During a recent interview with KRBD radio, Young “accidentally” used a racial slur when referring to the Latinos who used to work on his family’s farm.

“My father had a ranch. We used to hire 50 or 60 wetbacks … to pick tomatoes. You know, it takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine,” said Young.

Young immediately was slammed by both the media and his fellow GOP members for the racist comment, but it wasn’t until Speaker of the House John A. Boehner demanded that Young apologize that any sign of remorse was issued. A full three days later, Young finally said: “I apologize for the insensitive term I used. …There was no malice in my heart or intent to offend; it was a poor choice of words.” Young noted it was a term used back when he was growing up and, as such, he did not consider the term’s present-day connotations.

It’s an excuse—not a heartfelt apology that conveys a sense of sincerity or mindfulness, which the GOP needs to convey.

Diversity and cultural competence have become key differentiators in political success. During the 2012 presidential race, 71 percent of Latinos voted for President Obama, and Latinos comprised 10 percent of the total electorate for the first time.

Is the GOP for Whites Only? Young’s gaffe is a classic example of yet another “we don’t get it moment,” says Mike Allen, Chief White House Correspondent for Politico. Last year, gaffes by Republican candidates such as Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, along with racist voter laws, negatively impacted voter opinions. And Young’s slur “gives critics and people who are skeptical of the party a new reason to say it hasn’t changed.”

What will it take for a turnaround in the Republican Party? Jason Johnson, who debated the issue on a CNN panel, had this to say in his column on Politic365.com:

One of the problems that the Republican Party has about race issues is that the party is full of non-repentant bigots who want to treat racism like it’s an outlier and exceptional instead of the basic thought process of many, many (all too many) Americans. Earlier today I was on CNN with Amy Holmes from the Blaze (Glenn Beck TV) and she responded with the typical talking points of the GOP: “Joe Biden says racist things too,” “Other Democrats have said racist things,” etc., etc. Trying to place blame on all sides does not solve the GOP’s major electoral and reputational problem. All Republicans, white people, conservatives and Southerners are not racists. In fact, the majority of these groups are not necessarily racist. However, the GOP refuses to take responsibility for its own bad press and would rather say that the media is blowing things out of proportion, unfairly targeting its members (instead of Democrats) or that Blacks and Latinos are too sensitive. All of these outfits and fashion flips rather than cleaning up their act.

The biggest issue for Johnson? The level of comfort with which Young said “wetback,” he writes, is representative of the “casual simple ‘it’s a fact’ bigotry that is churned out every day in the halls of power, where denying someone a job, acceptance into a college or a promotion is not the result of some large diabolical plot, it’s just how large portions of white people have done things in America for years and continue to do.”

The post Racism & Bigotry: Will ‘Wetback’ Slur Derail GOP’s Rebranding Efforts? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:

A colleague recently asked for my thoughts on a George Will column that described several incidents on college campuses where bigotry was directed at white men.

Answer:

George Will lifted a bunch of incidents from one website (thefire.org) that has a specific point of view. In my opinion, they’re using outlier events to concoct a trend. Nationwide, there are millions of college students—more than 800 universities granting doctoral-level degrees, thousands more four-year and two-year colleges—and here we have but a handful of questionable incidents, including some terrible mistakes and errors in judgment. Are there more than what’s reported here? Sure—but given that the entire mission of thefire.org is to bring these incidents to light, it’s still pretty sparse when viewed in context.

How many mistakes were made in the other direction (from white men to everyone else) during the time we’ve been alive? How many mistakes are currently being made? I can’t imagine that the overrepresented white men in academe are the most put-upon group of people—yet, here’s George Will (and Greg Lukianoff) trying to make a trend out of a bunch of unconnected dots.

He—and we—need to start looking forward. Rutgers’ graduating class at its last commencement was less than 50 percent white—and less than 50 percent men. Our future as Americans demands that we older white men understand our obligation to make sure our communications are crafted in a way that is received and absorbed, so we may successfully hand off our knowledge of being a good citizen.

This country has made its mistakes, but we have also liberated hundreds of millions of people in the last 100 years. As a combat veteran, you know this more than most. Was it worth it? Look at South Korea now. I’d say it was.

Korea’s success is a mirror of ours (as well as Germany’s and Japan’s). We have the world’s largest GDP because people can come here and achieve more of their inherent potential than anywhere else on the planet. This is entirely due to our struggle to advance human and civil rights. Our constitution is the longest-lived constitution on the planet, amended over time to abolish slavery and include women in the governmental process. Through legislative acts, our government has also ensured voting rights and civil rights, and included people with disabilities. With the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, we’re quickly moving to include our LGBT friends and neighbors in full citizenship as well. The demographics of our country have evolved; the white men of the Boomer and Traditional generations must ensure that our knowledge of the best of what it means to be an American is passed down.

We can’t do that if we’re needlessly obsessing over slights. Almost all of my nonwhite, non-male, non-heterosexual counterparts in business aren’t obsessing over the slights dealt to them—they’re looking forward.

So should we.

Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on DiversityInc.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of 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.

The post Ask the White Guy: Are White Men the New Victims on College Campuses? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Comment: 
The article Ask the White Guy on ‘Is it Racism or Bigotry’ made me think and perhaps come up with a reason for so many of the “why can’t we just get over it” comments I have seen on your website. I think there is a perception that many use living with racism as a rationalization for cultural and morale distance and justify bigoted actions or discrimination. It is as though they believe the fallacious argument “in America only whites can be racist; therefore white Americans are all racists.” One of the great points you make clearly is that bad behavior is bad regardless of whether it is bigotry or racism.

Answer:
You’re on to something. I think that the gut dislike of the definition of “racist” is due to people feeling that they’re not racist when the evidence is that our system has been racist (and still is to a degree). This dis-resonance is generated because most people don’t want to be a racist and don’t want to be associated with racists—and most people don’t want unearned privileges (which is a core byproduct of racism). The very definition of racism is offensive to most Americans because we want to believe that America is a meritocracy with the same opportunities for all, and although we’ve had our issues (and still do), we’re closer to that ideal than any other country. You can measure this with economics; our civil and human rights are what has created the greatest economy on earth. With all of our problems, we’ve still managed to create more inventions, liberate more people and have the longest living constitution in known history. If you heard Admiral Mullen speak about ending DADT, you saw the flame of our revolution still burning with incandescent clarity.

Most of us are proud of being an American. Pride in being a member of something is proportional to the “cost” of membership. It’s why we cherish our revolution and our veterans. It’s also why you see 80-year-old guys driving around with a globe and anchor sticker on their car (and 51-year-old guys driving around with USS New Jersey battleship license plates).

Bigotry has a lower psychological toll because it’s an individual act. You can do something bigoted one moment and correct yourself immediately. Racism is systemic, omnipresent and pervasive. Your Black counterpart in your office may not face any bigotry there, but the minute he stops at a department store, he knows it’s likely that he’ll be followed. My vice president of business development (who is a petite Black woman) was stopped in the parking lot of a local big-box mall in Clark, N.J. (a known racist town) and was surrounded by three cop cars. One cop asked her, “Is that your car?” (She drives a 740 BMW.) She said, “You already know whose car this is because you ran the plates; if you have a real problem, you need to step out of the car and do something about it.”

They backed off (if she had joined the Marines, Afghanistan would be as peaceful as Mayberry, but [ahem] not all white).

A byproduct of racism is white privilege. Most white people also have a visceral dislike for that concept too. I’ve accepted mine and learned that it can be a positive thing. I didn’t ask for it, but I have it. Now I use it to open doors for others for the greater good. Using white privilege that way makes you feel good, helps society—and doesn’t diminish your white privilege.

The post Ask the White Guy on Racism, Bigotry & White Privilege appeared first on DiversityInc.

Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on DiversityInc.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of 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.

In my response to a question about Kanye West’s comments about President Bush and his subsequent apologies, I asserted that racism can only flow down a chain of power. This power can be easily defined in economic terms; for example, white households average ten times the wealth of Black households in this country. This is because of roughly 200 years of legalized slavery and another 80 years of Jim Crow laws. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act (1964/1965) ended most legal racism, and the final major piece of anti-racism legislation passed with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977—so you can say that the beginning of leveling the playing field started 33 years ago, but we still have almost 300 years of lawful racism to overcome as a society.

This definition of racism sparked a lot of reader response, including this thoughtful comment:

I understand the logic behind Luke’s definition but respectfully disagree. I believe that prejudice is about perception, bigotry is about attitude and racism is about actions. If someone is placed under your power and you act in a way to intentionally injure them based on their race … it is racism.

The person who posted the comment is a regular contributor to DiversityInc and we enjoy an online friendship, which is highlighted by the fact that we’re both veterans—although I will note his service extended many more years than mine—and he still serves in a civilian capacity. Here is my response:

I understand your logic as well, but I don’t agree. Allow me to pose a scenario: A Black Major assigns a white Captain to stand watch every holiday because she doesn’t like white people. This is about power (a Major outranks a Captain), but is it racism or bigotry? I’d say it’s bigotry. In the total scope of our society, no matter how senior a person is (including the president of the United States or the CEO of American Express), the economic conditions of our society, which have sorted themselves out through centuries of oppression based on race, dictate that the power is flowing from the white majority to the Black minority. Therefore, it can only be defined as bigotry.

Suppose the scenario was that the Major is Asian and the Captain is Black? I’d still call it bigotry; read up on the Asian Exclusion Act, National Origins Quota, Chinese Exclusion Act, Immigration Act of 1917 and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind. This scenario has a person from one oppressed group being a bigot toward another member of an oppressed group. There is only one majority—and please don’t be fooled by numbers; although white people will be less than 50 percent of our population in 2043, Black household wealth will not catch up to white household wealth for about 1,000 years at the current rate of closure. Shows you what a head start will do—but, readers, PLEASE don’t e-mail me with your family’s story of individual trial and tribulations. Although they are important parts of our American story, please don’t think your ancestors did it without the help of white privilege. White people had centuries of affirmative action. Read Ira Katznelson’s “When Affirmative Action Was White” for a history lesson.

Where I’m sure we’ll both agree, and what is REALLY important here, is that the Major (in either case) needs to processed out of the Marines. Her behavior is in violation of the UCMJ and is a terrible detriment to unit cohesion, combat readiness and effectiveness. I’m confident that this is what would happen in today’s military; in fact, I’d say that a bigot or racist wouldn’t get too far into basic training, officer’s candidate school or the service academy before being sniffed out and ousted. Unlike the rest of government service, which I would say is now behind corporate culture in general, the military knows that someday you will have to depend on your life on the actions of other people. You cannot tolerate a bigot or racist because in a life-or-death situation, the white door gunner isn’t happy about the lead flying at him because his Black pilot in command was left out in the cold by a racist co-pilot.

Another veteran gave me a good insight: After a talk where I discussed race and trust, a Black man came out of the crowd. He had a Vietnam Veteran pin on his lapel. He asked, “Do you know why you trust Black people?” I told him I couldn’t pin down a reason. He asked, “Who fixed your helicopters?” The face of the senior chief petty officer in charge of fixing helicopters during the night shift (when most of the heavy repairs were done, and most of my work as a functional test pilot was debriefed) popped into my head: a Black man (who led a very diverse team of skilled mechanics). The Vietnam vet smiled and said, “You trusted your very life on the work of Black people.” He was right and it made me happy to have that insight.

By the way, if you want to read a good book about race, racism and the service, I most highly recommend Ezell Ware’s “By Duty Bound—Survival and Redemption in a Time of War.” Ware retired as a Brigadier General from the California Guard but started his career as an enlisted Marine. The book centers around being shot down and having to survive, resist and evade with a racist in Vietnam.

The post Ask the White Guy on ‘Is It Racism or Bigotry?’ appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
By your refusal to accept other points of view on the subject of affirmative action, you fit the dictionary definition of a bigot yourself! 

Is discrimination of any kind wrong? I say it is. Affirmative action IS a form of discrimination, and therefore, in my opinion, it is wrong. How does discrimination become right in your defense of affirmative action?

Answer:
The American Heritage Dictionary definition of a bigot is: “One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.”

I’m white and I am completely tolerant of other groups, religions, races and politics, unless those groups work against human rights. I am tolerant of Roger Clegg and Ward Connerly to the point of allowing them to air their views in an issue of DiversityInc magazine. I don’t agree with them and will also include differing opinions, including my own.

I am indeed not tolerant of groups like neo-Nazis–but not to the point of denying anyone their constitutional rights.

You are welcome to your opinion, but it doesn’t change the fact that people suffer because of their “religion, race, or politics.” Although great strides have been made, discrimination is alive and well in the United States today and the aftereffects of virulent, violent and legislated racism persist and can be measured. For example, black households currently have one-tenth the wealth of white households, Barack Obama is only the third black senator since Reconstruction (more than 100 years ago), there are not 50 percent women senators, at least 30 percent of work-capable college-educated people with disabilities are unemployed, etc.

In my opinion, affirmative action does not discriminate, it provides access. I think it’s detrimental to our society to deny Americans equal access (based on a factor like race) to education and capital that will allow them to develop to their true human potential. It is not their fault, nor mine, that they and their ancestors were discriminated against, but I feel it is my responsibility to support affirmative action to correct the past injustices and provide a level playing field so the best talent wins. This must be a proactive program.

Now I know the thought on many people’s minds is that it is illegal to discriminate and therefore affirmative action is not needed. That opinion brings up a deep and potentially disturbing question: Are people created equal or NOT created equal?

If you feel that people ARE created equal, then, logically, talent is equally distributed too. I believe this–I also believe that the evidence of representation of wealth and power in our country demonstrates something went wrong along lines of race, gender, orientation, disability and age. I believe that our country is best served by enabling the best talent and making sure it has access to where it will best serve and flourish.

That is affirmative action. You can narrowly define it as “discrimination” and attack it, which is what bigot Roger Clegg does, but I think it’s anti-American to deny people the right to exist as equals. I think it’s simply not in our best interest. Sometimes you have to help a person become an equal. This raises the stature of both the helper and the helped and, in the end, our society.

The post Bigotry and Affirmative Action appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
After the Michael Richards incident, I’d really like to know if you think all white people (and perhaps I should say all people) are racist at heart and that their true feelings are submerged by political correctness. Is that latent rage there in everyone?

Answer:
After seeing the video a few times, I think Michael Richards is a pathetic hate-filled man. I have no sympathy for him and I think the person overheard on the video was right: The reason he’s had no post-”Seinfeld” career is evident in his outburst.

Thankfully, most people do not have this level of rage inside of them. It may be hard for non-white people to imagine, but most white people don’t even think of race on a regular basis. I think that is the natural state for human beings. We’re tribal and when we’re within your own tribe, why would you give another tribe a second thought? Being a member of a dominant culture gives a person that luxury.

When a person who is not thinking about race gets in a situation where race is an issue, they can sometimes express themselves in inappropriate ways (“You’re so articulate,” “Some of my best friends are black,” etc.) This “politically correct speech” is almost always an expression of ignorance or unfamiliarity,” usually not bigotry or suppressed rage.

Please understand that I am not dismissing overt bigots (or self-hating people).

Good people can direct negative energy in positive ways. Discomfort from ignorance can be channeled into learning. Discrimination can be channeled into working for progress. Two weeks ago, I had lunch with Johnnie Booker, Coca-Cola’s supplier-diversity director and lifelong civil-rights activist. She told me that there is no hate in her heart but that she despises injustice. She’s worked her entire life to create opportunities for our entire country by eliminating roadblocks based on race.

In essence, this is at the heart of diversity management. Learning, knowledge, understanding, eliminating roadblocks, leveraging our differences to build better relationships with employees, customers, investors and suppliers, creating greater wealth for all by enabling equal access to talent and capital.

The post The White Guy Talks About Michael Richards appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
A woman called into a radio talk show and asked, “Why is it OK for a black person to tell a joke about a white person, but it’s not OK the other way around?” I’ve had employees ask, “Why is it OK to have executive incentives or mentor programs in place to help minorities and women, but none for the rest of us?”

The questions go on and on from why do we celebrate Black History Month, Women’s Heritage Month, etc. but never White History month. There seems to be a ground swell of people who believe that in our efforts to become an equal society, we are using double standards which are not promoting equality. What is your take?

Answer:
I’ve grown to realize that it’s not OK for anyone to tell a racial joke.

The other points in your question relate to profound ignorance on why these programs exist. There have been “double standards” throughout human history (slavery, misogyny, bigotry, homophobia, etc.) Addressing past injustices is how we move our society ahead … especially economically.

Human rights and freedom are the foundation principles of our country’s disproportionate success. Despite being imperfectly applied … our Constitution has resulted in the best meritocracy that the world has seen. Extending rights to everyone cannot help but forge a stronger and more successful society.

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