Why I Told AFTRA I'm A Disabled Black Woman
We're told that race shouldn't be taken into account in hiring and in other arenas, yet we see endless examples to the contrary, like mandated affirmative action and journalism fellowships that are reserved for minorities.
I resent that the back of the income statement I send back to AFTRA (the radio/TV union) every year asks what sex and race I am and whether I'm disabled. Since I'm with Martin Luther King that we should judge people by the content of their character -- meaning race and the rest isn't supposed to matter -- I filled out their survey accordingly.
I was reminded of that when I spotted a piece by Heather MacDonald in the WSJ about charitable organizations that are being told to meet "diversity targets":
The idea that foundations should view the world through the trivializing lens of identity politics dates back to the 1980s, when some liberal foundations, including the Ford Foundation, started asking groups seeking grants to report the race and sex of their staff and board members. But today, politicians are getting into the act. This latest diversity push began in 2005, when the Greenlining Institute, a "multiethnic advocacy group" in Berkeley, Calif., started pumping out studies claiming that foundations were ignoring "communities of color." (This despite the fact that in California, 39% of large foundations' grants primarily benefit minorities, according to the Foundation Center, a respected research body.) Greenlining's definition of helping a community of color: bestowing foundation grants on a nonprofit whose staff and board are at least 50% minority. In other words, the Greenlining effort is purely a jobs racket. The racial composition of a nonprofit's staff and board has exactly zero relation to whether it is actually helping minorities. Agronomists supported by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations helped wipe out famine in Southeast Asia by developing high-yield cereal crops; pressure to diversify their labs would have hindered their research, not advanced it....Nevertheless, Greenlining's crusade leaped into the political arena. The California Assembly passed a bill in January 2008 that would have required all California foundations with assets of over $250 million to report not just the race and sex of their grantees' board and staff members, but the race and sex of their own board and staff members as well. Note again the patent shakedown effort. The racial and sexual composition of a foundation is also irrelevant to whether it is helping minorities--except, of course, for those quota hires who end up in cushy foundation jobs. In the late 1920s, Julius Rosenwald, an early president of Sears, Roebuck, used his foundation to build 5,000 schools for rural blacks in the South, somehow managing to do so without a 50% minority board.
...The new, foundation-funded Diversity in Philanthropy Project is spending approximately $2.2 million promoting hiring quotas at foundations, in order to make diversity an "essential consideration in funders' day-to-day strategic decisions and actions." Just to put that number in perspective, it recently cost $1 million for the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University to decode all the genes of a leukemia victim. Which enterprise is of greater value to humanity? The smart money is on the cancer research--but according to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project, if the genome lab didn't contain underrepresented minorities, funders should have thought twice about supporting it.
...The diversity campaign is oblivious to the complex power of ideas in the world. Those who would direct philanthropy into preconceived channels think that they already know the answers to the world's problems and need only to appropriate the funding for those answers. But no one can predict how ideas will play out in practice or who will be their beneficiaries. The public good is best served by giving maximum freedom to the creative spirit.
I dunno why you should have to represent yourself as other than as you are, Blazing Wite-Out™ with Deluxe Upholstery; that has its own handicaps. You know.
Radwaste at February 9, 2009 2:42 AM
I usually leave those things blank. There's nothing in the Constitution that says the Census needs anything more than a number, I can't see why any other random needs to know my racial heritage and sexual plumbing.
I'll grant that this is important information for my doctor to have. My mortgage broker? Not so much.
brian at February 9, 2009 5:48 AM
At work the other day, I started filling out the diversity survey. I got half way through before I was so offended by the questions that I gave up in disgust.
Tyler at February 9, 2009 9:00 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/09/why_i_told_aftr.html#comment-1625687">comment from TylerWhat did they ask you, Tyler, and what's the point supposed to be?
Amy Alkon
at February 9, 2009 9:11 AM
I am a French-Canadian, do I qualify as a minority? :D
I wonder then those standards will be implemented in professional sports. The NBA is severely lacking caucasians, latinos, indians and natives. What the Californian State plan to do with this?
Toubrouk at February 9, 2009 10:50 AM
The diversity crap works the same way when trying to get rid of someone incompetent. There is a handicapped Hispanic woman that works for my company who is quite incompetent, that my boss is trying to get rid of. He's having to document everything and accumulate 3 times as much evidence as he would a white man before the company will consider firing her.
William (wbhicks@hotmail.com) at February 9, 2009 10:50 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/09/why_i_told_aftr.html#comment-1625706">comment from ToubroukWhite, redheaded women, especially, Toubrouk. Move over, Kobe!
Amy Alkon
at February 9, 2009 11:13 AM
Isn't it more important in this epoch of human endevour to be seen to be doing things rather than really doing things? Coulda sworn I got a memo on that or summat.
SwissArmyD at February 9, 2009 11:33 AM
I smell a shakedown. Jesse Jackson made millions by threatening every company & organization in sight with boycotts & lawsuits. Very few had the nerve to just tell him to go to hell. The greedy scumbags at the Diversity in Philanthropy Project have apparently realized that they could make a killing by going around to every charity and threatening them with lawsuits for 10 X dollars if they don't cough up X dollars right now.
Martin at February 9, 2009 1:22 PM
Amy, as far as BOA is concerned, you're almost telling the truth. You should have said black, toothless woman.
kishke at February 9, 2009 1:44 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/09/why_i_told_aftr.html#comment-1625732">comment from kishkeHa! Good point, kishke.
For the uninitiated, the story is here:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/05/28/im_really_a_bla.html
And the investigation is here:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/07/28/investigating_b.html
Amy Alkon
at February 9, 2009 2:46 PM
William,
You've got a point. An employee at my husband's company was caught red-handed stealing, but the corporate loss prevention guys waited until they had clear taped evidence, and could fly in with a cultural diversity expert and a translator before they would let the boss fire him. He was a naturalized citizen of Egyptian descent who spoke fluent English.
I couldn't make this up.
Beth at February 9, 2009 3:10 PM
Asshats all of them. Sometimes I'm latino. Sometimes native american. I've been known to be male. Might as well fuck with them, if they're going to waste my money like this.
momof3 at February 9, 2009 6:17 PM
My mortgage broker? Not so much.
That, unfortunately, is part of the whole HMDA/CRA that got us in this mess in the first place.
They have to ask and report the stats whether they like it or not.
Anonymous Coward at February 9, 2009 7:17 PM
@Amy:
"What did they ask you, Tyler, and what's the point supposed to be?"
Well, it started off innocently enough, and then I got to the questions where they asked me to identify my racial group. That's where I got angry.
I have this crazy idea that employees should be employed based on their skills, not based on their skin color.
Tyler at February 9, 2009 7:30 PM
I always like to mark "other" when it's listed on those surveys. After all, "human" is a race, and they never list it. Otherwise I mark "decline to tell" or however they word it.
Sandy at February 10, 2009 9:47 AM
Well, I am a highly qualified and skilled individual. I also happen to have wheels on my ass. All you whining, white bread, bi-peds come talk to me when you have a real problem.
Me, because I am handicapped, I have no problems, what with all those people who are required to give me jobs and all those charities required to give me cash donations on top of which, I get all those cool handicapped spots......rrrrrriiigghhhht.
Quite whining, leave it blank and get on with your lives.
Kim at August 28, 2009 8:14 PM
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