No
equality under equity
By Eileen F.
Toplansky www.americanthinker.com
Susan Rice, of Benghazi
shame, has allegedly remained under the media radar for the past two
years. But Biden, via executive order, has now given Rice the power
to enact a "racial equity" makeover of the federal
government. In good communist fashion, there will be "Agency
Equity Teams" established in a myriad
of federal government agencies.
When Obama promised to transform America, he truly meant
it. Now Biden's embrace of equity will result in the abandonment of
the essential American quest for equality.
Should Michelle
Obama, for example, secure the executive seat, AKA Obama's fourth and fifth
terms, the country will be a prime example of ruthless totalitarianism and the
worst forms of racial division.
In true leftist tradition, the
genuine ideals of America are being discarded in the trash bin.
Equity has now come
to mean the functional opposite of equality.
Equity means treating Americans
unequally to ensure that outcomes are equalized—the old tried (and failed)
Marxian standard.
One of the order's main aspects is to require all federal
agencies to ferret out any policy that may produce unequal outcomes among
members of categories deemed marginalized. Data will be catalogued along
identity categories.
The word equity appears
twenty-one times, while the word equality is never
mentioned. Deliberate obfuscation of language is the tool of the
Marxist community and always has been.
The
order defines the term equity, but it isn't forthright about whether
it's equality of opportunity or outcomes.
In September 1963, in explaining the
alleged passion for equality by the left, Ayn Rand explained:
suppose a doctor is called to help a man with a broken leg and, instead of
setting it, proceeds to break the legs of ten other men, explaining that all
the newly crippled individuals will feel better now because all have been
equalized.
Ayn Rand presciently explained that
"the mystique of racism is a crucial element in every variant to the
absolute state." In contrast,
[i]ndividualism regards man — every
man — as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to
his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.
Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association,
cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the
basis of the recognition of individual rights — and that a group, as such, has
no rights other than the individual rights of its members [emphasis mine].
When men began to be indoctrinated
once more with the notion that the individual possesses no rights, that
supremacy, moral authority and unlimited power belong to the group, and that a
man has no significance outside his group — the inevitable consequence was that
men began to gravitate toward some group or another, in self-protection, in
bewilderment and in subconscious terror. The simplest collective to join, the
easiest one to identify — particularly for people of limited intelligence — the
least demanding form of 'belonging' and of 'togetherness' is: race.
Affirmative action, open enrollment,
and now equity and Critical Race Theory are all the same racist ideology with
new packaging. This kind of system "encourages
laziness and, simultaneously, racism. If all you need to do to
get a certain job is be a certain color, then you do not need to work as hard
to obtain the skills needed." This clearly encourages
mediocrity.
Already the fruits of this ideology
are rearing their ugly heads in the airline
industry.
It is thus that the theoreticians of
collectivism, . . . have led to the rebirth and the new, virulent
growth of racism [begun] in the twentieth century.
In its great era of capitalism, the
United States was the freest country on earth — and the best refutation of
racist theories. Men of all races came here, some from obscure, culturally
undistinguished countries, and accomplished feats of productive ability which
would have remained stillborn in their control-ridden native lands. Men of
racial groups that had been slaughtering one another for centuries, learned to
live together in harmony and peaceful cooperation. America had been called 'the
melting pot,' with good reason. But few people realized that America did not
melt men into the gray conformity of a collective: she united them by means of
protecting their right to individuality.
But
America has become race-conscious in
a manner reminiscent of the worst days in the most backward countries of
nineteenth-century Europe. The cause is the same: the growth of collectivism
and statism.
Instead of fighting against racial
discrimination, [too many Black leaders and leftists] are demanding that racial
discrimination be legalized and enforced. Instead of fighting against racism,
they are demanding the establishment of racial quotas. Instead of fighting for
'color-blindness' in social and economic issues, they are proclaiming that
'color-blindness' is evil and that 'color' should be made a primary
consideration. Instead of fighting for equal rights, they are demanding special
race privileges.
They are demanding that racial
quotas be established in regard to employment and that jobs be distributed on a
racial basis, in proportion to the percentage of a given race among the local
population.
Racial quotas have been one of the
worst evils of racist regimes.
Today, it is not an oppressor, but
an oppressed minority group that is demanding the establishment of racial quotas.
Consider schools
that impose racism via DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity) programs.
Rand's commentary 60 years ago slices
through all the hatred and racism that CRT embodies. In fact, "Critical
Race Theory (CRT) makes race the prism through which its proponents analyze
all aspects of American life. CRT reimagines the U.S. as a nation
split by groups, each with specific claims on victimization. CRT's
intolerance can be found in schools, the workplace, and the entertainment
sector, 'normalizing' belief in systemic racism for the average American."
Rand noted that
[c]onsequently, there is a demand
[for] special privileges on racial grounds — it demands that white men be
penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white
laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial
discrimination. But perhaps his grandfather had not practiced it. Or
perhaps his grandfather had not even lived in this country. Since these
questions are not to be considered, it means that that white laborer is to be
charged with collective racial guilt, the guilt consisting merely of the
color of his skin.
There can be no such thing as the
"right" of some men to violate the rights of others.
But in California, the cry for reparations
is in full swing, even though California was never a slave state.
The consequences of affirmative
action are as damaging to black communities as welfare is. The evolution of
affirmative action into "equity" where proportional representation by
race and ethnicity is demanded in everything — hiring, promotions, admissions,
contracts, and even household wealth — is a mortal threat to the social and
economic health of America.
All liberty-loving Americans should
heed the words of Alexis de Tocqueville.
A State may survive the influence of
a host of bad laws, and the mischief they cause is frequently exaggerated; but
a law which encourages the growth of the canker within must prove fatal in the
end, although its bad consequences may not be immediately perceived.
This latest edict by Biden is a
metastasizing canker and a source of corruption and debasement that is eroding
our country. We need to say no to questionnaires that ask for
our racial background. We need to bombard companies and boycott them
if they allow themselves to promote this racism. Woke does need to
go broke. Stop sending your children to universities and colleges
that promote this vile ideology. Get elected to school boards and
stop the CRT indoctrination. Demand the return of the American
dream.
