If It Looks Like A Duck...
An article on USAToday.com today states “most minority businesses are small, sole proprietorships, according to the Census Bureau. Many are financed on a shoestring, and access to working capital is limited.” The article goes on to use this “fact” to make a case for the government to enhance programs for minority owned businesses. The author is using a classic argument of only telling half the truth in order to make the case sound convincing. However, the truth is (also according to the Census Bureau) more than 80% of all businesses in America have fewer than 20 employees. The vast majority of these are small, sole proprietorships financed on a shoestring with limited access to working capital. More than 70% of all small businesses fail within 5 years. The problem is not unique to any one group or race, nor is it influenced by a technology imbalance, which the author also implies. It is patently unfair to use “fuzzy math” as a means to further a cause which has dubious benefit.
Companies adopt “diversity statements” and direct their employees to actively seek to award contracts to minority and women owned businesses. They do this not because those businesses are inherently better at delivering to the terms of the contract, but rather to avoid being labeled as diversity unfriendly. In some cases they do it for the even worse reason of being included in a list of “100 best places to work for _______ (fill in the blank with your favorite “historically disadvantaged” group).” Preferentially awarding business based solely on race or sex is discrimination, regardless of the underlying social motive or politically correct language used to describe it. It is also a violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
In the book “It’s Your Ship,” Captain Michael Abrashoff tells of his experience managing the US Navy approved “diversity program” as Commanding Officer of the USS Benfold. According to Capt. Abrashoff, after his crew completed the required training, a survey indicated that black, white, and female crew members all felt they were discriminated against. There were frequent incidents referred for investigation to the Navy equivalent of the EEOC. He promptly cancelled the Navy approved training and substituted what he refers to as “unity training.” Subsequent surveys indicated that 100% of the crew felt they were treated fairly. More importantly, there was not a single incident referred for investigation.
Herein lies the paradox of diversity: in order to acknowledge that people are different, one is forced to classify them according to their differences, which is the exact opposite outcome desired. As Einstein once said, “insanity is doing the same thing the same way over and over and expecting a different result.” This underscores the major failure of any program which by its nature focuses on the differences between people. Capt. Abrashoff’s unity training, in contrast, presumably focused on the similarities.
It’s not rocket science. We cannot achieve a color-blind society as long as we continue to use color as a factor in awarding contracts, employment, or college admissions. Diversity in and of itself cannot be a goal. Diversity is an abstract concept that by its very nature cannot be defined. This is what provided the Regents at U. Michigan Law School the weasel room that allowed Justice O’Conner to find in favor of the Law School, despite her ruling earlier in the day against the undergraduate program. For those who don’t remember, the admissions officials were repeatedly asked to define a precise measure of when diversity (their stated goal) had been achieved and they consistently replied that there was none. Instead, they claimed they “would know it when it happens.” A program that arbitrarily provides awards to a preferred group is a racist policy, regardless of whether that preferred group is white, black, yellow, or green.
Former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglas once declared “in regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested toward us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us….I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall!...And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!...Your interference is doing him positive injury.” (As quoted by Justice Thomas in the above mentioned U. Michigan case.)
Punitive metrics to artificially advance one person's or group's chance of obtaining some benefit cannot be defended in a democratic society. Plain and simple it is discrimination. A policy that encourages all small businesses without regard to membership in some preferred group or another is the only one permissible under the Constitution.
Companies adopt “diversity statements” and direct their employees to actively seek to award contracts to minority and women owned businesses. They do this not because those businesses are inherently better at delivering to the terms of the contract, but rather to avoid being labeled as diversity unfriendly. In some cases they do it for the even worse reason of being included in a list of “100 best places to work for _______ (fill in the blank with your favorite “historically disadvantaged” group).” Preferentially awarding business based solely on race or sex is discrimination, regardless of the underlying social motive or politically correct language used to describe it. It is also a violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
In the book “It’s Your Ship,” Captain Michael Abrashoff tells of his experience managing the US Navy approved “diversity program” as Commanding Officer of the USS Benfold. According to Capt. Abrashoff, after his crew completed the required training, a survey indicated that black, white, and female crew members all felt they were discriminated against. There were frequent incidents referred for investigation to the Navy equivalent of the EEOC. He promptly cancelled the Navy approved training and substituted what he refers to as “unity training.” Subsequent surveys indicated that 100% of the crew felt they were treated fairly. More importantly, there was not a single incident referred for investigation.
Herein lies the paradox of diversity: in order to acknowledge that people are different, one is forced to classify them according to their differences, which is the exact opposite outcome desired. As Einstein once said, “insanity is doing the same thing the same way over and over and expecting a different result.” This underscores the major failure of any program which by its nature focuses on the differences between people. Capt. Abrashoff’s unity training, in contrast, presumably focused on the similarities.
It’s not rocket science. We cannot achieve a color-blind society as long as we continue to use color as a factor in awarding contracts, employment, or college admissions. Diversity in and of itself cannot be a goal. Diversity is an abstract concept that by its very nature cannot be defined. This is what provided the Regents at U. Michigan Law School the weasel room that allowed Justice O’Conner to find in favor of the Law School, despite her ruling earlier in the day against the undergraduate program. For those who don’t remember, the admissions officials were repeatedly asked to define a precise measure of when diversity (their stated goal) had been achieved and they consistently replied that there was none. Instead, they claimed they “would know it when it happens.” A program that arbitrarily provides awards to a preferred group is a racist policy, regardless of whether that preferred group is white, black, yellow, or green.
Former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglas once declared “in regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested toward us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us….I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall!...And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!...Your interference is doing him positive injury.” (As quoted by Justice Thomas in the above mentioned U. Michigan case.)
Punitive metrics to artificially advance one person's or group's chance of obtaining some benefit cannot be defended in a democratic society. Plain and simple it is discrimination. A policy that encourages all small businesses without regard to membership in some preferred group or another is the only one permissible under the Constitution.
posted by exsubdriver at 12:27 PM
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