workplace. It’s a process that needs to involve people of color, and that needs to go on for as long as your company’s in business.
The free into above does not show the ending slide “Try to be less white” but what you can see is galling enough.
The video Tweet by @DrKarlynB shows more of the damning slides.
Coca-Cola, facing mounting backlash from conservatives online, has responded to allegations of anti-white rhetoric after an internal whistleblower leaked screenshots of diversity training materials that encourages staff to “try to be less white.”
A Coca-Cola spokesperson confirmed that the course is “part of a learning plan to help build an inclusive workplace,” but also noted that “the video circulating on social media is from a publicly available LinkedIn Learning series and is not a focus of our company’s curriculum.”
Coca-Cola Logo
The Coca-Cola logo is on training snapshots in the video Tweet.
If Coca-Cola did not authorize and pay for the the training, the slides would not have their logo, Karlyn would be in deep legal trouble, and Twitter would have removed the Tweet.
Who in the hell is reviewing their training materials?
Candance Owens
Best selling author Candance Owens had this to say.
Owens is Founder of the @BLEXIT organization. “Black people don’t have to be Democrats— still.”
Coke Is Racist
The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Salon, and Washington Post have no coverage of this.
All the top sites plus Coca-Cola all want to sweep this under the rug.
It is all over universities now to the extreme. People lose their jobs without any due process if they say anything out of line with the accepted dogma even if you say it outside of work.
Corporations are following along as they have to for PR and marketing purposes.
A serious Trump could have spoken out against this and tried to bring people along to a sensible consensus. Instead, he played to the base and turned of people who might have been won over. Polls shows that most Americans do not like the Politically Correct or cancel culture but they are being run over by the diversity and inclusion masters.
This is like a mixture of McCarthyism and the Cultural Revolution in China. There are some quotes from Orwell that describe perfectly the erasure of history and the felling of statues.
San Francisco is changing the names of school from Washington and Lincoln.
This is getting out of hand and it is destructive.
James D. Agresti, the president and co-founder of Just Facts has just published an article titled “Social Ills That Plague African Americans Coincide with Leftism, Not Racism.”
You present to a physician with severe abdominal pain. He examines you and concludes that your ingrown toenails are the cause of your abdominal distress. He prescribes that you soak your feet in warm water but that does not bring relief to your abdominal pain. Then he suggests that you apply antibiotics to your feet. Still no relief. Then the physician suggests that you wear sandals instead of shoes. Still no relief. The point of this story is that your toenails can be treated until the cows come home, but if there is improper diagnosis, then you are still going to have your abdominal pain.
The former superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, Meria Carstarphen, last year said, “White students are nearly 4.5 grade levels ahead of their black peers within Atlanta Public Schools.” In San Francisco, 70% of white students are proficient in math; for black students, it is 12% — a gap of 58%. In Washington, D.C., 83% of white students scored proficient in reading, as did only 23% of black students — a gap of 60%. In Philadelphia, 47% of black students scored below basic in math and 42% scored below basic in reading. In Baltimore, 59% of black students scored below basic in math and 49% in reading. In Detroit, 73% of black students scored below basic in math and 56% in reading.
“Below basic” is the score a student receives when he is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and grade level skills. How much can racism explain this? To do well in school, someone must make a kid do his homework, get a good night’s rest, have breakfast and mind the teacher. If these basic family functions are not performed, it makes little difference how much money is put into education the result will be disappointing.
In 2019, the racial breakdown of high school seniors who took the ACT college entrance exam and met its readiness benchmarks was 62% of Asians, 47% of whites, 23% of Hispanics and 11% of blacks. That helps explain a 2016 study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce “African Americans: College Majors and Earnings.” It found that black college students were highly concentrated in lower-paying and less academically demanding majors like administrative services and social work. They are much less likely than other students to major in science, technology, engineering and math, even though blacks in these fields earned as much as 50% more than blacks who earned a bachelor’s degree in art or psychology and social work.
James D. Agresti, the president and co-founder of Just Facts has just published an article titled “Social Ills That Plague African Americans Coincide with Leftism, Not Racism.” Agresti writes: “Among all of the afflictions that disproportionately impact people of color, violence may be the worst. In 2018, blacks comprised 13% of the U.S. population but roughly 53% of the 16,000 murder victims.” The clearance rate for murders, where a suspect was identified and charged, declined from 92% in 1960 to 62% in 2018. For example, in Chicago, the clearance rate fell from 96% in 1964 to 45% in 2018. In Baltimore, the 2019 clearance rate was 32%. In 2015, when Baltimore experienced the highest per-capita murder rate in its history, the average homicide suspect had been previously arrested more than nine times. When crimes remain unsolved, it gives criminals free range and black people are their primary victims. By the way, most law enforcement occurs at the local level. The governments at these local levels are typically dominated by Democrats.
According to statistics about fatherless homes, 90% of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes; 71% of pregnant teenagers lack a father figure; 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes; 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes; and 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions have no father. Furthermore, fatherless boys and girls are twice as likely to drop out of high school and twice as likely to end up in jail. Dr. Thomas Sowell has argued, “The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.”
The bottom line is that while every vestige of racial discrimination has not been eliminated, today’s discrimination cannot go very far in explaining the problems faced by a large segment of the black community.
The Best of Walter E. Williams Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
Supporters of this scheme say that inflation raises wages and creates new job opportunities for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. However, these wage gains are illusory, as wages rarely, if ever, increase as much as prices. So, workers’ real standard of living declines even as their nominal income increases.
House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters and Senator Elizabeth Warren have introduced the Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act. This legislation directs the Federal Reserve to eliminate racial disparities in income, employment, wealth, and access to credit.
Eliminating racial disparities in access to credit is code for forcing banks and other financial institutions to approve loans based on the applicants’ race, instead of based on their income and credit history. Overlooking poor credit history or income below what would normally be required to qualify for a loan results in individuals ending up with ruinous debt. These individuals will end up losing their homes, cars, or businesses because banks disregarded sound lending practices in an effort to show they are meeting race-based requirements.
Forcing banks to make loans based on political considerations damages the economy by misallocating resources. This reduces economic growth and inflicts more pain on lower-income Americans.
The Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act has already shown what happens when the government forces banks to give loans to unqualified borrowers. This law played a significant role in the housing boom and subsequent economic meltdown. The Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act will be the Community Reinvestment Act on steroids.
This legislation also requires the Fed to shape monetary policy with an eye toward eliminating racial disparities. This adds a third mandate to the Fed’s current “dual mandate” of promoting a stable dollar and full employment.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has already publicly committed to using racial disparities as an excuse to continue the Fed’s current policy of perpetual money creation. Since inflation occurs whenever the Fed creates new money, Powell and his supporters want a policy of never-ending inflation.
Supporters of this scheme say that inflation raises wages and creates new job opportunities for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. However, these wage gains are illusory, as wages rarely, if ever, increase as much as prices. So, workers’ real standard of living declines even as their nominal income increases. By contrast, those at the top of the income ladder tend to benefit from inflation as they receive the new money — and thus an increase in purchasing power — before the Fed’s actions cause a general rise in the price level. The damage done by inflation is hidden and regressive, which is part of why the inflation tax is the most insidious of all taxes.
When the Fed creates new money, it distorts the market signals sent by interest rates, which are the price of money. This leads to a bubble. Many people who find well-paying jobs in bubble industries will lose those jobs when the bubble inevitably bursts. Many of these workers, and others, will struggle because of debt they incurred because they listened to “experts” who said the boom would never end.
The Federal Reserve’s manipulation of the money supply lowers the dollar’s value, creates a boom-and-bust business cycle, facilitates the rise of the welfare-warfare state, and enriches the elites, while impoverishing people in the middle and lower classes. Progressives who want to advance the wellbeing of people in the middle and lower classes should stop attacking free markets and join libertarians in seeking to restore a sound monetary policy, The first step is to let the people know the full truth about the central bank by passing the Audit the Fed bill. Once the truth about the Fed is exposed, a critical mass of people will join the liberty movement and force Congress to end the Fed’s money monopoly.
The taproot of progressive racism is LBJ’s Executive Order 11246. This altered the meaning of “affirmative action” from guaranteeing the equality of opportunity to bringing about an equality of “results.”
As for Yale and other Ivy League universities, it is an indictment of conservatives who have held executive power often in the past 50 years that they have not chopped federal funding for these bastions of progressive racism.
If the definition of racism is deliberate discrimination based on race, color or national origin, Yale University appears to be a textbook case of “systemic racism.”
And, so, the Department of Justice contends.
Last week, Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband charged, “Yale discriminates based on race… in its undergraduate admissions process and race is the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year.
“Asian Americans and whites have only one-tenth to one-fourth of the likelihood of admission as African American applicants with comparable academic credentials…
“Yale uses race at multiple steps of its admissions process resulting in a multiplied effect of race on an applicant’s likelihood of admission.
“Yale racially balances its classes.”
Yale defends this admissions policy by claiming it considers the “whole person” — leadership, a likelihood students “will contribute to the Yale Community and the world,” and, says Yale President Peter Salovey, “a student body whose diversity is a mark of its excellence.”
Yet, somehow, when all these factors are considered, the higher-scoring Asian and white students invariably come up short, because the racial composition of Yale’s incoming classes remains roughly the same every year.
The Justice Department refused to wave its big stick — a threat to cut off tax dollars that go yearly to Yale. Incidentally, Yale sits on an endowment of some $30 billion — second only to Harvard’s.
A court case alleging that Harvard emulates Yale, or vice versa, and admits Black and brown students whose test scores would instantly disqualify white and Asian students is headed for the Supreme Court.
At the heart of this dispute over diversity are basic questions, the resolution of which will affect the long-term unity of the American nation.
Is discrimination against white students in favor of Black students with far lower test scores morally acceptable if done to advance racial “diversity”?
And, if so, for how long? Forever?
Is it praiseworthy to advance Hispanic applicants over Asian applicants with far higher test scores and academic achievements?
Why? What did these Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese high school seniors do to deserve discrimination in the country to which their parents came where, supposedly, “All men are created equal”?
President Lyndon Johnson first formally introduced this notion of benevolent racial discrimination. Addressing D.C.’s Howard University in 1965, LBJ said in a speech written by Richard Goodwin, “We seek… not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”
But what if equality of opportunity, an equal chance at the starting line, fails to produce equality of results?
What if Black Americans dominate America’s most richly rewarded sports such as the NBA and NFL, while Asians and whites excel in academic pursuits and on admissions exams at Yale and Harvard?
Why is it right to discriminate against working-class white kids from Middle America in favor of urban and middle-class Black kids in admissions to prestige colleges?
If so, what does social justice mean? Who defines it?
In California, the state legislature has put on the ballot a measure to overturn the ban on all racial and ethnic discrimination that was voted into California’s Constitution in Proposition 209 in 1996.
That prohibition reads:
“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”
What Californians said in 1996 was: No discrimination means no discrimination.
Civil rights activist Ward Connerly, who is fighting the repeal of Prop 209, argues that while street mobs may be tearing down statues, West Coast liberals are tearing down the principle of equality.
It is the character of the republic that is at issue here.
If Asian Americans, outnumbered 5 to 1 by Black and Hispanic Americans, can be indefinitely discriminated against, this would appear to be the very definition of “un-American.”
And if white Americans, the shrinking majority of the nation and a minority in our most populous states, can indefinitely be discriminated against in favor of people of color, they will eventually embrace the tribal politics of race and identity that would risk the breakup of the union, as is happening in Europe and around the world.
The taproot of progressive racism is LBJ’s Executive Order 11246. This altered the meaning of “affirmative action” from guaranteeing the equality of opportunity to bringing about an equality of “results.”
President Donald Trump, before or after Nov. 3, should convene with Ward Connerly and ask him to redefine “affirmative action” to mean exactly what its original author, JFK, intended it to mean.
As for Yale and other Ivy League universities, it is an indictment of conservatives who have held executive power often in the past 50 years that they have not chopped federal funding for these bastions of progressive racism.
Also by this author Philip Giraldi Ph.D., Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest.
Commemorative medal designed by Karl Goetz (then ranked on the left). On the obverse, a caricature of a black French soldier with the motto “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”, on the reverse, a German woman bound and raped under a French helmet. This openly racist piece was distributed by a few right-wing organizations and by almost all Western left-wing organizations.
Democratic President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) was the designer of the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations. He favored the Klu Klux Klan within his party and established racial segregation.
The Democratic Party platforms of 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852 and 1856 asserted that abolitionism diminished the happiness of the people and endangered the stability and permanence of the Union.
The “1619 Project” is an operation of the New York Times Magazine. It aims to rewrite American history.
MCViewPoint 