Thread: Racial diversity programs need to go away , Webb

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Sen. Jim Webb called for ending government-run diversity programs in a newspaper column Friday, saying they have disadvantaged struggling whites and hurt the cause of racial harmony.

Webb wrote an op-ed column in Friday's Wall Street Journal that said a "plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future."

Webb's press secretary, Jessica Smith, said Friday that the senator felt the column speaks for itself and that he would not comment further.

As an author, Webb expressed misgivings about how affirmative action programs have grown beyond their initial intent in two of his books, "Born Fighting" and "A Time to Fight."

Federal diversity programs now primarily benefit new immigrants over whites and even black Americans, their original beneficiaries, wrote Webb, D-Va.

"In an odd historical twist that all Americans see but few can understand, many programs allow recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites whose families have been in the country for generations," he wrote.

"The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed," he wrote.

Immigrants from Asia, Latin America and Africa in recent decades knew no such discrimination from the government, he wrote, "and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs. The same cannot be said of many hardworking white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years."

Such programs should end, Webb concluded, except for "our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need."

The column raises the issue of ethnic and racial sensitivity that helped Webb win his Senate seat in 2006, after Republican Sen. George Allen called a Webb aide of Indian descent "macaca," a slur in some cultures.

Should Webb seek a second term in 2012, he could face a rematch with Allen, who wants his Senate seat back.

Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor who endorsed Webb four years ago, criticized the column and challenged Webb to produce the data he used to conclude that diversity initiatives should end.

"If it's not for the civil rights movement and diversity programs, he would not be a United States senator today," Wilder said, referring to minority support that helped Webb beat Allen by about 9,000 votes.

"Things are tough enough without having people you thought were friends do things like this," Wilder said.

There was no immediate reply to telephone requests for comment from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or the Democratic National Committee.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 9856.story

Driving in Prince George's County MD, I saw a sign that said your reinvestment dollars at work, and a white guy was supervising and the rest all hispanics--about 6--were working on the road. Not one black in a majority black county.

Amen to that. It has been going on long enough now that some people have had their entire lives marginalized by not being the right race. I myself used to do the work of 3 in hopes of receiving recognition, promotion, training, etc., but my co-workers warned me that it was not going to be appreciated and they were so right. When I left they had to hire 3 people to replace me. Wonder what lies they made up to excuse that? One of the things that gripes me about it is that if I am in a group of all whites I will be marginalized due to my heritage - so I fit nowhere. I get racism from all corners, all sides. When I confront militant minorities on their treatment of me they justify it by saying that I look white enough that as far as they are concerned I have had the benefit of being white when I do not believe that I have benefited at all.

And to think that now the feds are giving minorities 6 VOTES in some towns so they can be sure to elect MINORITIES to key positions.

racial diversity is nothing more then a WEDGE between peoples.......

Federal diversity programs now primarily benefit new immigrants over whites and even black Americans, their original beneficiaries, wrote Webb, D-Va.[quote]

Senator Webb is so right. Whites are particularity marginalized. This has been going on for some time and has only gotten worse. It is the same for many blacks in this country. I am glad to see someone in the government finally make a statement about this.
Now if someone would finally make a statement about the Government putting illegal aliens before the citizens of this country.

Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege by James Webb
http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1094958.html#1094958


Jim Webb's case against racial preferences
Examiner Editorial
July 27, 2010

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb wrote a sensible and courageous op-ed for the Wall Street Journal last week about the myth of white dominance. (Steve Helber/AP file)


Hysteria over Shirley Sherrod last week unfortunately overshadowed a sensible, courageous and long overdue analysis of racial politics by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Webb put to rest the myth of white dominance that has "served as the whipping post for almost every debate about power and status in America." Because of government-sponsored "diversity" policies, he wrote, white workers have become marginalized to serve an overbroad effort to make up for past wrongs.

Webb rightly notes that the old South was a three-tiered society, "with blacks and hard-put whites both dominated by white elites who manipulated racial tensions in order to maintain power." He might have added that white elites used populist rhetoric to keep an entire third of the region's population disenfranchised, in effect also making the Southern economy "backward."

This kind of poverty -- the effect of the Civil War combined with harmful Jim Crow laws -- was hard to reverse. Because government was responsible, only government could reverse itself 50 years later. To remedy the legacy of Jim Crow, Webb argued, government instituted diversity programs that have grown far beyond their original purpose and "now favor anyone who does not happen to be white."

This is progress, of course, and should not be mistaken as moral equivalence. Affirmative action and the pursuit of diversity is not a new form of Jim Crow. But these policies have overshot their mark by adversely affecting another group of people, namely poor whites, who have enough working against them, particularly in this recession. It's bad enough to have the economy weighing you down; it's worse when the government uses you to atone for sins you didn't commit.

That a Democrat would come out with such a statement is remarkable too, given they party's support for these policies. But this Democrat is different. Webb has frequently been accused of "sounding like a Republican" when it comes to racial preferences, but Republicans could only wish that were true. Many Republicans have been tin-eared in this area, a factor that played a big role in Webb's win against incumbent Sen. George Allen, R-Va., who casually and insensitively referred to a Democrat operative with a racial pejorative at a campaign event.

Webb's argument is rooted in a genuine desire to get past the "gotcha" politics of race and the unintended consequences of racial guilt. With luck and good sense, the nation will follow suit.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... tml#ixzz0u