Obviously, the main social problem in America is that Black people run everything and us white folks as a group just can’t get a fair break, right? So says Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
As a lifelong white Texan, I can’t tell you how “amazing” it is to see our governor, come out unapologetically for a return to old-time institutional bigotry. Absolutely *Freaking* Amazing! Apparently, Abbott fantasizes that hordes of Black people are seizing control of our government, universities, banks, media… and other power centers, shoving aside more qualified and entitled whites. Going from fantasy to hallucination, he concludes that this takeover is caused by corporate and government hiring policies that bolster diversity and inclusiveness in our society. Even attempting to implement this democratic goal, he barks, is illegal because – get this – it violates federal law against discrimination.
Yes, in GregWorld, fighting discrimination against minorities discriminates against the white majority. So his excellency has actually issued an edict directing state agencies and universities to shut down all hiring programs that include diversity goals! His official injunction declares that deliberately trying to stop excluding minorities from full access to employment opportunities leads to the “alienation of individuals from the workplace.” He means, of course that some white people are alienated that non-white people are getting job opportunities – never mind that minorities routinely suffer extreme “alienation from the workplace” – ie, exclusion. By the way, Abbott’s attack on diversity not only opens the door to even more job discrimination against Black Americans, but also against women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ people, all people of color, and veterans. Give him credit: He’s an equal opportunity abuser!
Abbott and his right-wing ilk should realize that the price of creating an exclusive society with no diversity is that they would then be stuck living with people like themselves.
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There is nothing more boring than a room full of white people.
And your point is?
From Michelle Alexander -- Jarvious Cotton cannot vote. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy. Cotton's family tree tells the story of several generations of black men who were born in the United States but who were denied the most basic freedom that democracy promises - the freedom to vote for those who will make the rules and laws that govern one's life. Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation. His father was barred from voting by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Jarvious Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole.
Cotton's story illustrates, in many respects, the old adage "The more things change, the more they remain the same." In each generation, new tactics have been used for achieving the same goals - goals shared by the Founding Fathers. Denying African Americans citizenship was deemed essential to the formation of the original union. Hundreds of years later, America is still not an egalitarian democracy. The arguments and rationalizations that have been trotted out in support of racial exclusion and discrimination in its various forms have changed and evolved, but the outcome has remained largely the same. An extraordinary percentage of black men in the united States are legally barred from voting today, just as they have been throughout most of American history. They are also subject to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, education, public benefits, and the jury service, just as their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were.
What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color "criminals" and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you are labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the eight of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.