Here’s a funny / horrifying story from the Washington Post news section about how the federal government hands out lucrative racial privileges to nonwhites for making up narratives about white evilness:
Your essay could be titled: “The True Story of a Survivor of Institutionalized Racism: How I Discovered the Relationship Between Efforts and Outcomes.”
I’m my experience, most of the applicants who are incentivized to recast their history as a story of heroic struggle against victimization are simply opportunistic liars. No one checks their fictions, leave alone their distortion. Adopted, abandoned, crack addict parents. All fictive. None checked. However, it’s also easy to see that when a person is paid to describe the glass as 1 percent empty that one percent looks bigger and bigger every time you rewrite the narrative and get paid. Simple cognitive dissonance. One must say to themselves either “I’m an opportunistic liar happy to exploit others”, OR “I really am a deserving victim.” I’d like to see the percentage of white businessmen and college students admitted under the victimhood story method. Bottom line: Water the weeds and you’ll have more weeds.
According to this article in the WSJ, some places are simply ignoring the changes in the law:
“… there is evidence that many universities have engaged in outright racial preferences under the aegis of DEI. Hundreds of documents that I acquired through public-records requests provide a rare paper trail of universities closely scrutinizing the race of faculty job applicants. The practice not only appears widespread; it is encouraged and funded by the federal government.
At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a large hiring initiative targets specific racial groups—promising to hire 18 to 20 scientists “who are Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Pacific Islander.” Discussing a related University of New Mexico program, one professor quipped in an email, “I don’t want to hire white men for sure.”
Infuriating. The worst part is they ABSOLUTELY come to believe their own snot, and a lot of them don't even need to "come around" to it, they're narcissistic enough to believe little "microaggressions" such as meritocratic promotions are on par with lynching and burning crosses.
If it was really a good idea, it wouldn’t need to be falsely labeled. Nothing “affirmative” about government sponsored racism. Reminds me of the current mislabeling of the state enforced genital mutilation of children as “gender affirming care”.
Quote: “In the blog, she acknowledged the challenge posed by false Indigenous identity claims and reminded staff of their commitment to prevent misrepresentation.
"This is a challenge that can be addressed, in part, by raising awareness and encouraging those who might falsely claim to be Indigenous to find their own authentic identity," reads the blog.”
The problem is their “authentic identity” won’t result in financial advantages coming their way.
No matter how cynical I think I've become, stuff like this still makes my jaw drop. I should know by now this type of chicanery exists, but it really is hard for me to keep in my head that anyone could concoct such a scheme. In a Vonnegut novel it would seem over the top.
I think it speaks to a structural imbalance between the right and the left. There's a sort of moral object-impermanence that the right doesn't grow out of. When we turn around and go about the rest of our lives, it's simply impossible for many of us too grasp that the lefties outside our field of view are returning to their failed social engineering schemes, "as a dog returns to his vomit."
I have a similar story to share. In a former job, one of my company's clients was a "minority-owned" business that supplied materials to a large manufacturer. That large manufacturer got to tout how they supported minority-owned businesses, and I believe got a tax break.
The minority-owned business, I'm sad to say, was not well run. The contacts it negotiated with the large manufacturer were incredibly tilted in the manufacturer's favor. The minority-owned business was a small business (relatively speaking) that really had no legitimate basis for being a supplier to such a manufacturer (there were plenty of suppliers of said material who were much larger, more dependable operations) and had zero leverage to renegotiate or obtain better terms. The large manufacturer was going to pay them what they paid large suppliers for the same material - needless to say, thanks to economies of scale, this put the minority-owned business in a losing position.
And I do mean, losing position. They lost money on sales to their only customer. The only way they were to make up that gap was to sell scrapped materials - They got a better price selling scrap than to their customer! See, when you sell a material with a highly variable market price - getting strongarmed by your customer into a long-term agreement with specified pricing that they refuse to renegotiate until it expires is an incredibly shitty position to be in.
To top it all off? None of the actual management or leadership were "people of color" - from all appearances (this was my read-between-the-lines understanding, fwiw) a group of white investors found themselves a silent, but notably black partner who's role with day-to-day operations was never clear to me. But, whoo boy, was his picture all over their lobby glad-handing important people in photos. Just a scam, all around.
I’ve seen it a hundred times. When you subtract out the fake owners and the well off overt liars and those who have refashioned a false post incentive racial identity, there’s little to nothing left over for the people the program was (even hypothetically) supposed to benefit.
Don’t forget to throw in all the times you were victimized by other races.
Your essay could be titled: “The True Story of a Survivor of Institutionalized Racism: How I Discovered the Relationship Between Efforts and Outcomes.”
But most of the discrimination was against Badwhites, so it was OK.
Badwhites is redundant.
Not according to Goodwhites.
I’m my experience, most of the applicants who are incentivized to recast their history as a story of heroic struggle against victimization are simply opportunistic liars. No one checks their fictions, leave alone their distortion. Adopted, abandoned, crack addict parents. All fictive. None checked. However, it’s also easy to see that when a person is paid to describe the glass as 1 percent empty that one percent looks bigger and bigger every time you rewrite the narrative and get paid. Simple cognitive dissonance. One must say to themselves either “I’m an opportunistic liar happy to exploit others”, OR “I really am a deserving victim.” I’d like to see the percentage of white businessmen and college students admitted under the victimhood story method. Bottom line: Water the weeds and you’ll have more weeds.
When I read your first two sentences, I assumed you were referring to Obama :)
Great example. Privileged Ivy League legacy kid who retools entire identity in harmony with the incentives du jour.
According to this article in the WSJ, some places are simply ignoring the changes in the law:
“… there is evidence that many universities have engaged in outright racial preferences under the aegis of DEI. Hundreds of documents that I acquired through public-records requests provide a rare paper trail of universities closely scrutinizing the race of faculty job applicants. The practice not only appears widespread; it is encouraged and funded by the federal government.
At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a large hiring initiative targets specific racial groups—promising to hire 18 to 20 scientists “who are Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Pacific Islander.” Discussing a related University of New Mexico program, one professor quipped in an email, “I don’t want to hire white men for sure.”
Archived link:
https://archive.ph/OqB0r
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-dei-becomes-discrimination-academia-higher-education-research-race-1e411be4
Good article by John Sailer.
Great, Steve. Screwed up incentives to air ethnic and racial grievances, be highly rewarded for it … … you are 100% one of the few NOT lying!
Infuriating. The worst part is they ABSOLUTELY come to believe their own snot, and a lot of them don't even need to "come around" to it, they're narcissistic enough to believe little "microaggressions" such as meritocratic promotions are on par with lynching and burning crosses.
Great, Steve. Screwed up incentives … air ethnic and racial grievances, be highly rewarded for it …
South African's are begging for white rule.
Affirmative Action good idea taken too far or just plain bad idea?
Good intentions are the road to (fill in the blank).
My theory.
Just another way to control who has power.
If I deem you special I can also deem you not special.
There's that word again. Control.
Yup
LBJ could read the writing on the inside of KKK hoods.
If it was really a good idea, it wouldn’t need to be falsely labeled. Nothing “affirmative” about government sponsored racism. Reminds me of the current mislabeling of the state enforced genital mutilation of children as “gender affirming care”.
OT
From Canada: "'Growing tension' inside the public service over Indigenous self-identification"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-identity-public-service-1.7254555
Quote: “In the blog, she acknowledged the challenge posed by false Indigenous identity claims and reminded staff of their commitment to prevent misrepresentation.
"This is a challenge that can be addressed, in part, by raising awareness and encouraging those who might falsely claim to be Indigenous to find their own authentic identity," reads the blog.”
The problem is their “authentic identity” won’t result in financial advantages coming their way.
No matter how cynical I think I've become, stuff like this still makes my jaw drop. I should know by now this type of chicanery exists, but it really is hard for me to keep in my head that anyone could concoct such a scheme. In a Vonnegut novel it would seem over the top.
I think it speaks to a structural imbalance between the right and the left. There's a sort of moral object-impermanence that the right doesn't grow out of. When we turn around and go about the rest of our lives, it's simply impossible for many of us too grasp that the lefties outside our field of view are returning to their failed social engineering schemes, "as a dog returns to his vomit."
Maybe AI will fix all of the Racism...we humans aren't doing so well at this. Wait. AI is "man made intelligence"?
I have a similar story to share. In a former job, one of my company's clients was a "minority-owned" business that supplied materials to a large manufacturer. That large manufacturer got to tout how they supported minority-owned businesses, and I believe got a tax break.
The minority-owned business, I'm sad to say, was not well run. The contacts it negotiated with the large manufacturer were incredibly tilted in the manufacturer's favor. The minority-owned business was a small business (relatively speaking) that really had no legitimate basis for being a supplier to such a manufacturer (there were plenty of suppliers of said material who were much larger, more dependable operations) and had zero leverage to renegotiate or obtain better terms. The large manufacturer was going to pay them what they paid large suppliers for the same material - needless to say, thanks to economies of scale, this put the minority-owned business in a losing position.
And I do mean, losing position. They lost money on sales to their only customer. The only way they were to make up that gap was to sell scrapped materials - They got a better price selling scrap than to their customer! See, when you sell a material with a highly variable market price - getting strongarmed by your customer into a long-term agreement with specified pricing that they refuse to renegotiate until it expires is an incredibly shitty position to be in.
To top it all off? None of the actual management or leadership were "people of color" - from all appearances (this was my read-between-the-lines understanding, fwiw) a group of white investors found themselves a silent, but notably black partner who's role with day-to-day operations was never clear to me. But, whoo boy, was his picture all over their lobby glad-handing important people in photos. Just a scam, all around.
I’ve seen it a hundred times. When you subtract out the fake owners and the well off overt liars and those who have refashioned a false post incentive racial identity, there’s little to nothing left over for the people the program was (even hypothetically) supposed to benefit.
I suspect knowledge of how SBA loans work for BIPOC was one of the things that spurred PPP fraud