Tag Archives: diversity

Let’s Go Back To Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Speech

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The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s had some really good ideas. Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed one of the best ideas of the movement when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” (source here) Unfortunately, we have forgotten or deliberately left behind that idea.

On Saturday, The Daily Caller reported:

Wall Street’s top investment banking firms offer career-advancing opportunities to college students, with one catch — applicants are expected to be of certain races and gender identities.

The programs, run by companies that include Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, aim to increase diversity, prioritizing students based on race and gender. They also potentially run afoul of federal civil rights laws, legal experts told the the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Those programs are likely illegal violations of federal civil rights laws including Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and they are ripe for a legal challenge of their blatant discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation,” University of Michigan-Flint professor emeritus Mark Perry, who has filed hundreds of civil rights complaints against colleges, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The companies encourage specific groups to apply, naming racial and gender categories directly in their eligibility criteria, and then attempt to save face by adding statements to clarify applications are still open to all.

The article concludes:

Corporate diversity practices have increasingly been the subject of lawsuits by conservative legal groups. In August, an Atlanta-based investment manager, Fearless Fund, was sued over its grant program for black women. The lawsuit was funded by a nonprofit founded by Edward Blum, the activist behind the Students for Fair Admissions cases that led to the Supreme Court overturning affirmative action.

Separately, a law firm recently removed references to race and sexual orientation in the criteria for its diversity fellowship after it was hit with a lawsuit by Blum’s organization, the American Alliance for Equal Rights.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan did not respond to requests for comment.

Let’s get back to what Martin Luther King, Jr., said.

Can We Please Get Back To Merit-Based Promotions?

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You have to admit that the Biden administration is diverse. There are people in high positions representing all sectors of society. However, there seems to be a lack of people qualified to do their job. We have had supply chain problems, airline problems, train problems, etc., while the Transportation Secretary tells us that highways are racist. Was he appointed because he was the most qualified person or because he represented a minority sexual orientation? Actually some highways are racist. The parkways on Long Island were specifically built with bridges too low for buses from New York City to go through. The people who lived on Long Island did not want the city residents taking buses to the beaches there. That is racist, but that is also the1950’s–before the civil rights movement. There are other examples of questionable cabinet appointments in the Biden administration, but I am sure you get my point.

On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported that General Mark Milley is retiring as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff later this year.

The article reports:

  • Air Force chief of staff Gen. Charles Q. “C.Q.” Brown and Marine Corps commandant Gen. David Berger have emerged as the top contenders to replace Gen. Mark Milley as President Joe Biden’s top adviser on military issues after Milley’s retirement in October.
  • The Biden administration’s perception of China’s military designs will dictate his decision more than anything else, experts said.
  • “I think General Berger would be more unflappable but that General Brown might be more inspirational,” Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Both contenders to replace Gen. Mark Milley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff later this year are focused on change to counter China, but one is prone to radical changes while the other affirms the administration’s ideological priorities, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

With Milley, a Trump appointee, set to retire by October, President Joe Biden is expected to announce his pick to replace the outgoing Army four-star soon between top prospects Air Force chief of staff Gen. Charles Q. “C.Q.” Brown and Marine Corps commandant Gen. David Berger, according to The New York Times. Both would differ from Milley’s gregarious leadership style, but while Brown has experience in a key area of operations and satisfies the Biden administration’s focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in public service, Berger has shown the grit to make radical, if difficult, changes necessary for coming great power conflict, according to defense experts and media

Is it racist to point out that one of the candidates is black? Does that give him an edge? If he is appointed, will it be because he is the best man for the job or because of the Biden administration’s focus on diversity? The problem with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) agenda is that you never know if the person you are dealing with got the job because he was qualified or because of some other factor. That is unfair to the person who got the job and unfair to the people who did not get the job. DEI is racism disguised as equality.

 

 

 

Who Is In And Who Is Out At The White House Briefing Room

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On December 17th, the new White House briefing room seating chart was unveiled. A website called Deadline posted the details. If this is the most transparent administration in history, they sure are transparent about removing press that does not follow the mainstream media narrative from the room.

The article reports:

On Friday, the White House Correspondents Association unveiled its new seating chart for the space, with such outlets as The Grio, The Washington Blade, local station groups and business networks are getting assigned seats. Outlets like One America News Network, BuzzFeed and The New York Daily News no longer have assigned seats compared to the last revision in 2017.

The changes will take effect as of Jan. 3.

In a letter to members, WHCA President Steve Portnoy wrote that criteria for seating assignments included long-standing service on the beat, “ensuring that the seats are dependably filled, as assigned” and “seeing to it that the briefing room reflects the country it covers.”

…“To enhance diversity in the briefing room, assignments have been given to organizations that target Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ audiences, as well as readership and viewership that lies across the ideological spectrum,” wrote Portnoy, White House correspondent for CBS News Radio. “The WHCA has also for the first time granted seat assignments to local television station groups, which reach viewers in markets across America.  Additionally, business networks that have covered the White House for years have finally been granted spots on our chart.”

The most visible seats are, obviously, in the first row, and those assignments have not changed: NBC News, FOX News, CBS News, AP, ABC News, Reuters and CNN. Nor has the second row: The Wall Street Journal, CBS News Radio, Bloomberg, NPR, The Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today.

The organizations new to the seating chart from 2017: Telemundo, CNBC, The Grio, Fox Business, Nexstar, Newsy, Gray TV, EWTN, Cheddar, Hearst, Spectrum, Newsweek, The Daily Caller and The Washington Blade. All are sharing seats.

I wonder when the idea of diversity will actually include diversity of opinion.

Rules For Thee, But Not For Me

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There has been an awful lot of discussion lately about racism. In some areas of our society, people are actually moving back to segregation. Some of our colleges now have exclusive dormitories for minority students. Back in the twentieth century that was illegal. It should also be noted that Country Clubs and certain exclusive clubs have generally ended exclusive policies prohibiting blacks and Jews from joining. President Trump literally fought City Hall to make Mar-a-Lago open to membership for blacks and Jews (article here). However not all clubs have embraced the idea of membership for everyone.

Yesterday MRC TV posted an article about Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and a club he belongs to. The club is an ‘all-white’ exclusive club.

The article reports:

Nearly four years ago Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) claimed “it would be nice if they changed a little bit,” when asked about the all-white Bailey’s Beach Club of which he’s a member.

This past weekend, GoLocal asked if any new minority members had been admitted over the last few years.

“I think the people who are running the place are still working on that and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet,” Whitehouse replied.

…Whitehouse has been outspoken on the issue of systemic racism, claiming that America must “root out systemic racism in its many forms and meet America’s full promise of justice for all.” 

GoLocal notes that Bailey’s Beach Club is not considered an average private club, it has been described as the most exclusive club in America.

I would have more faith in his statements that America is racist if he began to change his own behavior to be more inclusive. Discrimination based on race is against the law. Where is the Rhode Island Attorney General?

Please follow the link to the article to see the video of Senator Whitehouse successfully avoiding a reporter’s very good question on why Bailey’s Beach Club still has no minority members.

The Tide Is Slowly Turning

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The last election showed a number of Americans moving away from the radicalism of the current Democrat party to what has become a more inclusive Republican party. Although the establishment Republicans do not approve of President Trump, he is responsible for the new diversity in the party. Meanwhile, the establishment Republicans are working very hard to shoot themselves int he foot.

Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

More than a hundred former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.

The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say.

More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of ‘principled conservatism,’ including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law – ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.

Most of the leadership of the Republican party is not conservative and never have been. They are part of the deep state that allows lobbyists to write the laws, supports endless wars overseas, supports more government regulation, and generally overtaxes and overspends. This is an attempt to go back to the uni-party status quo. If it works, it will be the end of the Republican party.

Meanwhile, The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday from Bryan Dean Wright, a Former CIA Officer. The article explains why left the Democrat party.

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

For years, Democrats like me have watched with increasing alarm as our own political leaders and activists – from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to media outlets like MSNBC – have used an endless stream of hateful, violent and ultimately un-American rhetoric that has resulted in billions of dollars in economic damage and given birth to a violent national movement. 

…In all, over 700 federal, state and local law enforcement officers sustained injuries in violence perpetrated by Leftist rioters. That includes retired St. Louis police Captain David Dorn, who died defending the city he loved from those encouraged by the Democrat Party’s incitement.

To be clear, the list of victims of Leftist hatred and violence is only set to grow.

In the past several months, Democrats have stepped up an already audacious smear campaign against the Republican Party in an effort to target conservatives.

The article concludes:

Despite the Leftist narrative accusing the GOP of being racist, misogynistic or homophobic, the Republican Party attracted the most diverse coalition of voters since 1960. Diving into the numbers, Trump added more Black, Latino, Asian and gay voters to the conservative populist movement than any other president or nominee in the party’s recent history.

And no matter what one thinks of Trump the person, the message and populism he advocated for resonates with voters. It was and remains unapologetically America First, anti-war and pro-worker, focused on merit-based opportunity, judicial reform, strong borders and an unwavering commitment to law and order. To state the obvious, the Trump coalition came up short in 2020. But the vision of an America that lives up to our national motto – “Out of Many, One” – did not.

So this Democrat will take the same sensible step as others before me. It’s time to leave the hateful, violent and un-American Democrat Party.

The populist GOP is my new political home.

Please follow the link above to read the entire Daily Caller article. It illustrates how people who are paying attention are reacting to what is happening in America.

Ruining Education Even In Private Schools

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In many areas of America, private schools are still doing in-person learning while public schools are on either mixed schedules or total remote learning. A few public schools are doing in-person learning, but they seem to be a minority. Unfortunately this will create a major divide in American society in five to ten years. Children that are learning remotely are failing at a much higher rate than those that are learning in person. There is also the issue of children that may not have access to the broadband they need for remote learning. The school shutdowns have done a major disservice to our children. Private schools have been there for some children to fill the gap, but not everyone can afford private school.

Meanwhile a private school in New York City has decided to make some changes that are not sitting well with some of the parents of the students. Today, Hot Air posted an article about The Dalton School, an expensive private academy on Manhattan’s posh Upper East Side.

The article reports:

The school counts many celebrities and other famous folks among its almuni, including Anderson Cooper and Christian Slater. Parents who manage to land their children in the college prep academy shell out more than $50K per year for the honor. But now they’re running into a bit of a problem. The school is experiencing what the New York Post describes as an “uproar” after a number of faculty members signed off on an antiracism manifesto” that includes a list of demands for the school to meet so they can combat systemic racism or whatever else they’re complaining about. And many of the parents aren’t having it.

The article includes the list of demands:

So what has everyone so up in arms? The list of “demands” from the teachers who signed the manifesto aren’t simply decrying what they perceive as raism. They’re looking to overturn the entire social order of the school. Some of the bullet points seem fairly reasonable, such as ensuring a more diverse hiring policy and expanding the curriculum to cover a more inclusive range of subjects. But some of the others are simply out of this world. Here are a few of the lowlights:

    • Hiring 12 full-time diversity officers, and multiple psychologists to support students “coping with race-based traumatic stress.”
    • Paying the student debt of black staffers upon hiring them.
    • Requiring courses that focus on “Black liberation” and “challenges to white supremacy.”
    • Abolishing high-level academic courses by 2023 if the performance of black students is not on par with non-blacks.
    • Donating 50 percent of all fundraising dollars to NYC public schools if Dalton is not representative of the city in terms of gender, race, socioeconomic background, and immigration status by 2025.

Hiring dozens of “diversity officers” and psychologists should drive up the tuition a good twenty percent or more. I wonder how well that will go over? But that’s hardly the worst of it.

There are a few things here that stand out. It seems a little unfair to pay the student debt of black staffers and not white staffers. If both groups are paid the same salary, why should one group get an extra benefit? Isn’t that racist? I particularly like the idea of abolishing high-level academic course if the performance of the black students is not up to the performance of the other students? Don’t people send their children to private school to take these advanced courses? Even public schools have not abolished advanced placement courses, although I should be careful not to give them any ideas.

The article concludes:

Small wonder that some of the parents are already bailing out. And as they leave, the school will be losing even more of the revenue they would need to meet this list of demands. If enough of them vote with their feet, the school won’t be able to cover its costs and none of them will have a job. Wouldn’t that just be a shame?

Would you pay 50k a year for that?