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TX Gov Abbott says diversity programs are racist - against whites [1]

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Date: 2023-02-11  

“As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Texas has declared that there will be no racial bias allowed in hiring by state agencies. On the surface, this sounds reasonable. But this being Texas, duplicity lurks. The Texas Tribune reported the facts of the case.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office is warning state agency and public university leaders this week that the use of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — policies that support groups who have been historically underrepresented or discriminated against — is illegal in hiring. In a memo written Monday and obtained by The Texas Tribune, Abbott’s chief of staff Gardner Pate told agency leaders that using DEI policies violates federal and state employment laws, and hiring cannot be based on factors “other than merit.”

“Merit” is the critical word. Readers should ask themselves if Abbott’s concern is to maximize the quality of government workers. Or is he cynically entrenching whites in the state's bureaucracy?

The Tribune adds:

Pate said DEI initiatives illegally discriminate against certain demographic groups — though he did not specify which ones he was talking about. “The innocuous sounding notion of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has been manipulated to push policies that expressly favor some demographic groups to the detriment of others,” Pate wrote.

In plain English, the state says that giving people, who have suffered official and de facto discrimination, assistance in leveling the playing field, is to discriminate against whites. It is the ultimate “I have mine, fuck you.”

Nothing reveals expedient hypocrisy more than discovering racism exists only when it affects the people who have been racist throughout America’s history. When I say “racist” I do not mean just people who shout the “N-word.” I mean all the people who have enabled and benefited from American institutionalized racism who now argue against doing anything to rectify that history.

Conservatives can lie to students — and ban CRT — but history is history, regardless of whether teachers are allowed to teach it. Academic propaganda underpinned by curriculum whitewashing may comfort the parents of white kids (who, I am sure, are made of sterner stuff than their fragile progenitors). However, that does not alter the fact that the Founders created America as a slave nation — where 18% of the people were considered worth 3/5ths of the other 82%.

To say there was no structural racism in the US is the victory of deluded fantasy over evident reality. The Confederacy fought the bloodiest war in American history — 620,000 Americans, patriots and traitors alike, died — to defend slavery. (We know that was their reason because they said it was in their state declarations of independence.)

In defeat, the South gave racism legal standing with Jim Crow Laws. The Supreme Court acknowledged and abetted this racist reality in the Ferguson case (1896) when they declared that the Constitution allowed "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races." (Arguably their worst decision before the Dobbs case.)

Blacks suffered unfettered legal discrimination until the Brown vs. Board of Education case in 1954. The Supreme Court pointed out the obvious, separate is never equal — and banned segregated schools. Whites resisted, and even today, de facto segregated schools exist.

The Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) added protections for minorities. But what the federal government enacted in DC, conservative state governments watered down at the local level. Redistricting, ID laws, reduced poll locations, restrictive voting laws, and vote denial to ex-cons have ushered in Jim Crow-lite. Now the “no colored” signs are tacit, not overt.

An increasingly conservative court has aided and abetted this reversal of minority fortune. Since the Shelby decision (2013) jurisdictions with a history of racial electoral discrimination no longer have to preclear voting changes with the Justice Department.

Today SCOTUS will likely strike a blow for white supremacy in considering Merrill vs. Milligan . If the Court overturns a lower court ruling, Alabama will have successfully argued that mandating racial consideration to draw a congressional district is unconstitutional. In effect, it will be unconstitutional to consider race in drawing an electoral map designed to prevent racial discrimination. And — while Orwell says, “I told you so” — ‘up’ will officially become ‘down.’

Meanwhile, Texas will continue to fight racial discrimination — against whites.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/11/2152327/-TX-Gov-Abbott-says-diversity-programs-are-racist-against-whites

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