Minority Politics

After hearing a rather interesting news blip on NPR the other day, I decided to do a bit of surfing and see what was going on. I was driving somewhere, and the NPR newsreader did a very quick passing mention of a library that had identified White Men as the minority that they would be discussing in that weeks discussion (I think this month is supposed to be some sort of “acknowledge a minority for PC” month or something like that).

This one sentence news story got me thinking. Statistically, white guys are almost certainly a minority. China probably claims the top ranking for number of people (that would be the Chinese), and I think Indians are probably in second. Could be wrong on the Indian one though. No matter how you slice it though, if you count up all the white guys, and then count up everyone else, the white guys are gonna definitely NOT be the biggest racial population. As far as the whole male thing, chicks have outnumbered the guys for a long time.

OK, so now things get really interesting. See, here in the USA, we’ve got all kinds of minority entitlement programs. These programs are supposed to make up for some sort of deficiency that minorities have that makes it impossible for them to compete against the majority. TO make up fro the deficiency, universities have lower entrance requirements for minorities, many financial assistance programs target minorities, and certain minorities (but not all) are allowed to have exclusive “(insert minority here) clubs”.

really. While the women have been going crazy taking the knights of Columbus, the elks, and other fraternal organizations to court to force them to admit women, most college campuses have black-only clubs, women only clubs, and so on. I’ve never seen a white boys only club, and don’t ever expect to – if one was ever created, the other minorities would go crazy and tear it apart. So here’s the question: If the white male minority is treated differently from other (more politically correct) minorities, what ever happened to equal rights?

In an interesting turnabout, the women’s, black, asian, gay, etc etc etc minority groups that have been lobbying for inclusion in all aspects of the white male world are the very same organizations that are claiming that THEY have to have exclusive (meaning only members of their minority are allowed) organizations, clubs, and so on. Not only that, but they argue that it would be discriminatory to extend the same special programs and privileges that they get as minorities to white guys. Because in their minds, discrimination is OK as long as it doesn’t take away their special status.

Now, I’m somewhat realistic, and I know that white guys aren’t ever going to get equal treatment, but wouldn’t it be cool if people who claim to fight for ‘equality’ really did?

Then, when you see a gay black woman in a high paying job, you wouldn’t have to wonder if she was actually qualified, or was just filling an Equal Opportunity Employer position? And before you get your shorts in a knot, this does happen. Frequently.  I’ve worked at companies where it was openly admitted that certain staff members were hired specifically because of their race, and everyone knew that the people in question were given do-nothing jobs because they simply weren’t qualified for anything else. In the worst cases, even the EOE hire knew it, and for years sat there sucking up a big fat paycheck while doing nothing – simply for belonging to the right minority (one particular woman collected a six figure salary, and her job was to go through the corporate phone bill every month and make sure that the company phone log matched the one the phone company gave us – about 2 seconds of work for a computer). Come to think of it, maybe the white guys ARE better off without equal rights…….