Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on Fair360.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of Fair360, formerly DiversityInc, is a nationally recognized leader in diversity management. In his popular column, readers who ask Visconti tough questions about race/culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and age can expect smart, direct and disarmingly frank answers.
I received this comment from a reader on my column “Most White People Think Blacks Are Intellectually Inferior“:
You bring up MLK and, like most liberals, cite MLK’s advances in society. Yet I haven’t seen it. The perfect example is affirmative action. And don’t give me the b.s. that white women benefit the most from it. That’s not the point. AA should be abolished completely.
In this country, the American dream only exists if you get a job, make the right decisions and pull your own weight. To go about this course of action, you can first start by organizing your priorities.
No doubt that priorities are important, but you’re nave if you don’t think the most successful form of affirmative action is for wealthy white people. A recent New York Times article, “Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity,” is a good starting point to understand thisignore the gender aspect, read the article and put yourself in that environment with an average white American background. First of all, the average white American stands no chance of gaining admittance into that elitist environment, I don’t care how hard you work or how carefully you chose your priorities. This article points out that to be successful at Harvard Business School, you have to suck up to the right people to gain their acceptance (it has everything to do with social climbing) and have a callous kiss-up, kick-down ethic (you may already be ruthless, but you’d be competing with the professionally ruthless).
Nine out of 10 people that bombard this site with their hatred of “Obamacare” and preaching about “priorities” and “right decisions” is parroting the enslaving message given to them by people who wouldn’t even pause to wipe their feet on your head. Think about it this way: John Kerry (Yale) stands there with a straight face and tells us to believe the intelligence regarding Syria and who pulled the trigger on poison gaseven though nobody is in prison for getting us into a 10-year war based on completely flawed “intelligence” about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that George W. Bush (Yale, Harvard) ordered up. We’re being expected to believe that Larry Summers (MIT, Harvard) is the answer to our economic problems, yet he was there during the decisions that led us into this disaster we’re inand, mind you, NOBODY is in prison for that mess, either.
The only people who seem to pay the bill are the average soldier and the average American citizen. You get punished more for driving drunk than you do for decisions that lead to the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civiliansor wiping out trillions of dollars of middle-class America’s household wealth. In fact, you don’t get punished at all for those things, you get rewarded. The same charactersand their sons and daughtersseem to have a mortal lock on all the top jobs. (Note that Lloyd Blankfein’s [Harvard] son is in the HBS article!)
Think about this: Our education system has now slipped to middle of the pack (17th out of 40 ranked countries in a Pearson study). Yet we’ve had two generations of Bush (Yale x 2, Harvard) men as President; another former President’s wife (Hillary Clinton, Yale) is going to be a front-runner in the next election; and congressional districts have been gerrymandered so that almost 100 percent of Congressmen and -women are reelected even though job-approval ratings are well below 25%. This make sense to you
Before anyone responds that I’m simply bashing the Ivies, please read the article “Ivy-League Letdown,” also in the Times. Research shows that Ivy League schools are far lower than average in Pell Grantqualified students. This tells you the truth: It’s not about intelligence, hard work or accomplishment at that level. It’s about connections and wealth. Affirmative action for wealthy white people. Period.
If you were smart, you’d be stomping your feet for real affirmative action; the average American’s hope rides on broadening access to power, not narrowing it. If “race” bothers you, advocate for economic-based affirmative action. But don’t believe the hogwash about “priorities”the white middle class has been a victim of wealth inequality for years, a trend that has grown during our ongoing economic crisis. Wealthy white people, however, did quite well. Yet you’re being cajoled into rejecting “Obamacare” as healthcare benefits for the average American are being stripped away. THINK about it, instead of bombarding this website with platitudes about the “American Dream” you’re getting from websites like wakeupamerica. Think for yourself.
