From "No one wins in the race race/Biden’s picks for cabinet and staff have been scrutinized almost solely in accordance with their ‘diversity’" by Lionel Shriver (The Spectator).
December 12, 2020
"Think-tank Brookings has posted pie charts of previous administrations’ appointees (white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Indian and Arab), the better to keep track of whether Biden will beat his predecessors in the race race."
"Last week, the NAACP and black Congressional leaders voiced their disappointment that only one of the eight cabinet appointees whom Biden had so far announced was black — despite the fact that black Americans constitute just about exactly one-eighth of the population (if we’re going to be that way — and it seems we are).... Races, sexes, sexual identity cadres and the disabled are being incentivized to operate like trade unions or lobbying factions, whose interests are mutually exclusive and whose relations are therefore, if you will, structurally hostile. We’ve grown so numbly accustomed to raising category over character that we’re forgetting how depressingly regressive this primitive tribal mindset is."
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93 comments:
Because that is important.
/sarc
Races, sexes, sexual identity cadres and the disabled are being incentivized to operate like trade unions or lobbying factions, whose interests are mutually exclusive and whose relations are therefore, if you will, structurally hostile. We’ve grown so numbly accustomed to raising category over character that we’re forgetting how depressingly regressive this primitive tribal mindset is."
He almost gets it, he just can't connect the last dot. "Races, sexes, sexual identity cadres and the disabled are being incentivized to operate like tribes whose interests are mutually exclusive and whose relations are therefore, if you will, structurally hostile." It's the oldest trick in the book, divide and conquer. Everything about the "progressive" movement is regressive.
makes China and Russia happy!
After the explosion of international self-abasement over George Floyd’s killing
Well, "they" got her snowed. I rather enjoy Shriver but I won't read articles which contain, much less start with, such a stupid false statement.
Harris will remedy that when she starts firing and hiring. She'll go progressive character. If you want a progressive agenda implemented, get a white guy who wants to implement it.
They can put all blacks in his cabinet, and it still won't change the fact that they cheated to win the White House, and have tainted many Americans trust in any institution in DC. When the trust is gone, America dies.
Just about exactly right.
Diversity as it is usually practiced is a focus on entirely superficial characteristics, especially as related to the job or position the person is being hired to do. My employer has a prominent campaign to pursue diversity in hiring, along the superficial categories of race, gender, sexual identity, etc. They even employ a Diversity Officer (Senior Vice President), who is a black person that identifies as a woman.
The only reason this is done, that makes any sense to me, is to mollify and coddle the diversity advocates. My employer also does it to protect against lawsuits - I suspect this is true but have no specific knowledge that it is.
As Biden is finding out, you can't make them all happy about your choices, even if you are just about exactly right in the proportional representations.
Fuck Joe Biden. Fuck Kamala Harris. Fuck the democrat party. Fuck anybody that voted for any of ‘em. Not my president. Resist. War.
Also fuck the Republican Party. Basically the most gaping vagina organization in this country’s history while I’m at it.
"He almost gets it, he just can't connect the last dot."
Please tick the right box.
"Shriver was born Margaret Ann Shriver on May 18, 1957, in Gastonia, North Carolina, to a deeply religious family.... At age 15, she changed her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel because she did not like the name she had been given, and as a tomboy felt a conventionally male name more appropriate."
So you're wrong about the "he."
You're also wrong to say the last dot isn't connected. I can't imagine how you came to believe that YOU were making the last connection. Some whacked-out vanity there.
If they're not the ones who are calling the shots, does it make any difference who's filling the slots?
While representing a diverse array of genders, colors and identities, all Biden's choices will be united in the zealous pursuit of enriching themselves in office.
Are all male choices OK? Its important to figure out if Skin Color diversity is now a requirement. Asking for a friend.
Back to blood, as Tom Wolfe said.
So does anyone expect the white male tribe to remain quiescent?
Maybe Brookings will do the race analysis to the CFR's membership list,
https://www.cfr.org/membership/roster
Scotus's "lack of standing" I'm pretty sure was a penis joke.
My favorite pick so far in the Harris administration is Susan Rice. She checks off several diversity boxes: Female, Black, Pathological Liar.
That 15 billion dollar investment by qatar was worth it.
I don't watch much TV, but from the commercials I see it seems that 75% of the population is "of color". White men do not exist except as objects of derision.
Am I missing something?
You're also wrong to say the last dot isn't connected. I can't imagine how you came to believe that YOU were making the last connection. Some whacked-out vanity there.
Mote. Eye.
"We’ve grown so numbly accustomed to raising category over character that we’re forgetting how depressingly regressive this primitive tribal mindset is."
True, but a tad naive. Divide and pander is part of prog strategy, the better to rule the deplorables and devastate the culture.
The Diversity Derby is a way of keeping the press beast fed so reporters won't ask questions that might be inconvenient for Biden. Not that they want to, but a news drought might make them. The journalists have to justify their salaries and fill news hours and column inches and Joe can't go for ice cream every day or get a new pet every week, so this gives them something to "report."
P.S. I guess We Need To Talk About Lionel: she isn't a man.
I think there’s an implicit message in the the concept of equal representation based on category.
And it amounts to this: we’ve long since given up on the idea that government can in anyway do anything that makes our lives better.
And having reached that point, the best we can hope for is to be treated badly by someone we identify with.
Seen somewhere on the Internet:
2020 America is a maggot-ridden corpse. The Left is rooting for the maggots, and the Right is rooting for the corpse.
We are a stupid country, run by stupid people elected by stupid people.
Achilles said...
So does anyone expect the white male tribe to remain quiescent?
White males didn't just allow this to happen. They insisted on it.
If we are going to have diversity, let us have real diversity: rigid numerical quotas for all positions everywhere.
And let's not focus on just a few things. The quota classes should include at least race and ethnicity, sex and gender identification, religious affiliation, political affiliation, economic class, and any other you like.
So, for example, Harvard's student body and faculty would consist of: 70% whites, 15% Hispanics, 12% blacks, 2% Jews, 2% Muslims, 50% men, 50% women, 1% transgender, 2% homosexuals, 30% Catholics, 40% Republicans, 40% Democrats,... I would apply this to every department in Harvard, too. The Women/Gender studies program would be 50% male and 30% Catholic. Black studies would be 70% white.
I would go further. Faculty hiring and student admission should be by lottery--NO examinations, essays or any other part of the current admissions process. Admission officers and staff would be eliminated.
Instead all prospective faculty and students would go into two national pools. Universities would request from the pool administrators faculty with certain academic specialties and a certain number of entering students. The administrators of the pools would run a randomized, computerized assignment of new faculty and students to the school requesting them. The schools would have to accept the assignments.
The essence is randomness of hiring and admission and lack of choice by the school.
Now that is a fair and unbiased system.
Diversity of the incompetent. https://www.city-journal.org/achievement-gap-explains-demographic-disparities
By my count so far it's about 4-5 blacks, 6-7 white Jewish, 1-2 other white person, couple Hispanics so it reflects Dem power structure but not the country.
"Pie chart" ... so White and heteronormative.
Go with a graph, if that's not too Eurocentric.
Haven't read a word, but I'm jumping in to just say thanks for posting anything from Lionel Shriver.
There are few greater pleasures than finding someone who sees the world as you do. Better even, someone that also writes beautifully. Repeatedly. Going to read it now.
Imagine hiring cabinet level people based on just the color of their skin, or whether or not they had a penis, or how they prefer to use the penis (or not) if they have one (or not).
Imagine approving applications to med school based on this. Law school. Universities for undergrad. Corporate positions, Board positions, engineers, teachers, airline pilots, mail carriers and all government positions. Journalists! News readers. Tech HR Directors. ALL HR directors. Congresspeople. Presidents. Vice Presidents.
Imagine our world today, as messed up as it's ever been and you see the results of it.
If you peel off one identity group after another, you're going to end up with a group of....non-elite whites who feel put upon. I don't know what Trump was thinking; whether it was a plan or if he found a tool on the ground begging to be used. It goes back to bitter clingers, and deplorables. It goes back to slagging the South. The South is small town white people without college degrees. Small town white people without college degrees also live north of the Ohio River. And other white people without college degrees live in the 'burbs and cities.
Decades ago, Edsall & Edsall wrote a book on liberalism. It was so long ago that they could expect their readers to recall Teddy Kennedy's run for democrat primary.
In it, they referred to the white cop passed over for promotion to sergeant by a black cop with lower scores. The woman whose children are bused to distant and unfamiliar neighborhoods. The third shift nurse raped in the parking lot by somebody just let out of prison. The early commuters harassed on the subway by the recently released mental cases. They said, for some, the promises of liberalism hadn't materialized.
It doesn't even take being the direct victim of liberalism, but the knowledge that this is happening, which is going to annoy the non-elite white people without college degrees who, as a topper, aren't allowed to talk about it for fear of being accused of vile moral crimes
Can progressivism maintain the balance of keeping other identity groups at odds and still rally them as a single force against the non-elite whites?
Blogger Rory said...
If they're not the ones who are calling the shots, does it make any difference who's filling the slots?
Bingo ! The Deep State will run everything. The appointees are pure virtue signaling.
Brookings is a cesspit of left-wing narcissists who think that only your skin color and sexual identity matter. Not the content of your characters.
In our neck of the woods we have this kerfluffle.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1337579645361938432
Lionel Shriver is a treasure. I have read all her books.
He was in grad school with paula broadwell
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/nawaf-obaid(b89cdd65-5cee-46fe-85b3-aac9176b7193).html
Eisenhauer choosing leadership for the D-Day invasion:
"Hey where's that transgender guy? Call HR quick"
"I thought we picked a black chick to lead the air attack?. You screwed up general."
"I don't see any native Americans in this War Room. Go find one."
"What will the press think?"
The Democrats/Progressive/Liberals are stepping up their efforts to turn back modernity's focus on the individual to the ancien regime's group identity as being defining. They do seem to realize that this leads to civil war by their reaction when deplorable working class/whites start to organize as interest group(s). A cabinet formed by allotment may force this danger out into the open where Americans will reject it.
"The parties of special interests, which see nothing more in politics than the securing of privileges and prerogatives for their own groups, not only make the parliamentary system impossible; they rupture the unity of the state and of society. They lead not merely to the crisis of parliamentarism, but to a general political and social crisis. Society cannot, in the long run, exist if it is divided into sharply defined groups, each intent on wresting special privileges for its own members, continually on the alert to see that it does not suffer any setback, and prepared, at any moment, to sacrifice the most important political institutions for the sake of winning some petty advantage."
--Mises, Ludwig von (1927). Liberalism (pp. 175-176)
Racists.
Headline in 2021: Harris Administration scores historic first with 100% minority Cabinet
I’d rather have an ethnically diverse incompetent cabinet than just a blandly incompetent one.
No orange people represented in this cabinet so far.
USSOCOM
@USSOCOM
“Diversity and inclusion requires action. It requires decisions and it requires leaders that must put themselves out there and must make purposeful decisions,” Gen. Richard Clarke, commander, USSOCOM speaking at Tampa ROCKS, Inc. over the weekend. Diversity strengthens #SOF.
9:29 AM · Dec 10, 2020·
Popcorn time. They will be threatening and shaking down each for the foreseeable future. Leaders with no real responsibility don’t stay long, just long enough to grab some cash, so it will be one resignation after the other. They know how to cheat, and won’t confine it to Dem-Republican races.
Yes, it is much easier for a governmental elite to dominate society if the latter is broken up into discrete and mutually hostile groups than if "we're all in this together" and people live their own lives, associate freely (or not), and respect each other. All the forms of totalitarian socialism - syndicalism, communism, fascism - have understood this. It is only the useful idiots who support them early on who don't understand, often until it is too late.
He will appoint who ever Xi approves of.
Phil 314 said...
I’d rather have an ethnically diverse incompetent cabinet than just a blandly incompetent one
Me: Why?
That makes you a racist in my book. Most qualified, not chosen by the color of their skin or genitalia
"What will the press think?"
That line does sound like Eisenhower.
Ann Althouse said...
>>Please tick the right box.
"Shriver was born Margaret Ann Shriver on May 18, 1957, in Gastonia, North Carolina, to a deeply religious family.... At age 15, she changed her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel because she did not like the name she had been given, and as a tomboy felt a conventionally male name more appropriate."
So you're wrong about the "he."<<
Oh right. We should all be sure to check Wikipedia for that kind of shit each time before we comment on an article written by anyone with a distinctly male or female name.
That is Margaret's problem, not Gahrie's.
Is there an ethnic pie chart for the staff at the Brookings Institute?
The correct pronoun for all humans (or thereabouts) is shim.
This person is a shim.
Althouse is also a shim.
If we're going to bastardize the language, then I am just the bastard to do it right.
"We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."
- Joe Biden
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7OG_1sb-rjY&feature=youtu.be
We’ve grown so numbly accustomed to raising category over character that we’re forgetting how depressingly regressive this primitive tribal mindset is."
Now that's funny. Use the tactic against others, then as the standard is applied to you admit it's inappropriate. The key to understanding the left's lack of principle is that the next L v R contest she will revert to the original framing.
America has become neurotically obsessed with race. This will be an interesting time to look back on in a few decades.
"America has become neurotically obsessed with race. This will be an interesting time to look back on in a few decades."
The white people who have contracted this noxious bug are the biggest pests on the planet. They've allowed themselves to be bullied, dehumanized, kowtowed into humiliating behavior, and be forced to compromise their basic dignity and willingness to state simple observations and opinions that dissent from this religious orthodoxy.
Every Sunday for months now a group of well to do white members of a Quaker "church" in my town stand on the corner holding BLM signs. They've got their kids wearing George Floyd t-shirts. I rolled up one day and suggested they take their show of support down the road to North Philadelphia and let some actual black people know what "allies" they are. I immediately had six smartphones shoved in my face and one angry guy ask, "Well what do you, ASSHOLE?" I said not waste my weekends being brainwashed into making public spectacles of myself desperate to show off what a good white person I am.
People like this sit within a hair's breadth of the pinnacle of power unknown in human history, and all they can do is bitch a moan.
Maybe enjoy the fucking view.
A number of movies made in the 30's through the 50's depict political bosses splitting up the spoils on ethnic lines. It's not a new thing - it's a Democrat thing.
“we’re forgetting how depressingly regressive this primitive tribal mindset is."
That’s because we’re regressing.
I suppose Biden announced them. He certainly didn't select them. He's not capable of doing adult things anymore.
It's the oldest trick in the book, divide and conquer. Everything about the "progressive" movement is regressive.
Yes, diversity (i.e. color judgment) and exclusion. Progress is unqualified monotonic change: one step forward, two steps backward.
It's not a new thing - it's a Democrat thing.
Kennedy's cabinet was all White and male (as was most of Congress back then), mostly Protestant with one Mormon and two Jews (though McNamara, half Catholic and half Protestant could be hard to place). Nobody complained. As time went on and vacancies occurred, an Italian, Pole, Irishman, German, or African-American (the first Black cabinet secretary) could be slipped in. Postmaster General was usually a good place to put the token ethnics.
It was not unusual back then on the East Coast for Democratic state tickets to include an Irishman, a WASP, an Italian, and a Jew, with a Pole, Greek or Frenchman at the bottom of the ticket for a little variety. Republicans could usually muster an Italian or a Jew to fit on their mostly WASP ticket.
After the explosion of international self-abasement over George Floyd’s killing
A Covid-19 case and possible spreader, who died from a fentanyl overdose. A milestone in progressive diversity, protests, and neo-KKK incursions of private properties with the intent to intimidate and force people to kneel for protection money, political leverage, and other purposes.
"I don't watch much TV, but from the commercials I see it seems that 75% of the population is "of color". White men do not exist except as objects of derision."
It's the way of our new, hyper-racialized world.
I would say about 50-60% of all photos/illustrations in the 'Wall Street Journal' weekend editions are of African Americans.
The USA is so racist that oppressed people spend a lot of time being rich and famous on the covers of magazines and on TV/movies.
Watch any science fiction movie made in the past decade. There are no more white male commanders of ships nor Presidents of the US...
Get used to it.
Diversity! Where everyone looks different, as long as they think the same! And boy they better think the same.
There are plenty of very capable people of color who would make a fine cabinet secretary. John James. Ken Blackwell. Ben Carson. Among others. Problem for Biden is that they’re all Republicans.
Blogger wendybar said...
They can put all blacks in his cabinet, and it still won't change the fact that they cheated to win the White House, and have tainted many Americans trust in any institution in DC. When the trust is gone, America dies.
Won’t do a thing for the fatherless 15 year old boy in Baltimore, Detroit or Philadelphia who’s in a gang and has already dropped out of school.
Thanks to the progressives, being color-blind is now considered racist.
Blogger mccullough said...
"No orange people represented in this cabinet so far."
Is that the only tune you know? You won. Give it a rest already.
Won’t do a thing for the fatherless 15 year old boy in Baltimore, Detroit or Philadelphia who’s in a gang and has already dropped out of school.
What do you suggest ? Make fewer of them would be my suggestion. Not abortion; that is already going full blast. How about ending "The War on Poverty?" Since we already lost.
they had to pick the either the most stupid (becerra) or corrupt officials (mayorka, fudge, rice, sullivan,) with sally yates and/or andrew cuomo on deck,
Black leaders are watching to much prime time television, the bulk of which leads you to believe blacks make up 40% of the population.
Sad to say we Oregonians are saddled with the least competent state government ever elected. The governor is a total airhead. She follows the lead of Newsom in California. Thus we conclude she only knows how to take orders from even worse leftists. Naturally she joins the "select" group of Democrat "leaders" from states of Washington, Nevada as well as California.
Is there any doubt elections in these parts are influenced by the kind fraud witnessed in PA, MI, WI, GA, et. al.? Makes it all the more imperative Trump succeeds in his quest for justice. While he won't find it in the courts, likely not in the state legislatures filled with RINOs, he will find a way to get there. If that proves impossible, the USA ceases to exist as the nation whose founding principles were expressed 244 years ago.
The conduct of leftists leaves us to cry out, "Lord help us, we're gonna need it."
Don't kid yourselves. They are being picked because they will support Hillary Clinton's 2016 program. Among the finalists, then they get picked for diversity. Then the propagandists talk about diversity. But it's only skin deep.
Does anyone remember back in 2008 when Republicans were freaking out about the coming Clinton CRA Financial Collapse? I heard Sen Judd Gregg (R) say 'There's no money! Car dealers can't lend money to buy cars. No one can buy a house! We must have a $700 Billion infusion of cash to save the Republic! TARP!
That's when the 'Tea Party' began. We weren't called that yet. I called the local Car Dealership and said I wanted to buy a car. I was assured, loans were available.
Talked to a realtor that said, mortgages were available, but there were now 'requirements', like having an income.
Best I can figure is that OUR Government was embarrassed that the garbage Mortgage derivatives sold to European Banks were worthless. We needed to pony up and paid 100 cents on the dollar.
The 'Tea Party' thing wasn't called that until the Spring of 2009. Citizens just wanted to know what was going on. By then, we had President Black Jesus. No more questions allowed.
But here's the deal...there are clever people in the population. They set up organizations, like 'Tea Party Patriots'. Send money! Citizens who had been awakened by the crisis wanted to help. They were deceived and clever people become rich.
They might have said, "We have a magic pill that burns belly fat." Folks buy that too.
In the end, all you can do is share the Gospel. You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
Nothing says America like racial bean counting.
Best I can figure is that OUR Government was embarrassed that the garbage Mortgage derivatives sold to European Banks were worthless. We needed to pony up and paid 100 cents on the dollar.
Two things to read. One Angelo Codvilla's essay "The Ruling Class."
The other is Nicole Gelinas' book, "After the fall."
I even have an Amazon review on it.
Dr K. Read your review. Thanks. BTW...hope you are well. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
Same to you. We are going to sneak into CA for Christmas with the family.
Like the 90 years old man with the 26 year old wife said, "If we die, we die."
Are they also keeping track of how deeply Chinese intelligence will penetrate the Biden administration?
I don't want to sound like one of those people who kept calling Trump a Russian asset, but California's Democratic Party is lousy with CCP influence.
Ha!
I used to worry how the world might respond to a US gov't that was just a collection of incompetent affirmative action hires.
But no longer. Taiwan, the Saudis, most of Europe...they'll have to suck up to the dominant power China. The US won't provide any protection under the Harris administration.
Here at home, those of us with an independent streak will ignore most of what comes out of DC. It shouldn't be too hard to find workarounds to braindead gov't bureaucracy. Whitey is already going Galt...retiring from the workforce, leaving no one with the requisite skills to keep civilization functioning. I'll be living 1000 miles from the Washington zoo in a town that is 99.8% white and 0.2% "other". We'll be just fine without any diversity.
If you were an enemy of the United States and democracy, how could you best weaken this nation in every way at once?
You would promote tribalism through identity politics. The only real question is who is doing it with destruction in mind, and who is just stupid? Those two camps seems to be working in unison, even if the stupid ones don't know it. They don't realize that there are evil forces in the world working against them, and it's not their conservative fellow countrymen.
Patriotism is like a nation's immune system. It can be dangerous if it mistakenly attacks it's own body, but its usual and normal function is an existential necessity, and nothing takes its place when you need real protection from threats that are always there just waiting to see weakness.
Tribalism is a powerful intoxicant, and it's the one way to turn the advantages of diversity into vulnerability.
Bunky,
Do you wear a mask? Because that's where this thing started.
bagoh-
If I wanted to destroy America, I would create a US Dept of Education staffed with Marxists, Feminists, Citizens of the World, and then dangle money to the States' independent Teachers' Colleges. I would get them hooked on the money and then tell them what their curriculum should be, if they wanted to keep getting the money.
I would then move onto the local School Districts, and offer money for Special Needs, and a leased Lexus for the Schools' Administrator, no strings attached! At least until the State's budget took the US DOE money for granted. Then I would give them Common Core.
"The correct pronoun for all humans (or thereabouts) is shim."
Even more universal would be "shit".
Too late. Government Unionized Teachers already taught the kids it's shim. The kids are newbies. They believe what they're told.
Diversity + Proximity = War
You guys who thought Beirut and Sarajevo were cute are going to have a lot of fun with this one.
If you look closely at TV commercials, nearly all of them have black folks in them, far exceeding their percentage of the population. Pretty cynical if you ask me.
I think I will start a store called Niggers-n-Things. I'll make a fortune!
Skippy the Progressive rears his head. Do Progs actually think this is clever?
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