Sacrifice: a short-short story

Victor Davis Hanson on Harvard's President, Claudine Gay

I Am Resigned: an essay

Media Censorship on Race Hurts Us All

Although I read widely, I had no idea that "mobs of young blacks rampaged through Philadelphia committing violence – as similar mobs have rampaged through Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee and other places" (including the London lootings and Paris firebombings.) The media has, in recent years, been withholding perpetrators' race, even when an attack is racial. (unless the perpetrator is white.)

How did I learn of the Black rampages? These days, only a Black is allowed to write about, let alone criticize such behavior without censorship or ruining his career. THIS is most recent syndicated column by eminent Stanford/Hoover Senior Fellow, Thomas Sowell. (It's worth reading all three parts, which are linked to from that page.)

I do think the gap between rich and poor has grown too large. However, the media's relentlessly deifying the assaults and lootings as "protests," and the media's and schools' refusal to stress that poverty is caused not just by "the system," but by individuals' behavior, disempowers the poor and endangers us all.

Another Painful Story of Reverse Discrimination

I try to suppress thinking about the amount of racism against whites and Asians in this country because it so saddens me both for the victims and for society. But every so often, it hits me in the face. I just received this email from a mom who is very sad for her son.

Whatever vestiges of racism toward Blacks remain, whatever the value of compensating today's Blacks for past injustices, are much outweighed by the now half century of unfairness to white and Asian victims of reverse discrimination, and more important, to the larger society, which must suffer the effects of too many of our best and brightest being denied spots in top colleges and in employment merely because they lack sufficient melanin.

The photo above was taken at MIT's 2010 commencement ceremony.

Here is that mom's letter:

Dear Dr. Nemko,

I am really upset at the bias aginst white males. I have a son who is a senior in high school. He is very gifted in math and science, his SAT score was 2150 (perfect score on the math section and 2 subject tests), he has 4.0 gpa, currently enrolled in AP chemistry, econ and calculus; he's written 2 Apple apps, one of which has been very successful (http://justbuchanan.com/); he's an Eagle Scout; he's on the school robotics team, and he works 15+ hours a week building and programming the robots; he's on math bowl, won "star student" at his school, etc. Sorry to brag but here's why I'm telling you this: He applied at MIT and was not accepted. I understand, there are a lot of very smart students applying, and we know several smart boys that applied as well, none of them were accepted.

But there is a black girl who is, officially, on the robotics team but only shows up at the competitions, and has never laid a hand on a robot. She was accepted at MIT with a full ride! I don't know her SAT scores but I do know that she's not taking the same caliber of classes that my son is, and I seriously doubt that her statistics in general are even close to his. I realize that I don't know all her details so I may be totally off here but I doubt it. The injustice of it truly infuriates me!! My son is going to Georgia Tech. I am chafing at the unfairness of it all. Thanks for reading my blathering!

Terri Buchanan

A Poignant Letter from An Alleged Victim of Discrimination

Because I've written in opposition to reverse discrimination, I get a number of letters from white men who feel they've been victims of it, asking me for advice.

I'm choosing to print this one because of its poignant last line.

(Note: Yesterday, when I sent the author the link to this blog post, he asked me to make some changes. So if you read this letter yesterday and see changes today, that's why.)

Dear Dr. Nemko,

I have been discriminated against many times.

For example, after five interviews, I beat out 1,200 applicants for a department head position in the San Diego County School District. I quit my previous job, giving up my pension and health benefits. Then, before reporting to work, I was called and told I couldn't be hired. I later found out that the person who ended up with the job is a Black woman. I discovered later that in the district's applicant scoring system, even with the affirmative action bonus points applied, not one African American had made it to the top 300!

Another example. At age 14, I became an apprentice to an optical fabricator. I developed a process to production-fabricate a military optic. The government "encouraged" my boss to do an AA hire so instead of me, he hired one whose salary was paid by the government. The boss had to go through three of them because none of them could understand how I created what I did.

This hurts the most: I was hired as an enumerator by the 2000 Census and got the top rank evaluation but when I applied to be an enumerator for the 2010 census, the interviewer, a Latina, asked, "Your last name is Crockett. Did your family fight against the Mexicans at the Alamo?" I was not hired.

Have you any ideas how I might make a discrimination claim? So far every referral has ended with a minority voice mail and the person either does not return my call, asks for a fortune up front, or even told me--and I know this can't be true--that white males can't be discriminated against because they're in power.

Forgive the poor writing. I was crying while writing this.

Thanks,
Rick Crockett

The Latest Example of Reverse Discrimination

I continue to shake my head. What are we doing?!

Today, a client who is a communications director for a prominent nonprofit told me this story. (This is a pretty close paraphrase:)

"We have three communications directors. One slot is reserved for minorities. So we hire this Latino guy. It turns out he has a Latino-sounding name but really, he's Russian. He turns out to be a total failure but we end up having to keep him because we had had to get rid of another minority manager six months ago and our organization's Diversity Committee would give us hell if we fired him. So we hired someone to train him, which cost us (and ultimately the sick people we're trying to serve) a fortune. After a year, we gave up. It was hopeless and we fired him and his trainer. Now we're looking for another person of color."

I am aware that this story would be so much more credible if I could list names and the organization but there's no way I'd even ask my client for permission. He'd lose his job faster than you can say General McChrystal. Of course, the only reason I get to hear these stories is that the client-counselor relationship guarantees confidentiality.

Please, dear reader, where possible, think in terms of the largest perspective: Ask yourself whether reverse discrimination is a net positive or a net negative:

• in terms of the quality of the goods and services we receive
• with regard to the injustice of more competent people not getting hired or promoted because they are of the wrong ethnic group
• in light of the prejudice that fully qualified minorities face because we know that many positions are filled as the result of reverse discrimination. Be honest with yourself: When you, for example, see a Black physician or that a Latino student was admitted to UCLA, do you not think they well might have not been selected if it weren't for their ethnicity and perhaps pushed through, and/or had low grades, and thus are likely to be less competent?
  
• And perhaps most lofty, ask yourself whether, in terms of the great universal principles of justice, in 2010, after 50 years of affirmative action, 145 years since slavery ended, in light of some minorities (Asians) doing well despite no reverse discrimination, is yet more years of reverse discrimination cosmically right?

The White Male Working Class Doesn't Have It Easy Either

I received this e-mail letter yesterday. I reproduce it here without comment.

Dear Dr. Nemko,

I appreciate your articles and maybe you'll find my story worth telling.

After working on a job for two years with no problems, a month after my wife's death, the regional manager (a black man) said I was going to be "let go" for breaking some small rules.

I didn't understand why he wanted to get rid of me and why he wouldn't lay me off instead of fire me. I found out why when I went to get unemployment--they denied me because they said I was fired--that way the employer doesn't have to pay.

I didn't have the energy or the money to fight it because I was still trying to catch up on bills from the hospital and funeral. Since then I have been eking by with a very part-time job ($50/month), food stamps, and the help of some very good friends.

Since all this has happened, I have had three lawsuits for unpaid credit cards (most were my wife's), my vehicle was repo'ed (and they are still trying to get me to pay it off!) and have been trying to find a job so I can get back on my feet. In the area I live in, Mexicans are working in plants and sending money by the thousands of dollars back "home". They are willing to work for less than minimum wage and are often paid under the table.

I have paid taxes, voted in elections, been a proper American, yet these situations are causing me to be unemployable. I soon will have to move out of my home of 15 years into a housing project apartment because I can't afford to live here anymore. I deeply believe that reverse discrimination is rampant but I can't do anything about it.

There are times I feel like I have become emasculated by the government. And the people that know me treat me as someone who is deserving of pity. I don't want pity, I want my life back!
(The author of this letter asked that I not use his name but state it as "DLJ from Georgia.")

Another Letter from a Victim of Prejudice Against White Males

Here is the latest of the many letters I've received from white males who feel the pendulum has swung so far that it's slamming them in the chest:

Hello Mr. Nemko,

I have spent most of my life priding myself on my open-mindedness while living in a state where that commodity can be in short supply.

Unfortunately, over the last 10 years, my open attitude is being returned less and less often.

At first, I thought I was at fault, but with time and awareness, I have come to realize that the white middle-aged male is now the low person on the totem pole and everyone, including many white men, seem determined to keep it that way.

I have experienced racism and sexism. I have been ignored, berated, and ridiculed. I have been passed over for jobs and promotions that have been given to people with less experience and fewer abilities. Unfortunately, when I bring up these realities, people seem to look at me as if I were speaking a different language.

For a while, I was angry. At this point, I simply feel resigned. I’ve been around long enough to understand that a pendulum always swings and now, white males are the victims of that swing. I sure do feel sorry though for the young white men out there.

Sincerely,

David Dickson

whynotnow@mail.com

At Berkeley, Need White Males Apply?

This appears on the home page of the career center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Apparently males, let alone white males, need not apply.

The Latest Painful Letter from a Victim of Reverse Discrimination

Because I've written widely on the topic of discrimination against men, I receive many letters from victims of it. Here's one I just received and found particularly painful to read.

Thank you, Dr. Nemko for being brave enough to write about reverse discrimination against white males. I'm writing here to provide yet one more case for what must be a very thick file.

My experience with reverse discrimination against white males started way back in the early 80s. In my interview for a job at the National Forest Service, the interviewer literally said to me that I wouldn't get hired because I was a white male. Indeed, two women without degrees (I had a forestry degree) got hired and I didn't.

More recently, I've suffered terrible discrimination in the pharmaceutical industry. I developed terrible back pain and so I requested to work part-time. Even though countless women at the company are granted permission to work part-time/job share, merely because they want to spend more time with their kids or simply don't want to work full-time, my more seriously based request was denied. H.R. told me, off the record, that part time/job shares were only for women. And don't think I was a bad employee--I have a 4"-thick collection of my accomplishments.

I tried litigation against my first company but no attorney would touch reverse discrimination. They told me they were afraid of being labeled sexist.

Finally, I got myself hired by a competing company, where I became the very first male job share. A colleague told me that my boss (a woman) hated me for being the first male job share. She did in fact try to make me go full time and insisted I get an MRI and EMG to prove I needed to stay part-time. I did so, which revealed two types of spinal stenosis, nerve damage on my whole right side, my spinal cord being pushed into my spinal canal in at least two places and herniated discs. I have extreme pain in my spine (cervical and lumbar) and both legs and arms.  As I said, women get to work part-time merely by saying they wanted time with their kids.

I have more experiences to share. It is so sad that political correctness is now so dominant in America. No longer are we solely judged on our efforts and result but on whether you're a woman or a minority. I'm sure that this issue is one of the unspoken reasons for America's decline and China and India's rise. I'm certainly glad I don't have a son. It would be terrible bringing him up in today's world.

Rich Scheben
mtmountains@gmail.com 

Will Obama Help This Defeated White Male

Because I have written about the rampant reverse discrimination in America, I receive many emails of frustration and depression from white males who feel they have been discriminated against.

But few have touched me as much as this man's because he's not the usual white collar guy who tends to write to me. He's one of "the people," the plain folk who Obama claims to care most about. Do you think Obama's "change" will help this man?

Here is this man's letter, unedited.

I am a white male that for many years has been stepped on. But it is not just our jobs that are being taken from us. For white males it iseverything . I am only 29 and I am blamed for every fear that another person has. Look at the law: How many laws protect a white males rights? Not as many as there is for a women or a different colored man.

The only thing a white male is allowed to do is to die . But only if someone else allows it . We are not allowed to say, do, think or even dream of freedom . That's not because of what we have done but for what they say they're afraid we might do .

People of different colors say that they want the same rights that we have . But they already get better than what we have. How is that fair ? Why is it that when a boat is sinking it is women and children first and let the men there to die if there is no room?

Women and different colored people ask us not to say that thay are different but claim that thay are different and are not treated the same . Well I hope that one day all people are treated the same even if all us white males are not here .

A young male is taught not to hit someone weaker or thay will be punished but if someone hits us we are to take it like a man . What ever comes out of our mouths is wrong .

So I say SORRY. Sorry I was born white. Sorry I was born male . Sorry you hate me . Sorry you don't have what you want . Sorry that for the last 29 years. I have
nothing else to give you and them but my life . U can have it . If it will let them be happy. All I have ever done is try to help people .

I'm sorry my skin is not darker . Maybe one day you will forgive me for being different .

Do you think Obama's policies will help this man? Remember that Obama's key labor advisor Robert Reich wants half of the 3-4 million jobs Obama intends to create to be specifically directed away from white males.

This I Believe

I just read a book, This I Believe II, which consists of 75 people's essays on their core belief. That motivated me to write my own.

The book suggests that a good "This I Believe" essay must be truly honest, short, and based on a specific anecdote. Okay.

I would have thought I'd have no trouble landing a professorship. After all, I had a Ph.D from the University of California Berkeley, specializing in education program evaluation (a hot field then and now), my dissertation was nominated for UCB's dissertation of the year, and I've always been told that I'm a fine teacher and writer.

Yet I applied for a number of professorships, and after a while wasn't too picky about it--I even applied to places like the tiny Brescia College in Owensboro, Kentucky. Yet I was offered not one job that was more than a low-pay, part-time, temp, fill-in.

Finally, I was interviewed at San Francisco State for a tenure-track position. It was the interview from heaven: The professors nodded and smiled in agreement throughout the interview. When the chairman asked the other interviewers to leave and for me to stay, I was sure I'd finally be offered a job.

But he said, and I remember it word for word: "Marty, if you tell anyone I said this, I'll deny it but I want to save you the cognitive dissonance. Marty, you are by far the most qualified candidate for this job, and you don't stand a ghost of a chance of getting it. The dean has informed us that the next seven tenure-track positions to be filled will (emphasis his) be women and minorities."

Over my 2,900 career coaching and higher education clients over the past 23 years, I have seen countless examples of such reverse discrimination. Indeed, reverse discrimination is not the exception; it's the norm.

And my perhaps most deeply held belief is that the benefits that derive from reverse discrimination are far outweighed by its liabilities. Society is ultimately doomed when it prioritizes something other than merit in choosing its bridge builders, medical school students, brand-name-college undergraduates, government, non-profit, and corporate leaders, etc.

The latter reminds me of a client--an eminent, brilliant minority woman, I might add--who serves on the board of three major corporations. She told me that to meet government "goals" and to avoid the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton machine boycotting the companies or getting the media to call the companies racist, the companies have to hire and promote many blacks who, on the merits, never would have been hired. She continued to say that they may have brand-name degrees, (also the result of reverse discrimination) but they're not good employees. "The companies just write them off as a loss and farm them out to the jobs where they can do the least harm."

I worry terribly that reverse discrimination and its devastating effects, rampant already, will only accelerate under an Obama administration. His spinmeisters paint him as a "post-racial candidate" but a careful reading of his 2008 speech on race, and more important, his long-term associates--not just Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Frank Marshall Davis, but most significant, his wife who, for example, headed Public Allies--makes clear to me that Obama will use his prodigious abilities to push merit yet further toward the back of the bus. To devastating effect.

This I believe.

African-American Racism, an Underdiscussed Issue

The career counseling client who just left my office is a social worker who works for a government agency in a major city. She is half white and half Latina.

Tearfully, she claimed that she has, for years, been the persistent victim of racism by her Black clients, co-workers, and boss. She said that her black clients frequently call her racist when she, for example, informs them that she needs to make a home visit or denies their claim for benefits. She told of her Black boss letting the Black workers routinely take two-hour lunches and giving them fewer and easier cases to work on. She has complained to her boss and to human resources to no avail.

That reminds me of a number of white, Asian, or Latino clients who, over the years, claimed persistent, blatant racism from African-Americans, and felt miserable and/or felt forced to quit their jobs as a result. In contrast, while a small percentage of my African-American clients have mentioned that they perceive subtle racism in their workplace, not one has ever claimed such severe racism. Of course, it is possible they didn't mention it to me because they're uncomfortable making such an accusation to me, a white person.

The above provides merely skimpy anecdotal evidence that Black racism toward others is more prevalent and severe than others' racism toward Blacks. To obtain more solid evidence, I submitted to 10 publishers a book proposal on the topic of race in the workplace, in which I proposed to place ads in major newspapers and websites inviting readers of all races to email me their stories about race in the workplace. My book would tell their stories and conclude with summary findings and recommendations. In response, I received just one call of interest: from a Harper Collins acquisitions editor, an African-American woman. Her first question: "What's going to be the conclusion of your book?" I said, "I don't know. It depends on what I learn from doing the research for the book." She said, "You know that's a deal killer." I said, "I can't help it. I'm not going to promise the book's conclusion before I do the research." She said, "Oh well." And that was that.

I believe it would be of great value to society if someone attempted to write an even-handed, fully honest book on race in the workplace, based on fair-minded, quality research.

In any event, perhaps you'd like to post a comment here describing the extent to which you believe racism of whatever type(s) exist in your workplace.

A possibly relevant data point: A 2004 Pew Charitable Trust study found that only 65% of registered Black voters registered Democrat, yet according to the latest CNN/Time poll, among Black voters, Obama leads McCain 95% to 4%. While some of the non-Democrats might favor Obama for non-racial reasons, those statistics suggest that significant numbers of Blacks let their desire to vote for a Black trump their political beliefs.

White People Love to Be Offended

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offended/

A Letter from an Angry White Male

I just received this email. I'm X'ing out details to preserve his anonymity. I have requested his permission to use his name. If he grants it, I'll reinsert these details as well as his name.

"I went to the ??? Police Dept. to apply for a position. When I asked for an application, I was told by the human resources clerk that the police dept. was not accepting applications from white males and that I should come back in 2 years.

I explained to the clerk that I was a small percentage Native American. The clerk said, "If you can provide any proof of that bloodline then you're in." I thought to myself this is not fair and did not apply on that basis.

The awareness I was being discriminated against worsened when I watched a black acquaintance of mine get an job at the ??? Police Dept. with no education and who could care less if he got the job. Later in life I saw him again and he didn't even like being a cop. Yet I had a passion for law enforcement, a degree in police science, and had a slim to none chance at the job.

I eventually left the state and moved to ???? where I applied to be a police office in ???. To my surprise I was hired fairly quickly. It seemed that ??? didn't care about skin color.

I was wrong. I watched people get promoted because they threatened to pull the race card. I grew sick of hearing, "You just stopped me cuz im black" as he or she sits in a vehicle with blacked out windows not even being able to see what color or gender they are.

I found myself cutting minorities more breaks on crimes or traffic stops just so I wouldn't have to hear the race card played or have to let them slide to prove I wasn't a racist.

It is sad but true that you get calls from a fellow officer who just got into a shooting and he says, "Yeah, I'm OK. Thank God the suspect was a white male--the media wont care." Or I hear officers say things like, "If I ever am forced to shoot my gun, I hope its not a minority."

Once, I, with multiple other officers, had to shoot a young Hispanic male. The media loved it! It became a frenzy for months. According to the media, we shot not because he tried to stab an officer with a butcher knife but because he was a Hispanic teenager. The sad thing is people believe everything the media says. I personally was very hurt because I never wanted to pull my trigger but had no choice. Again, I always treated everyone with respect and never judged anyone because of color or gender. Yet the media called me a racist! Eventually I became so stressed out that my blood pressure got so high that my doctor became fearful that I could have a stroke.

I have soooh many true stories relating to my and other white males being discriminated against that I am going to write a book.

I will not, though, be racist myself. And I will teach my daughter to treat everyone with respect regardless! I will not complain or tell her about my experience. That would create another generation of haters.

I hope that, somehow, my daughter will grow up to live in a country/world where it doesn't matter what color you are and there is racial harmony. But I also want her not to feel guilty about being white and to stand up for herself if and when she is discriminated against.

Do We Need Less Pluribus and More Unum?

Recently, I attended my assistant’s master’s-degree commencement ceremony at San Francisco State University.

We entered the auditorium to Jamaican percussion. Then, the African-American emcee introduced the retiring chair, a man who said that his vision for the counseling department is to create a program in counseling the incarcerated, disproportionately minority. He introduced the keynote speaker, an African-American woman who spoke of the need to continue fighting for the underrepresented while an audience member waved a large Latino-Power flag. Next, a Latina professor praised an African-American student who had died. Then that professor handed out four student awards: three to Latinos and one to a white male who had been transgendered and did his thesis on transgender counseling. Finally, the graduates walked across the stage. Some added African-American or Latino shawls to their cap and gown. One pasted a Mexican flag on top of her mortarboard.

I wondered how the straight white male graduates must have felt. I’d imagine that many of them felt okay about it. After all, their education likely has included much rhetoric explaining why one should celebrate all forms of diversity except that of the straight white male. But I wondered how many, in their heart of hearts, felt sadness or anger at being marginalized.

I wondered how the of-color graduates felt about the ceremony?

I wondered how the audience of friends and family felt?

I wondered whether the ceremony and awards would, net, increase feelings of cross-group amity or enmity?

In light of all the wars and other enmity, worldwide, throughout the ages, that have been caused by various forms of tribalism, I left the auditorium wondering whether society wouldn’t be better off if we focused less on pluribus and more on unum.