Question:
I’m a 21-year-old white male. Why does it seem like I must apologies (sic) for it? I’m not racist, sexist, nor feel any kind of discrimination towards anyone. I respect individuals based upon their character and merit. My parents and extended family share the same attitude and just a few generations ago my family were immigrants to this great country. Why does it seem that many people, like those behind this website and the hypersensitive groups at my University, make the assumption that I have some sort of advantage or I am given a better opportunity or even that I am prejudice because I’m a white male. I would not really notice race or feel uncomfortable around certain other races if I didn’t sense the animosity coming from the other direction. 

It’s hard out there for everyone, my peers and I will have the same opportunity to achieve success, no matter what race or sex or religion or however else you people categories individuals. It will be based upon our character and merit… that is unless this “diversity” stuff keeps holding all of us back. So I ask again, why does it seem like I must apologies for being a white male?

Answer:

If you have a passion in life and are sensitive enough to what is going on around you, patterns emerge to give you clarity. Today, I received your email; yesterday, I was speaking at a conference for the construction trade where I apologized to the mostly non-white crowd when I told them that they, the oppressed, were the ones who had to lead their companies out of oppressive behavior. And two days ago, I received an email from a fan who sent me my own words from this Ask the White Guy column I wrote years ago:

Some non-white people do “play the race card.” However, I’ll point out that white people “play the race card” every day of their lives. They may not know it, but they do. Such is the privilege of being white in this country. 

Also read: Ask the White Guy: Why Whites Can’t ‘Get Over’ Color 

The Legacy of Slavery & Racism

The legacy of slavery has benefited every white person in this country—directly and personally. In a very gross analogy, if you run a series of foot races over 300 years but prevent 13 percent of the participants from learning how to run for 180 years and then give them concrete sneakers for another 80 years—but allow them full access for 40 years—it will take the 13 percent quite a few races to be competitive because the other 87 percent advanced their skills by practice and repetition.

Read: Black History Month Facts & Figures

Life is not a foot race, but it is a fact that the average white person would not economically benefit from switching places with an average Black person (Black households average one-tenth the household wealth of white households. Click the image above to view additional factoids). If you believe all people are created equal, there has to be a reason for this—and there is: racism.

The core aspect of your ignorance is the assertion that you did not have “some sort of advantage” or that you were “given a better opportunity.” You are profoundly wrong in that statement.

The animosity you sense being directed at you is due to your behavior, which is shaped by profound lack of knowledge and perspective on how our current national situation has come to pass. You dismiss the very thing that shapes your entire life: white privilege. The fact that you think you can describe your life in absence of racial terms is the pinnacle of white privilege.

Being white means you never have to think about race; you never consider that your application to college will be treated differently; that the police officer stopping you isn’t out for anything more than how fast you were going; that your boss didn’t really mean to insult you to your core when he said “You’re so articulate” or dismiss your entire being by saying “I don’t care if you’re Black, Yellow, Brown, Green or Polka-Dot …”  Read 10 Things Never to Say to a Black Coworker for more.

Shifting Demographics Bring Awareness for Diversity

I am a baby boomer. My generation could get away with being sharp-elbowed in its ignorance of race, gender, orientation, disability and age discrimination and could maneuver just fine in society because America was far less diverse then and people outside the dominant group didn’t have enough political or economic power. Non-white people didn’t see codification of their human and civil rights until after the last baby boomer was born (1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act).

You, my sheltered friend, cannot maintain willful ignorance without detriment to yourself. Because of immigration reform in the mid-1960s, when non-white immigration quotas were lifted for the first time in American history, your generation is where our country crosses into profound diversity. Less than 50 percent of the children born in our country today are white, in contrast to 60 years ago when only one out of nine Americans was not white. 

Corporate Success Through Diversity Management

My publication exists because corporate America has enough of a thirst to understand how to profitably manage this diversity to keep us economically viable. You are an anachronism, and your attitude will sharply reduce your potential for career success in any well-managed company because progressive company leaders understand their fiduciary responsibility to manage diversity. This accountability is discussed explicitly in our Q&A with Ameren CEO Tom Voss:

You cannot have professional success if you think those around you are “hypersensitive.” Here’s a basic fact of life: Your feelings of discomfort are self-inflicted. YOUR behavior must change to lower the “hypersensitivity” that you think is not coming from yourself. It is your responsibility—and your repercussion—that if you continue on your current track, you will simply be sidelined in any organization you find on our DiversityInc Top 50 list.

As it is your responsibility, I will leave it to you to read up on the three-fifths rule in our Constitution, the Civil War, the Jim Crow era, the civil-rights era, and things such as the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I will leave it to you to learn about the prison industrial complex, which, fueled by the 41-year-old “war on drugs,” has resulted in our country imprisoning seven times the per capita average of the rest of the world. Fifty-eight percent of American prisoners are Black and Latino; think about the disproportional impact of this statistic on the families of the innocent.

I’ll leave it to you to read the Pew Research report showing that because of the overt racial targeting of Black and Latino households in the subprime crisis, Black and Latino household wealth (already behind that of white households before the crisis) is now 1/20th and 1/18th the wealth of white households, respectively. I will leave it up to you to learn about the abject failure of public schools that serve the poor. I will leave it to you to discover Frederick Douglass’ wisdom. I will leave it to you to read “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander.

You are grossly insulting and express profound ignorance when you say that everyone has the “same opportunity” and that “character and merit” are the only determining factors. It’s ironic—you don’t have to apologize for being white, but if you develop an understanding of why you feel that dissonance in your soul, you will gain a powerful advantage as you will be able to build allies and broaden your world.

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: ‘I’m a Young White Male; What Do I Have to Apologies (sic) For?’ appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question: Why does leadership get upset when African Americans question the hiring of individuals less qualified than themselves in promotion positions? And why are the individuals labeled “trouble makers?”

Answer: In my observation, there are few words more loaded than “qualification.” I think many qualifications are designed to protect those who are “in the club” from those who are not.

One example of bias that masquerades as a “qualification” is standardized tests, specifically the SAT and ACTs, which act as gatekeepers for the better colleges and universities—and therefore to membership in the middle class. The College Board (the billion-dollar-plus not-for-profit that produces the SATs) issued a report that states “the primary purpose of the SAT is to measure a student’s potential for academic success in college.” The report goes on to say that there IS a correlation between SAT score and first-year success in college (which makes sense if you use the SAT test as a gatekeeper, which most colleges and universities do).

A correlation that the College Board doesn’t promote is that SAT scores also correlate to family wealth. In other words, lower-income families have children who score lower on their SATs; wealthier families have children who score higher. Family wealth has nothing to do with being intelligent or talented but has everything to do with the kind of public school you have access to. Most of our country’s poorer school districts are nothing better than systemized institutions of talent squandering, despite the heroic efforts of some dedicated administrators and teachers, because they are not funded—and held accountable—to properly do the job.

Yet another correlation is that race and wealth are connected in this country. According to a recent Pew Research report, Black and Latino families have one-twentieth and one-eighteenth the household wealth of white households, respectively. This is a figure that has doubled since the subprime crisis, which was primarily caused by criminal predation by mortgage lenders, spurred by demand from Wall Street banks.

So, there is a vicious cycle for poor families, who are disproportionately Black and Latino: First we’ll keep you ignorant. Then we’ll deny you access to better yourself, and then we’ll punish and/or bamboozle you for being poor and ignorant. The pernicious nature of this cycle spills over to all members of a group when the stereotype is reinforced. Dr. Claude Steele describes this as stereotype threat. Watch the video below.

Different Perceptions

Now to answer your question. Before I became better informed, like most white people, I probably would have brushed off your assertion as being paranoid. But if you understand what’s going on (and I have a better grip on this now), the fact is that it’s not paranoia, it’s a real concern that arises from the knowledge that some groups in this country are persistently, perniciously and consistently discriminated against for reasons of race, gender, orientation, religion, age and disability. (There are other factors, but these are the major ones.)

Your situation is difficult; it is almost impossible to discuss an opinion on a subject where there are two very different perceptions of reality. What might be a topic of normal conversation if we are all on similar levels of perception (“Is that color pale green or chartreuse?”) becomes loaded with implications, implied wrongdoing, guilt and emotion. I do not assume your management is racist (they may be, but let’s assume they aren’t for the sake of this point). Therefore, by talking about what is plainly racial bias to you and invisible to your management, you are coming up against their reality, which is based on white privilege. Having grown up never worrying about race, white people have the privilege of never thinking about it from a personal perspective. Therefore, we cannot possibly truly understand what it means to have to think about it all the time. I have dedicated my life’s work to understanding diversity, but, in America, I cannot possibly understand what it means to be aware that every situation I’m in is fraught with potential discrimination based on the color of my skin.

Are You a ‘Troublemaker’?

When you challenge or question decisions where race (or privilege) is a factor, you are shaking the very foundations of what most white people believe to be true: that our country is a meritocracy, that we all compete equally and that the outcome is fair. But it’s not, and, although you wanted to discuss inequity in promotions, what you ended up doing was challenging the core of your leadership’s grounding in reality, which made you a “troublemaker” in their eyes. You wouldn’t be a “troublemaker” in an organization that is run to optimize performance because part of that optimization is diversity education, the tools to make opportunity equitably distributed (like employee-resource groups and mentoring)—and accountability for equitable talent management.

Frederick Douglass said, “No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.” However, it is an ironic fact of life that the oppressed must lead the oppressor out of oppression. You would think that feeling the chain around our collective necks—the failure to thrive of the very Black and Latino youth that will soon be more than half the children in our country—would lead us to action, but it takes a precipitating factor (for example, photographs of Bloody Sunday to move Lyndon Johnson to meet with Dr. King to try and solve the problem of civil injustice).

This doesn’t mean, however, that you have an obligation to do this in your current job. I can tell you that the environment is better in DiversityInc Top 50 companies. You’re a professional in the medical industry—look at our list of top 5 hospitals. Check out our career center. No place is perfect, but you can put yourself on a more equitable path by picking a more progressive place to build your career. In a well-run company, equity in hiring, talent development and retention is measured and leaders are held accountable.

People are given the tools to manage a diverse workforce and develop business relationships with people who are “different.” Not because they sing “Kumbaya” in the board room, but because talent is equitably distributed—and therefore, proper leadership makes sure its human assets are treated equally and are managed to optimum performance. It’s about profitability and sustainability, and better-run companies have more opportunities for all people, not just underrepresented people.

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: Black Troublemaker or Honest Broker? 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.

Question:
So in order for someone to be racist, they must be a minority in the entire country? What about places where blacks predominate like Detroit and D.C. where they hold the political power? Can they be racist there? You avoided the question. Are you telling me racism is related to national power and percentages of the overall population rather than the actions of individuals at a local level?

By the way, if you want to solve the “problem” of white privilege, then how about removing all the non-white people from the USA? Then everyone would be white and there would be no assumed benefit of being white.

This of course would happen instantaneously and without anyone ever even noticing the loss of this privilege particularly since it never existed in the first place.

Answer:
White people comprise the dominant culture in our country. Dominance is what racism is based on. The fact that some local areas are predominantly black, or have black political leaders, is meaningless.

There’s no “problem” with white privilege. It exists. The beauty of white privilege is that white people can apply it to help non-white people and their white privilege is not diminished as a result.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I have a question for you: Why are you torturing yourself by reading this website?

The post What Is White Privilege? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
A situation I have always wondered about is the preponderance of companies that have instituted work-force diversity programs and the conflict of “true work-force diversity” with white privilege. Let me explain. White privilege suggests that as a white executive, my children, nieces, nephews are able to benefit from the legacy of white dominance that has helped me (the white executive) benefit in corporate America.

Now introduce work-force diversity. This notion threatens that legacy. My children, nieces and nephews now have to compete with new “diverse” players that I never had to compete with. Note that I’m not white but am using the first person for effect. In any event, as the “White Guy,” tell me your thoughts about this conflict and how the White Guy feels about this.Thanks for your response.

Answer:
Many white people perceive a problem (reverse discrimination), but I don’t think it exists.

Considering our changing demographics and globalizing economy, not considering diversity means that a company is going to draw talent from a decreasing pool. This is a losing proposition. Sustainable organizations incorporate the best talent they can find and effectively engage the marketplace as it exists.

Companies on the DiversityInc Top 50 employ 5 percent of the American work force but 17 percent of college educated people of color. They don’t do this to be nice, they’re hiring the mix of people they feel will best help them deal with their business.

White people have more to fear from working for, supplying or investing in a company that ignores diversity than one that embraces it.

Most white people don’t “get it” because they frame the world through their own filters. That’s why you hear white people say things like “I’m colorblind” or “You’re normal” (as a “compliment” to a non-white/straight/non-disabled person).

All people have their own way of looking at things depending on who they are, but the benefit of being white (and straight and without disabilities) is that you never have to consider someone else’s filters.

Most white people go through a good deal of pain and frustration when they see spots they assumed were “theirs” go to people who don’t look like them. I’d say that many (most?) white people think that most people of color in positions of authority are not qualified to hold them.

In my opinion, this is a byproduct of not wanting to face the truth about why things are the way they are. It rubs against white-guy culture, which takes pride in the opinion that everything is a meritocracy. Just listen to Rush Limbaugh for a few days.

I think I’ll pull myself up by my bootstraps and go get some aspirin.

The post Does Reverse Discrimination Exist? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
Why do you think white Americans ignore their “white privilege” that is a direct result of the history of slavery in this country? For example, I often hear whites comment, “I didn’t own any slaves … so why do I owe an apology/money/etc?” I just want to scream, “Yeah, but you ALL directly benefit from it.”

Answer:

Most people do not think of “history” beyond their own experience. I would also say that my enlightenment has also led me to understand that the history I was taught was “whitewashed.”

Although you’re absolutely right about all white people benefiting from white privilege, most white people have never given it a thought.

Although there are bigots out there, the underpinnings of comments like “I didn’t own any slaves” are almost always ignorance, not bigotry.

The post Why Do White Americans Ignore Their ‘White Privilege’? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
Since you are aware of your white privilege, how has your walk in life changed? When you are in situations where it is clear that your whiteness has availed you a benefit, do you do anything differently?

It is good that the diverse candidate is hired, but I’ve seen a lot of turnover as well. Why is it once the person is hired, the company can’t figure out how to retain him/her? I’ve seen in some areas of business where there are “arm candy” diverse candidates. By “arm candy” I mean that they are allowed to fill the work space but are denied the opportunity to learn the business or increase their knowledge to retain marketability. In your opinion, what should these candidates do to change this issue without being blacklisted or worse?

Answer:
I’ve addressed the first part of your question in other Ask the White Guy answers. DiversityInc was founded without outside investors nine years ago. We have dedicated our lives to this.

Regarding the second part of your question, engagement is the focus of the January issue of DiversityInc magazine.

As far as “arm candy,” you’re making a good point, one that demonstrates the difference in performance among corporations. Companies in the DiversityInc Top 50 have significantly better organizational development for all people, as documented by the data we collect.

The post ‘Arm Candy’ Employees and White Privilege appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
It appears that you are familiar with the ways that racism, white privilege and institutionalized oppression play out in the wide world. Do you think that if you were a person of color you would be getting the type of airspace, publicity that you are getting now?

How will you utilize your power and position for good, to eliminate bias and allow the voices of the oppressed and people of color be validated and heard by the larger white masses?

Answer:
Yes, it is clearly easier for a white person to be successful in media (in the U.S.). However, regardless of race, it takes talent, business acumen and commitment. I’m sure great publishers like Mr. Earl Graves and other talented media entrepreneurs of color would agree with that.

Since your identity and company name will not be shown to our audience, I will note that your company has never competed for a spot on our DiversityInc Top 50 list, does not advertise with us or post jobs in our career center. I do not see them represented at any of the diversity events I go to. There is no “diversity” area on your corporate web site and no statement of diversity ethics or practice. I looked up your company in Hoovers and saw no apparent representation in your top management (nor in the personal activities in their bios). Your industry has some leaders in diversity, so you may want to consider who is benefiting from your labor and if that’s appropriate for your beliefs.

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