White Men Face Systemic Racism in the Workplace
'Diversity, Equity and Inclusion' and 'Environmental, Social, and Corporate governance' are the real systemic racism backed by the system.
[Editor’s note: Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s masterpiece contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
A recent survey revealed that 1 in 6 hiring managers had been told to avoid hiring members of a particular gender and race. Normally editorials and cable news hits would have been scheduled, politicians would have held hearings and the civil rights apparatus of every federal and state agency, including the Department of Labor, would have launched massive investigations.
But since the group being discriminated against were white men, civil rights professionals and the media gave each other a thumbs up and congratulated themselves on a job well done.
Even while academics, journalists and politicians went on blathering about the nonsensical notion of ‘systemic racism’ toward minorities in a country where white people pass themselves off as minorities for career advancement, educational attainment and business opportunities, the survey peeled back the real face of systemic racism.
52% of hiring managers believe that their workplace practices racial discrimination and 50% believe that they will be fired if they don’t go along with it by refusing to hire white men.
While the media pushed ridiculous stories claiming that highways, soap dispensers, and national parks were guilty of systemic racism, the revelation that more than half of the country’s hiring managers are practicing systemic hiring discrimination for fear of losing their jobs may just as well have been the wind blowing through a forgotten corner of a southwestern desert.
The exposure of the most pervasive systemic racism in generations was met with yawns.
Surveys are a dime a dozen, but at least a decade of different surveys from different firms all happen to point in the same direction. An Ernst & Young study from 2017 found that a third believed that white men were being overlooked. That same year a majority of white people answering an NPR survey said that they believed white people faced discrimination.
31% of that group described being discriminated against when applying for work, 19% had faced discrimination when it came to promotions, and 18% when applying for college.
While media elites sneered at such surveys and dismissed them by pointing to the number of white men at Fortune 500 companies, it was working class white men who were likeliest to believe in discrimination against whites. 65% of whites without college degrees believed that white people faced discrimination, as did 64% of those earning less than $50,000 a year.
The white people being discriminated against have the least wealth and power.
A Pew survey from 2018 found that 20% of those who reported racial discrimination at work were white. “White males are an undesirable classification currently in environments seeking the managed utopia of balance and ‘diversity,’” one worker said. “People with the same skills and experience, but different ethnicities, have different opportunities. A person formally classed as a minority will get preference over a white,” another stated.
What’s behind this systemic discrimination? Two three letter acronyms: ESG and DEI.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs fueled by Environmental, Social, and Corporate governance are the backbones of the new systemic racism. Racial discrimination at work of the kind described by so many workers and hiring managers has its roots in government, private equity and corporate programs from the Biden administration’s mandate that every agency develop an equity program, to mandatory diversity statements at universities, to ESG scores.
DEI is a fundamental part of ESG scores demanded by woke investment firms and governments. Implementing DEI programs in pursuit of ESG scores leads to systemic racism.
Take Google: the company with one of the highest ESG scores in the world. How does the ESG sausage get made? The Big Tech monopoly’s diversity report boasts that it “achieved our best year yet for hiring women globally, as well as black+ and latinx+ employees in the U.S.”
A lawsuit by a former Google recruiter, Arne Wilberg, cast light on how this is achieved.
Wilberg’s lawsuit appeared to provide documented evidence that Google had “implemented clear and irrefutable policies, memorialized in writing and consistently implemented in practice,
of systematically discriminating in favor of job applicants who are Hispanic, African American,or
female, and against Caucasian and Asian men.” For example, “the manager of YouTube’s
Tech Staffing Management Team, Allison Alogna, wrote an e-mail to the staffing team in which
she writes, ‘Hi Team: Please continue with L3 candidates in process and only accept new L3
candidates that are from historically underrepresented groups.’”
This is what DEI, ESG and employment discrimination looks like in the workplace. Had a major corporation been caught refusing to hire non-Asian minorities, there would have been a storm, multi-million dollar fines and a national conversation. But five years later documented evidence of employment discrimination against white and Asian employees by one of the biggest companies in the world have led to nothing. And that is all too typical of the double standard.
Compare that to a $20 million fine leveled against Walmart for using physical ability tests for grocery order filler positions and a $118 million Google settlement for underpaying women.
To paraphrase a long dead white man, “why does racism never prosper? If it prospers, none dare call it racism.” The only forms of bigotry we punish are those disapproved of by the state and that, by definition, means that they do not represent systemic racism. The only real systemic racism is that which the system and the state implement, but do not acknowledge.
Systemic racism is a form of bigotry that is approved and implemented by the state. The best way to spot it is by its pervasiveness and the lack of any government action against it.
White men and women are the only groups that can be safely discriminated against in hiring policies and promotions without investigations, million dollar fines or legal recourse. And they are therefore the ones who are most in need of workplace protections and civil rights action.
ESG ratings and DEI policies are the only forms of systemic racism still tolerated in the modern workplace. Eliminating them will require taking on the system even as it hides behind finding racism everywhere, from showers to sweatpants, except in its own ‘anti-racism’ policies.
The real systemic racism is backed by the system. And there’s no room for it in America.
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
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How Government is Fanning and Subsidizing Anti-White Racism
When the current occupant of the White House openly asserts that white supremacy is the greatest threat to America, it shows that demonizing whites is now an acceptable part of American life. Conservative writer Ed Brodow dubs this phenomenon the “new national sport” in the subtitle of his book The War on Whites. In a Townhall article, he says hating whites is a disease of epidemic proportions that must be called out for what it is – racism. He explains how, in the woke-perverted world of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), white people – by dint of pigment alone – are the default oppressors, obliged to feel guilty and do penance for imagined crimes of “systemic racism.”
This reversal has its roots in critical race theory (CRT) and Marxist ideology, which are working overtime to replace the American ideal of equality (of opportunity, not outcome) with a distorted version of equity. The word itself means fairness or impartiality. But the new discourse interprets it to mean providing special opportunities to minorities and groups perceived as disadvantaged and denying them to the majority and those perceived as advantaged.
With woke ideas well entrenched in academia and diffusing therefrom to the corporate world and government, this perverse interpretation is increasingly translating into a sidelining of whites. Although government programs are required by the Constitution to be non-discriminatory, instances abound of anti-white racism becoming their salient feature. Such discrimination even extends to COVID relief programs, as if whites were not affected (or were less affected) by the pandemic.
Fortunately, these are being challenged as unconstitutional in federal lawsuits. One involves a discriminatory COVID relief program for businesses in Massachusetts. The $75 million program is deceptively called the Inclusive Recovery Grant Program, but accepts applications only from firms owned by minorities, women, veterans, the disabled, or LGBTQ+.
Challenging this, the pro bono Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Brian Dalton, whose New England Firearms Academy cannot receive aid because he happens to be heterosexual and white. Dalton, a retired law enforcement officer, opened the academy in 2013 to provide firearms and safety training. During the pandemic, he was forced to sell assets and use his savings to cover business expenses. Upon reopening, he incurred additional costs to comply with mandated safety measures. So, he wanted to apply when the program was first announced, but found he was ineligible.
In Brian Dalton et al v. Hao and MA Growth Capital Corp, filed on May 31st at the U.S. District Court for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, PLF attorneys argue that the program violates the 14th Amendment guarantee for “equal protection under the law.” They rightly characterize the program as inclusive in name, but in fact exclusive in its application. Broadening the argument to make a case for the American ideal of individual rights, the PLF states on its website:
When the government benefits or burdens us based on traits we cannot control, it unjustly diminishes our individuality and institutionalizes and reinforces stereotypes. Such treatment also hinders opportunity. Business owners have a right to be treated as individuals, and not as part of a group to which the government arbitrarily assigns them. Our country has had a terrible history of discrimination that cannot be remedied with more discrimination.
A similar case was filed in 2021 by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) on behalf of Tennessee restaurateur Antonio Vitolo against the Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBA prioritized women and minorities during an initial three-week period for grants from the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund, a COVID relief program. White males were relegated to the back of the line. On May 27, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled (with Judge Bernice Donald dissenting) that such prioritizing amounted to “racial gerrymandering.” It ordered the government to fund Vitolo’s grant application, if eligible.
In 2020, two whites and a Chicano sued Oregon in two lawsuits for racial discrimination when it designated $62 million in COVID relief specifically for blacks, presuming that the pandemic affected them disproportionately. Under pressure from the nightly Black Lives Matter (BLM) mayhem in Portland, state officials initially defended the program. Later, though, they admitted to its potential unconstitutionality. In an editorial commentary, the WSJ called the program “blatantly unconstitutional.”
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut had denied a request from one of the plaintiffs to block disbursements, but agreed to examine the constitutional issues “later in this litigation.” Eventually, the state settled both cases, paying out grants to 1,252 non-black applicants.
In December 2020, Etienne Hardre, a barbershop owner from Colorado Springs, sued the state of Colorado for denying him relief under a state program due to minority eligibility criteria. Hardre’s business was hit hard by the pandemic lockdown and the restrictions under which he could reopen at reduced capacity. The program requirements were later amended, but still conferred preference to minorities. The case, however, was closed, with the judge saying in an April 19, 2021 order that it was filed before “implementing regulations had been adopted” – in short, too early.
There are other examples, too, of government programs discriminating against whites. The California Underserved and Small Producers Program (for drought relief) advantages farmers of color and illegal immigrants by awarding them 50% of available funding. A Covid relief grant in Stamford, CT, and the Source Grow Grant of Cook County, IL, both reserve one-third of funding for small businesses owned by minorities, women, the disabled, and veterans. The latter was rescinded for redesigning after PLF filed a lawsuit.
White-bashing is so pervasive now that a Rutgers professor, Brittney Cooper, had no qualms about saying “we got to take these [white] motherf*****s out,” and another from Drexel, George Ciccariello-Maher, tweeting that “All I want for Christmas is White Genocide.” Anti-white racist screeds abound: White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo and Michael Eric Dyson, and How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, for instance.
Denver councilwoman Candi Lee CdeBaca believes in correcting what she perceives as past inequities committed by whites through higher taxes on white-owned businesses. Describing herself as more of an anarchist than a communist, she justifies such punitive measures to redistribute wealth to minority businesses on the grounds that capitalism was built on “stolen land, stolen labor, and stolen resources.”
Throughout the university system, faculty keep such extremism alive in the classroom, fanning the embers with CRT and DEI. One technique Leftist academics have deployed successfully, as Australian authors Harry Richardson and Frank K. Salter point out in their book Anglophobia: The Unrecognized Hatred, is the weaponization of victimhood, actual or perceived. Young, impressionable minds – often catalyzed by the induced guilt of being born white – absorb these ideas and perpetuate them after graduation through activism and at their workplaces.
Race has become such a dominant factor in government funding, university admissions, and hiring and promotion decisions that there is a climate of tremendous animosity against whites, who are excluded while favored categories are given preference. Former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich calls it a “cult of anti-white racism.” What is lost to the CRT-DEI ideologues is that racism is always wrong, regardless of who is targeted.
Government benefits and special privileges must be distributed on objective criteria of need and merit, not by arbitrary classifications of race, sex, or sexual orientation. The latter is both unjust and unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. Worse, such policies encourage privilege seeking and wallowing in victimhood, both of which demean the human spirit, its quest for excellence, and its ability to rise above circumstances. This threat to our meritocracy signals the end of an America that achieved greatness through endeavor, innovation, and excellence. We can’t allow that to happen.
Graphic credit: GDJ Pixabay license
When the current occupant of the White House openly asserts that white supremacy is the greatest threat to America, it shows that demonizing whites is now an acceptable part of American life. Conservative writer Ed Brodow dubs this phenomenon the “new national sport” in the subtitle of his book The War on Whites. In a Townhall article, he says hating whites is a disease of epidemic proportions that must be called out for what it is – racism. He explains how, in the woke-perverted world of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), white people – by dint of pigment alone – are the default oppressors, obliged to feel guilty and do penance for imagined crimes of “systemic racism.”
This reversal has its roots in critical race theory (CRT) and Marxist ideology, which are working overtime to replace the American ideal of equality (of opportunity, not outcome) with a distorted version of equity. The word itself means fairness or impartiality. But the new discourse interprets it to mean providing special opportunities to minorities and groups perceived as disadvantaged and denying them to the majority and those perceived as advantaged.
With woke ideas well entrenched in academia and diffusing therefrom to the corporate world and government, this perverse interpretation is increasingly translating into a sidelining of whites. Although government programs are required by the Constitution to be non-discriminatory, instances abound of anti-white racism becoming their salient feature. Such discrimination even extends to COVID relief programs, as if whites were not affected (or were less affected) by the pandemic.
Fortunately, these are being challenged as unconstitutional in federal lawsuits. One involves a discriminatory COVID relief program for businesses in Massachusetts. The $75 million program is deceptively called the Inclusive Recovery Grant Program, but accepts applications only from firms owned by minorities, women, veterans, the disabled, or LGBTQ+.
Challenging this, the pro bono Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Brian Dalton, whose New England Firearms Academy cannot receive aid because he happens to be heterosexual and white. Dalton, a retired law enforcement officer, opened the academy in 2013 to provide firearms and safety training. During the pandemic, he was forced to sell assets and use his savings to cover business expenses. Upon reopening, he incurred additional costs to comply with mandated safety measures. So, he wanted to apply when the program was first announced, but found he was ineligible.
In Brian Dalton et al v. Hao and MA Growth Capital Corp, filed on May 31st at the U.S. District Court for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, PLF attorneys argue that the program violates the 14th Amendment guarantee for “equal protection under the law.” They rightly characterize the program as inclusive in name, but in fact exclusive in its application. Broadening the argument to make a case for the American ideal of individual rights, the PLF states on its website:
When the government benefits or burdens us based on traits we cannot control, it unjustly diminishes our individuality and institutionalizes and reinforces stereotypes. Such treatment also hinders opportunity. Business owners have a right to be treated as individuals, and not as part of a group to which the government arbitrarily assigns them. Our country has had a terrible history of discrimination that cannot be remedied with more discrimination.
A similar case was filed in 2021 by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) on behalf of Tennessee restaurateur Antonio Vitolo against the Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBA prioritized women and minorities during an initial three-week period for grants from the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund, a COVID relief program. White males were relegated to the back of the line. On May 27, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled (with Judge Bernice Donald dissenting) that such prioritizing amounted to “racial gerrymandering.” It ordered the government to fund Vitolo’s grant application, if eligible.
In 2020, two whites and a Chicano sued Oregon in two lawsuits for racial discrimination when it designated $62 million in COVID relief specifically for blacks, presuming that the pandemic affected them disproportionately. Under pressure from the nightly Black Lives Matter (BLM) mayhem in Portland, state officials initially defended the program. Later, though, they admitted to its potential unconstitutionality. In an editorial commentary, the WSJ called the program “blatantly unconstitutional.”
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut had denied a request from one of the plaintiffs to block disbursements, but agreed to examine the constitutional issues “later in this litigation.” Eventually, the state settled both cases, paying out grants to 1,252 non-black applicants.
In December 2020, Etienne Hardre, a barbershop owner from Colorado Springs, sued the state of Colorado for denying him relief under a state program due to minority eligibility criteria. Hardre’s business was hit hard by the pandemic lockdown and the restrictions under which he could reopen at reduced capacity. The program requirements were later amended, but still conferred preference to minorities. The case, however, was closed, with the judge saying in an April 19, 2021 order that it was filed before “implementing regulations had been adopted” – in short, too early.
There are other examples, too, of government programs discriminating against whites. The California Underserved and Small Producers Program (for drought relief) advantages farmers of color and illegal immigrants by awarding them 50% of available funding. A Covid relief grant in Stamford, CT, and the Source Grow Grant of Cook County, IL, both reserve one-third of funding for small businesses owned by minorities, women, the disabled, and veterans. The latter was rescinded for redesigning after PLF filed a lawsuit.
White-bashing is so pervasive now that a Rutgers professor, Brittney Cooper, had no qualms about saying “we got to take these [white] motherf*****s out,” and another from Drexel, George Ciccariello-Maher, tweeting that “All I want for Christmas is White Genocide.” Anti-white racist screeds abound: White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo and Michael Eric Dyson, and How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, for instance.
Denver councilwoman Candi Lee CdeBaca believes in correcting what she perceives as past inequities committed by whites through higher taxes on white-owned businesses. Describing herself as more of an anarchist than a communist, she justifies such punitive measures to redistribute wealth to minority businesses on the grounds that capitalism was built on “stolen land, stolen labor, and stolen resources.”
Throughout the university system, faculty keep such extremism alive in the classroom, fanning the embers with CRT and DEI. One technique Leftist academics have deployed successfully, as Australian authors Harry Richardson and Frank K. Salter point out in their book Anglophobia: The Unrecognized Hatred, is the weaponization of victimhood, actual or perceived. Young, impressionable minds – often catalyzed by the induced guilt of being born white – absorb these ideas and perpetuate them after graduation through activism and at their workplaces.
Race has become such a dominant factor in government funding, university admissions, and hiring and promotion decisions that there is a climate of tremendous animosity against whites, who are excluded while favored categories are given preference. Former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich calls it a “cult of anti-white racism.” What is lost to the CRT-DEI ideologues is that racism is always wrong, regardless of who is targeted.
Government benefits and special privileges must be distributed on objective criteria of need and merit, not by arbitrary classifications of race, sex, or sexual orientation. The latter is both unjust and unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. Worse, such policies encourage privilege seeking and wallowing in victimhood, both of which demean the human spirit, its quest for excellence, and its ability to rise above circumstances. This threat to our meritocracy signals the end of an America that achieved greatness through endeavor, innovation, and excellence. We can’t allow that to happen.
Graphic credit: GDJ Pixabay license
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