Tag Archive for: Equity

Real Life Effects of Equity

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

The current attempt to turn our society on its head by establishing equity as the standard for advancement instead of excellence has become quite apparent. The failures are right in front of us.

Two shining examples that glare at us daily are visible members of our federal government. The first is our transportation secretary. We all knew he had no qualifications to run this department. His only notable experience is being mayor of a city whose population is less than double the number of transportation department employees (103,353 residents versus 55,000 employees). How could this not be seen as a train wreck (no pun intended) waiting to happen?

This is a person who wants to be taken seriously, yet regularly behaves in a non-serious manner. Just the fact that he was caught being driven to work and then getting off at a certain point and riding his bike (notably with a helmet) the remainder of the way tells you how his mind works.

Then there was the incident of his disappearing for two months. He is not the only cabinet member to disappear for an extended period as Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services Secretary, has been known to disappear for periods of time during health-related issues of national importance. He is another cabinet member who has zero experience in an area of significant importance. He was chosen because of his family heritage as opposed to any ability to perform the tasks at hand.

It is inexcusable that our transportation secretary decided to take two months for paternity leave during a major shipping crisis when hundreds of freighters were sitting off the coast unable to be unloaded. The fact that he did not announce to the nation he was taking this leave shows he was trying to hide it. He is not one of the 55,000 employees in the department where duties can be shifted to someone else. He chose to be a member of the president’s cabinet and just walked away from his position.

The latest episode displays his feebleness. The catastrophe in East Palestine cried out for leadership. There were federal employees on the scene, but no one was running the show. He made the flabbergasting comment that there are a thousand train derailments a year, alluding to the fact this East Palestine disaster is just a common occurrence. The fact that train derailments have been cut in half in the last 20 years counters his childish comment.

The other aspect of the situation displaying his lack of seriousness is his being part of an administration crowing about one of their “biggest” accomplishments — $1.2 trillion approved for infrastructure. It is quite apparent that trains for shipping goods and materials are an essential part of our infrastructure. He should have been out telling us of their plans to cut train derailments in half again in the next ten years. We would know of the plans to improve our infrastructure for trains, boats, planes, and maybe even cars if we had a serious department head.

Few if any plans have been announced for updates to our transportation infrastructure updated because we have an unserious person performing his position in an unserious manner who would have been relieved of his duties if he did not have his position because of equity. In fact, that seems to be the only topic he talks about – equity.

Then there is the other glaring example of the failure of equity. The current White House Press Secretary was, is, and will continue to be a national embarrassment. She has not displayed any ability to perform this important job. Communicating the policies of this Administration on behalf of the President is an essential responsibility. Contrast her with John Kirby, who has taken on additional responsibilities because of her manifest weaknesses, and his performance only magnifies her inability to perform her tasks. Because of ‘equity’ she cannot be fired.

These are just part of the damage this Administration has done because of its equity agenda. Just recently they repeated something done in a very public manner many times before. They announced the position of Vice-Chair of the Federal Reserve will be chosen based on diversity. They are so proud of their path that they must crow about it. They unfortunately are unmindful that the candidate’s credibility is damaged before the individual has a chance to validate any rationale for the selection. If they were only quiet and went through the selection process with the same result, their candidate would not be branded as chosen only to fill a list of characteristics instead of being the most qualified.

They recently lurched into their “equity’ bag to nominate Julie Su to be Labor Secretary. She fled the state of California having supervised $40 billion of fraudulent unemployment payments. Does anyone believe she would not be standing if it were not for ‘equity’?

These shining examples of promoting people because of a woke checklist instead of their experience and skills may be important to some people. The rest of us view the choices as a failure. We want people in charge due to their skills and personal qualities as opposed to superficial characteristics in an attempt to assuage some perceived wrongs of the past.

When are we going to get back to honoring what we built this country on – hard work, brains, and talent?

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This article was published in Flash Report and is reproduced with permission from the author.

Biden Admin Gives Tucson $900k For Equity-Focused Bike And Pedestrian Bridge

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Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Biden administration gave the city of Tucson $900,000 to build a biking and pedestrian bridge. The city’s initiative is one of 45 projects nationwide to receive a portion of $185 million in funds, the only one in Arizona to receive this round of funds.

The bridge would provide a pathway over the I-19 highway to Nebraska Street, as part of the Atravessando Comunidades Project. The funds will cover approximately 56 percent of the total project cost: $1.6 million in total.

The funds come from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds allocated to the Department of Transportation (DOT) Reconnecting Communities Program (RCP). In a press release issued on Tuesday, the DOT revealed that it prioritized projects it perceived as benefiting economically disadvantaged communities, as well as engaging in equity and environmental justice. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) assisted DOT in selecting which projects should get federal funding.

10 other Arizona cities, counties, and one nonprofit were denied the IRS funds.

The city of Winslow petitioned for $377,200 for a transportation study on railway-created barriers to mitigate lack of access and opportunities for impacted communities; the city of Eloy petitioned for $400,000 to plan for the revitalization of the Sunland Gin Corridor; Apache County petitioned for $1.28 million to reconstruct Stanford Drive (County Road 8235); Native Promise, a tribal advocacy nonprofit, petitioned for over $1.75 million to reconnect Navajo relocatees through the Pinta Project; the city of Buckeye petitioned for $420,000 for an overpass at Durango Street, over $1 million for road and bridge construction along Watson Road, and $724,000 to plan for Rooks Road and Baseline Road; the city of Bullhead petitioned for $1.6 million to improve a multimodal parkway; the city of Phoenix petitioned for over $5 million for a “cultural corridor”; the city of Kingman petitioned for over $40.8 million for a Rancho Santa Fe Parkway traffic interchange; and the city of Eloy petitioned for over $24.3 million for Sunland Gin Corridor construction.

The DOT explained that Tucson received the funding because of the project’s focus on equity. The project description stated that the predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods of South Tucson were cut off from the Santa Cruz River and the rest of Tucson by the I-19 highway in the early 1960s. The DOT claimed that these neighborhoods experienced over 60 years of air and noise pollution, surviving a food desert, and struggling from more limited economic opportunities.

This isn’t the first round of funding Tucson has received for a bridge. The Biden administration awarded the city $25 million to rebuild the 22nd Street bridge last August.

Last August, Buttigieg used the city of Tucson as the location for his major reveal of $25 million in funding through Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grants. At the time, Buttigieg also cited equity as a reason for choosing Tucson as the recipient of these exclusive funds.

“It’s also important from an equity perspective because it connects the downtown Tucson and the communities and opportunities there to historically underinvested in communities to the east,” said Buttigieg.

Phoenix also received RAISE grants last year: $25 million for a bridge over the Rio Salado river connecting downtown Phoenix and South Phoenix, spanning along the river from Central Avenue to State Route 143 near the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

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This article was published by AZ Free News and is reproduced with permission.

“Caught Red-Handed”: Blue Cross Blue Shield Backtracks On Racist Grant Program, Opens Up To White People

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Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute

Earlier this week, the leader of a medical watchdog organization called out Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of North Carolina over a racist grant program which only applied to organizations run by non-whites.

“If ever there was a bad idea, the notion that we should start to separate our country along racial lines is amongst the worst,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a former associate dean for curriculum at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

The $300,000 grant program, called “Advancing Healthy Food Equity” (AHFE), disqualified any organization with a white CEO from participating, while the community directly served by the program must also not be white.

“This opportunity is specifically designed to support community-rooted organizations that are led by, serving, and accountable to American Indians, Black, Latino, other People of Color, and members of immigrant communities, to increase their ability to engage in advocacy to address the root causes of inequitable access to healthy food,” said a spokesperson for the grant in a promotional video.

Now, BCBS has backpedaled – and has changed its policy of excluding white-run organizations from applying for a new grant program.

According to Laura Morgan, program manager for Do No Harm (DNH)—an organization that investigates and spotlights discriminatory practices in medical institutions, BCBS “got caught red-handed when they tried to inject ugly racial politics into their grant-making process,” the Epoch Times reports.

“Discrimination should have no place in our society, yet they were prepared to reject grant applications from nonprofits led by white CEOs just because of their skin color,” Morgan continued. “Do No Harm, along with BCBS customers and North Carolina state policymakers, will be watching very closely how the foundation updates the grant’s eligibility criteria”…..

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Continue reading this article at Zero Hedge.

The Folly of Equity

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

“Equity” has replaced “equality” as the latest buzzword in America’s never-ending game of Victimology, which in turn has replaced the board game of Monopoly in popularity.

As Vice President Kamala Harris has said, “Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.”  In other words, equity means equal outcomes, not equality under the law or equality of opportunity.

When I first saw a photo of Harris, I thought she looked Italian, given her swarthy complexion, dark hair and prominent nose. But, looks aside, her Jamaican father and East Indian mother were nothing like my Italian parents and grandparents, at least in terms of accomplishments and social standing.

Her dad was a tenured professor at Stanford, and her mom had a PhD in endocrinology and nutrition. My dad was a non-union tile setter, and my mom, a clerk. My dad’s dad was an immigrant coal miner in southern Illinois before moving to St. Louis to work in low-wage jobs. My mom, who was orphaned as an infant, was raised by her immigrant aunt and uncle in a tiny four-flat on a waiter’s pay. They never owned a car.

My ancestors didn’t play Victimology. I never heard them express racial or class resentment towards upper-income White Anglo-Saxon Protestants who dominated the professions and the top levels of government and industry. Nor did they ever complain about the ugly stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination faced by Italians and other Southern Europeans for the first half of the twentieth century. Fortunately, my grandparents made it to America before the Immigration Act of 1924 closed the immigration gates to people like them—people who were seen as inferior and non-white.

I took the example of my forebears with me to my first formal job, where I started working at the age of fifteen as the only non-black on an otherwise all-black staff of porters, janitors, cooks, and waiters at an exclusive country club, where membership was closed to blacks, Jews and Italians. On my first day, my boss, a black man named Jewell, told me to clean the disgustingly filthy employee restroom in the dark, dingy basement of the clubhouse. For extra money on my off-hours, I would wash and wax the big Pontiacs and Buicks of the black waiters, all of whom had learned their trade, manners, and impeccable dress and grooming as waiters on Pullman trains. They were at the top of the employee pecking order, and Henry, the head waiter, was on top of them.

That experience probably led me to being at the leading edge of equal rights, equal opportunity, and affirmative action over my corporate career, culminating in the diversity movement, which was born in 1990 from the landmark Harvard Business Review article by R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr, “From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity.” My work in this regard included the conducting of racial sensitivity training to address unconscious biases.

Now, self-righteous Americans who haven’t done a damn thing but virtue signal about race or play Victimology have typecast ethnics like me as white, privileged and racist, thus revealing their profound ignorance of the full racial/ethnic history of their country. At the same time, they espouse the Marxist notion of equal outcomes, which proved to be a fantasy under communism and is total folly in a liberal, capitalist democracy, where citizens continually change places on the socioeconomic ladder, as demonstrated by Kamala Harris and her parents.

The levelers have a lot of work to do. This commentary ends with the list below of 107 selected racial/ethnic groups in the US ranked by their median household income, which ranges from $126,705 for East Indians to $45,903 for Burmese. (Income doesn’t include the considerable amount of transfer payments and tax credits that go to lower-income Americans.)  

There are many more unique ethno-cultural groups in the US than those on the list.  How do the levelers propose making the rankings more equitable?  Do they even track all of these groups and know how many are corporate executives, members of boards of directors, members of Congress, students in the Ivy League, doctors, lawyers, or other professionals?  Do diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives include all of these groups or exclude many of them? Which ones are included and excluded?

The levelers won’t answer such questions because they know that the game of Victimology is rigged.

Rank   Ethnicity

1           East Indian
2           Taiwanese
3           Australian
4           Filipino
5           South African
6           Basque
7           Indonesian
8           Latvian
9           Macedonian
10         Pakistani
11          Iranian
12         Lebanese
13         Austrian
14         Russian
15         Lithuanian
16         Chinese
17         Japanese
18         Turkish
19         Swiss
20        Slovene
21         Italian
22         Greek
23         Israeli
24         Romanian
25         Ukrainian
26         Serbian
27         Croatian
28         Bulgarian
29         Slovak
30         Swedish
31          Czech
32          Norwegian
33          Scottish
34          Polish
35          Danish
36          Portuguese
37          Belgian
38          English
39          Welsh
40          Hungarian
41           Finnish
42           Armenian
43           Korean
44           Canadian
45           Irish
46           French Canadian
47           Argentine
48           German
49           Chilean
50           Syrian
51           Hmong
52           Scotch-Irish
53           Guamanian
54           Bolivian
55           Vietnamese
56           Albanian
57           Cambodian
58           Spanish
59           French
60           Panamanian
61            Dutch
62           Ghanaian
63           Nigerian
64           Cajun
65           Bangladeshi
66           Guyanese
67           Samoan
68           Egyptian
69           Palestinian
70           Ecuadorian
71            Colombian
72           Peruvian
73           Thai
74           Laotian
75           Polynesian
76           Barbadian
77           Brazilian
78           Nepalese
79           Costa Rican
80           Belizean
81            Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac
82           Nicaraguan
83           Micronesian
84           Native Hawaiian
85           Trinidadian and Tobagonian
86           Jamaican
87           Uruguayan
88           Jordanian
89           West Indian
90           Salvadoran
91           American
92           Haitian
93           Pennsylvania Dutch
94           Cuban
95           Mexican
96           Cape Verdean
97           Venezuelan
98           Ethiopian
99           Puerto Rican
100         Moroccan
101         Appalachian
102         Guatemalan
103         Iraqi
104         Honduran
105         Dominican
106         Afghan
107         Burmese

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income

Harris’ Call for ‘Equity’ After Hurricane Wasn’t a Gaffe, But Natural Conclusion of Leftist Ideology

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Fresh off an embarrassing gaffe in South Korea, in which Vice President Kamala Harris praised the United States’ strong alliance with North Korea, she is at it again—albeit without gaffes but with a striking comment emblematic of our country’s divide over racial issues.

At a Sept. 30 event organized by actress Priyanka Chopra, during which she interviewed Harris, Chopra posed an incredibly loaded and convoluted question concerning the United States’ climate objectives and the hurricanes that have wreaked havoc on parts of our nation.

“(When) we consider the global implications of emissions … the poorest countries are affected the most. They contributed the least (to the climate crisis) and are affected the most,” Chopra said. “So, how should voters in the U.S. feel about the administration’s long-term goals when it comes to being an international influencer on this topic?”

After some time unpacking the first long part of Chopra’s question, Harris responded: “On the disparities … it is our lowest-income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making … And so, we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity. Understanding not everyone starts out in the same place. And, if we want people to be in an equal place, sometimes we have to take into account those disparities.”

That’s right, the vice president of the United States stated that disaster relief should be distributed based on “equity,” not necessarily need—and that low-income communities and communities of color should receive aid first, evidently regardless of the urgency of their situation. The White House the same day released a “fact sheet” listing the administration’s response to Hurricane Ian, and President Joe Biden on Monday visited Puerto Rico, hit hard by Hurricane Fiona.

But let’s deconstruct Harris’ comment, since the left is in damage-control mode trying to offset criticism and online posts chastising Harris and to brand Republicans as liars and somehow make them out to be the offenders in this situation. Harris said unequivocally that low-income and minority areas are disproportionately affected by “extreme conditions” and that we must allocate resources based on “equity.”

She said: “I know we are all thinking about the families in Florida, in Puerto Rico with Fiona — and what we need to do to help them, in terms of an immediate response and aid, but also what we need to do to restore communities and build communities back up in a way that they can be resilient, not to mention adapt to these extreme weather conditions.”

Clearly, “these extreme weather conditions” in the context of this sentence refers to the hurricanes that recently hit Florida and Puerto Rico, as well as those that will occur in the future. Consequently, when Harris remarked, “We have to address (these extreme conditions) in a way that is about giving resources based on equity,” she was saying that “we have to address (disaster relief),” both in terms of immediate aid and in post-catastrophe aid, “in a way that is about giving resources based on equity.”

So, let’s put a stop to any debate and, instead of defending Harris simply because you support the Biden administration, let’s call out a dishonorable comment when we hear it. This argument for “equity” in the context of disaster-related resources is not a recent development among those on the far left. The argument for equitable distribution of resources is prevalent in several aspects of progressives’ ideology. For example, I’m sure you’ve heard the calls for more “diversity” in the workplace and on company boards, or in leadership in Congress, on the Supreme Court and throughout the judiciary, generally. And let’s not forget “affirmative action” in colleges and universities, too.

The merit-over-race debate has been discussed ad nauseum. Clearly, society benefits more when the most qualified individuals occupy influential positions. To establish a fairer, more egalitarian nation, we do not need to tokenize women and individuals of various colors or sexual orientations. We need to level the playing field when it comes to achieving success, not hand out fast passes. As they say: equality of opportunity, not outcome.

Death knows no color. In times of disaster, everyone—no matter their race—is entitled to aid. The logical conclusion of Harris’ charade is that soldiers will airdrop supplies to minority and low-income communities that are otherwise stable, while wealthy, white community members may be left to drown or starve. I think we’ve seen this play out before.

Unquestionably, prejudice and racism have afflicted our nation for many decades. Yet, in the grand scheme of things, we were able to address it—and each year we improve at this effort. The shift toward solving the problem did not result from giving people handouts or preferential treatment, but rather from providing minorities with access to education and resources so they could be well-rounded, educated individuals capable of becoming leaders and assuming specialized occupations.

We do not need to deprive certain people of help in times of need, or of the opportunity for advancement. We need to play by rules that are fair for everyone, no matter their background.

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This article was published by the Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

Kamala Harris Remains True to Doctrine of Unequal Treatment [Where Are You Mark Kelly?]

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Editors’ Note: This article is a strong reminder that Republicans need to press their Democrat opponents on the issue of the fair and equal application of the laws of the land. As the Biden Administration constructs a racial spoils system, where is Mark Kelly? Does he support it or oppose it? While his silence is deafening, it is clear his voting record speaks quite loudly. You can’t support Biden 94% of the time, and not be a left-wing bigot regarding white people. Senator Kelly, do you support the distribution of emergency hurricane relief based on skin color?  Yes or No, Senator?  Are you with Martin Luther King or Ibram Kendi?

 

How is it that equity, a doctrine that tells government and the private sector to treat Americans differently because of their race, is becoming so pervasive in the Land of the Free?

One reason is the deliberate obfuscation of its meaning. Fortunately, every once in a while Kamala Harris comes along to remind us of what it truly is.

Displaying her inerrant tin ear and bad timing, the Veep chose this time the devastation that Hurricane Ian has caused to say that aid would be distributed according to race. Florida officials had to rush forward to deny that this was the case, lest already horrific conditions are made worse by confusion.

Harris left little room for misunderstanding, saying on Friday, “It is our lowest-income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making. And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out at the same place.”

She added, “And if we want people to be in an equal place, sometimes we have to take into account those disparities and do that work.”

“This is false,” tweeted immediately the rapid response director for Gov. Ron DeSantis’s reelection campaign, Christina Pushaw, referring to the idea that race would play a role on how aid was handed out. “[Harris’] rhetoric is causing undue panic and must be clarified. FEMA Individual Assistance is already available to all Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian, regardless of race or background.”

Florida’s senior senator, Rick Scott, also took to social media to clear the air. “This is wrong and dangerous. Aid is distributed based on need, period. FL is strong and ready to undertake the long journey of rebuilding. We are in this together, and won’t let politicians like @KamalaHarris use race to divide us as we work to recover our lives and communities. Even Elon Musk felt the need to call out the injustice included,” tweeted Scott.

As indeed, the founder of Tesla had indeed had his own comment: aid, he said, “should be according to greatest need, not race or anything else.”

The Biden administration has, however, made race-conscious benefits the hallmark of its term, even though it is unconstitutional. Last week was not by no means the first time that Harris drew a sharp distinction between equity and the American ideal of equality. “There is a big difference between equality and equity,” she wrote fewer than two years ago.

It is indeed a core belief of Critical Race Theory that, because racial disparities exist, aid and benefits should be race-based and not limited to means-tested criteria. The foundational writings of CRT are filled with the promotion of racial-conscious policies that fall under the umbrella label of “equity.”

“This belief in color-blindness and equal protection,” writes Kimberle Crenshaw in a 1988 essay, “… makes no sense at all in a society in which identifiable groups have been treated differently historically and which the effects of this difference in treatment continued to the present.”

Neil Gotanda goes right to the heart of the CRT argument when he writes in 1991, “Color-blindness strikes down Jim Crow segregation but offers no vision for attacking less overt forms of racial subordination. The color-blind idea of the future society has been exhausted.”

One problem for CRT enthusiasts such as Harris is that American society has decidedly moved away from having government or private enterprises dole out benefits or rights based on race. Race-conscious policies are dismally unpopular, with racial preferences in university admissions polling at best 26% versus 74% against and other similar policies largely rejected.

The other problem is that policies based on race are clearly immoral and violate the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act.

And yet, businesses, schools, and professional associations are falling all over themselves to compel their employees and members to conform to these ugly and unpopular views, by for example forcing them to sign Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statements, or face disciplinary measures, or worse.

Americans are fighting back. Last week, Jonathan Haidt, a liberal who is a professor at New York University, announced he would resign from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the only professional organization he belongs to, because it has instituted a requirement that everyone presenting research explain how their work advances “equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals.”

Haidt wrote that he found he found the demand problematic in an academic institution supposedly devoted to seeking truth. He quoted a well-known passage from a book by Ibram Kendi, who earns a great deal of money from training Americans on equity activities: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Haidt wrote, “I explained why I thought the claim was incorrect from a social science perspective because there are obviously many other remedies. And I explained why I thought the claim was incorrect morally because it requires us to treat people as members of groups, not as individuals, and then to treat people well or badly based on their group membership. That’s exactly the opposite of what most of us who grew up in the late 20th-century thought was a settled moral fact.”

It takes courage for Americans to buck the tide of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), but they shouldn’t be alone. Until the federal government is in different hands, the 50 states should be passing bills that make it clear that discrimination is illegal, as is compelling a belief in such discrimination and prosecuting violators.

Until then, we can rely on Harris to remind us occasionally what exactly equity entails, and why it must be opposed.

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This article was published by the Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.