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November 09, 2007
Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…Painful PC Brainwashing
By Joe
Guzzardi
As “certificated”
(no-one knows why this weird term is used) California
teacher, I was recently subjected to an obligatory and
painful-to-sit-through class titled
"Teaching the Diverse Learner”.
The California Department of Education imposes these courses
on us as a
condition of keeping our credentials current. It’s one of
those
"grin and bear it" situations. The best thing to do
is suck it up and tough it out.
But toughing it out is no small feat. The class met Friday
night from 6:00-10:00 P.M., all day Saturday and all day
Sunday—for three consecutive weeks.
Here’s what’s involved: forking over the $600 enrollment fee,
driving through the Friday night I-5 bumper-to-bumper
traffic from Lodi to
Sacramento (not as bad as
Los Angeles but close enough), sitting through
endless hours of lectures, role-playing, brainstorming and
enduring the
ceaseless barrage of propaganda about "embracing
diversity."
Don’t remind yourself that that the course could easily be
taken
via computer, which would leave you in the comfort of your
den, save the
environment by keeping your car off the highway, and free up
impossible-to-find
parking spaces for legitimate students California State
University at Sacramento, where my class convened.
My first matter of business in "Teaching the Diverse
Learner" was to size up my classmates. (Hispanic,
born in US, maybe 35%; 35%
white liberals, 20%
black; 10%
Asian.)
Who among them was
blindly pro-diversity? And which among them might be
skeptical?
Until I had made that determination, the last thing I wanted
to say was: "Why are we
wasting our time?" That could identify me as
“anti-diversity”—not a good label to be wearing in that
potentially career-threatening environment.
My only indication that I had a single ally was a tentative
comment made to me during a break. A fellow
doubting Thomas (white) said: "I’m not so sure about all
this."
From previous diversity seminars and workshops, I had
determined that
keeping quiet—easy
for me anyway—is the only way to go.
In such sessions, my behavior is governed by one thing and
one thing only—do not do or say anything that might extend the
class, and therefore intensify my anguish.
My goal is to work toward the earliest possible dismissal
time.
But I was conflicted about my choice to remain silent. I had
a captive audience to present my case for
questioning “diversity” and
substituting merit.
Let me insert here my opinion of
diversity: some is good, even welcome. But when it becomes
the overriding factor in hiring and management, it’s
bad.
And having diversity
shoved down your throat without an opportunity to present
reasonable counter-arguments is
intolerable in a supposedly free society.
The debate raged inside me: should I
speak out and set off a torrent of comment that would keep
the class blundering on? Or hold my tongue—and get out ASAP?
Difficult decision. But I hung on to my conviction that the
less said the better…until our group-talk shifted to
diversity in the corporate world.
One angry (black) woman announced that getting more "people
of color" in
high-level corporate jobs is essential if minorities are
ever to get ahead.
All around the room, heads nodded in agreement.
Unable to endure more, I
steeled myself and stood up to address the group.
In an effort to establish credibility, I gave a brief summary
of my business background. I went on to say that over the last
two decades enormous strides have been made toward diversifying
the workplace.
Every major corporation has, I pointed out,
a well-staffed diversity department. Personnel placement
agencies specializing in securing jobs for the diverse abound.
Diversity is a
$8 billion dollar industry.
Finally, by way of summary, I said: "Look at Merrill
Lynch’s
Stanley O’Neal and
Time Warner’s Dick Parsons—both Chief Executives."
Angry (black) woman: "I’m not talking about
a couple of
token jobs!"
Me: "You don’t understand. Merrill Lynch
controls client assets in excess of $1.5 trillion dollars. And
Time Warner is the world’s leading communication company. O’Neal
and Parsons are two of the world’s most influential people."
Angry (black) woman: "You know what I mean!"
On that note, I sat back down. And began staring at my watch.
But as a former (as in a long time ago)
Wall Street investment banker, I still follow financial news
with morbid curiosity.
And I note that, lately, "diverse" chief executive
officers have found the sledding rough.
Recently gone, via the “forced resignation route”:
Hewlett-Packard’s Carleton Fiorina and Merrill Lynch’s
Stanley O’Neal.
And packing his bags is
Time Warner’s Richard D. Parsons.
The case of O’Neal’s case is particularly telling. Shortly
after he took over in 2002, O’Neal
fired 15,000 employees, more than 20 percent of Merrill’s
entire workforce. During his six-year tenure,
10,000 more employees got their marching papers. Many of
these were certainly "people of color."
Three interesting footnotes about O’Neal’s miscalculation
regarding Merrill’s role in the sub-prime mortgage market that
hastened his departure.
- Merrill’s $7.9 billion write off in
the third quarter along with additional losses projected as
high as $4 billion looming in the fourth quarter are the
worst posted in
Merrill Lynch’s 93-year history.
- Denials from "well-informed sources"
aside, Merrill’s enormous losses are likely to result in
more firings—including jobs held by the diverse— for
employees who played no role in O’Neal’s ill-advised
decision to proceed full speed ahead in a high-risk venture.
- One might think that a black man from
rural Alabama O’ Neal, America’s most prominent
African-American executive, would be aware of the human
impact of
predatory lending practices to the economically
disadvantaged. But apparently not.
Notwithstanding O’Neal’s “resignation”, he will
receive more than
$161 million in compensation.
Other prominent African-American executives may be able to
erase the bitter taste that O’Neal left.
Among active black chief executives at major corporations:
Ronald A. Williams, Aetna;
Alywin B. Lewis, Sears;
Kenneth Chenault, American Express;
John Thompson, Symantec.
Others include
Ursula Burns, president, Xerox;
Lloyd G. Trotter, president GE Industrial Systems and
Don Thompson, president, McDonalds USA. [Is
There Room at the Top for Black Executives? By Ron
Stodghill, New York Times, November 1, 2007]
And, because the
diversity machine is so well-oiled in
corporate America, the O’Neal-Parsons experiences will no
doubt be a mere bump in the road for black executives.
Corporations are increasingly likely to err on the side of
diversity i.e. anti-white discrimination after
costly payments in bias lawsuits. In 1997,
Texaco settled a
class-action suit for $176 million. In 2000,
Coca-Cola paid
$192.5 million to about
2,000 plaintiffs.
Of course, from an employees’ perspective, whether the chief
executive is black or white may not make a difference. They have
to keep their
noses to the grindstone and hope senior management
doesn’t screw up too badly.
Good luck on that one!
As the record now shows, black executives are at least as
capable as whites of making wrong decisions.
Joe Guzzardi [e-mail
him] is the Editor of VDARE.COM Letters to the Editor.
In addition, he is an English teacher at the Lodi Adult School and has
been writing
a weekly newspaper column since 1988. This column is exclusive
to
VDARE.COM. |
