Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Clavell Jackson: People of Color, Women Can’t Afford to Be Average
EURWeb ^ | November 27, 2014 | Clavell Jackson

Posted on 11/27/2014 9:59:02 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

*I have previously written several articles about how most Americans are pretty clueless. The results of the last elections showed that. A lot of Americans stayed home, and people from states that depend heavily on government programs, such as food stamps, welfare and social security, elected Republicans — the very people who have said they plan to slash these programs.

MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, the architect of Obamacare, caught flak for referring to American voters as stupid, but he is right. Bill Maher, who is known for his biting comedy, recently ran a video montage showing all the times he had also expressed that Americans are stupid. If you need any further evidence of this, a recent YouTube video showed some Texas Tech students who were unable to answer basic questions, such as which side won the Civil War or who was the vice president. Of course, they all knew what show Snookie was on.

As much as we can laugh at these videos, there is something serious going on here. I don’t think people of color and women can afford to be that stupid. They need to be at the top of their game academically. White men will do fine, no matter how dumb they are. If they wear the right clothes, join the right country clubs and stick it out long enough, they will eventually get shunted up the ladder in Corporate America. George W. Bush is a great example. Bush never showed any great academic talent, but still graduated from two Ivy league schools. And after several failed businesses, he finally struck gold with the Texas Rangers, managed to get elected governor of Texas and used his family connections to win the presidency. The good-old boy network is alive and kicking.

I have worked alongside a lot of white men in Corporate America, and while they dominate the field, they are not always the best workers. I’ve seen white men who sexually harassed co workers, refused to show up to work on their first day and showed downright incompetence, yet they weren’t fired. The other white men in Corporate America will generally cut them some slack or overlook their flaws, until it reaches a breaking a point.

Other groups don’t have that opportunity. People of color and women are expected to be darn near perfect in Corporate America. Screw up a few times and you will be out the door. Chris Rock talked about this in an interview for the HBO documentary film “The Black List.” He said he lived on the same street as Jay-Z, and a white guy was his neighbor. The white neighbor was just an ordinary dentist. Rock pointed out he and Jay-Z were at the top of their games in their respective fields, but their neighbor was just an average dentist.

When quizzed about their lack of diversity, CEOs often say they can’t find qualified graduates of color. I find this hard to believe considering all the colleges that are churning out graduates. It is also a false argument because a lot of the white graduates they hire are not the cream of the crop, but they still employ them anyway.

So while white men can still flourish, in spite of being average academically, people of color cannot afford to follow in their footsteps. They need to excel in class. President Barack Obama is a great example. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and yet people still accuse him of being incompetent.

Black people have to be not only book smart, but street smart. A young black man not only has to know how to succeed academically, but also how to avoid the long of the arm law. They have to learn how to navigate the tortuous American criminal justice system and avoid “riding dirty.” Black men are also taught to be very careful in dealings with America’s trigger happy police force, who have a habit of killing them. Black men who decide to rely on street smarts alone often realize they need book learning, especially when they are faced with complex, sports/entertainment contracts. Ignoring the business side of show business is how many entertainers and athletes go broke.

Women are often held up to a higher standard than white men too. Sarah Palin was a good example of a woman who benefitted from white privilege, but also suffered the backlash of sexism. She was unqualified to be vice president, but no one ever asked how someone as dim as her ever got to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? There is no way a person of color, with her kind of baggage, would ever get that chance. And while Palin was pilloried for her lack of intelligence, the press went easier on Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, who were not intellectual titans. Being white men, they were given a bye, after all they looked the part. They had greying hair, played golf and looked good in a business suit. They fit in at the country club. There are plenty of people in Congress who are plain stupid, such as Reps. Steve King and Louie Gohmert, but they still seem to get elected.

White men might bleat about their supposed loss of status, but they still have a firm grip on the reins of power. (They’re just mad that they don’t have 100 percent of the pie anymore.) No matter what pseudo-news outlets such as Breitbart.com and FOX News say, the black and brown people and women are not taking over — at least not yet. According to Diversity, Inc., 1.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are black and only nine black men have ever been elected to the U.S. Senate. White men, even the mediocre, ones are doing just fine.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blacks; bush; economy; gruber; obama; palin; whiteprivilege; whites
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-46 next last
To: 2ndDivisionVet

Dear God what a load of whining. Does she not know about affirmative action where minorities with weak credentials get moved ahead? What about all the corporations headed by women and minorities? How did they manage it?


21 posted on 11/27/2014 10:17:31 AM PST by WashingtonSource
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

So while white men can still flourish, in spite of being average academically, people of color cannot afford to follow in their footsteps. They need to excel in class. President Barack Obama is a great example. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and yet people still accuse him of being incompetent.

Yeah, Law Student Genius Obambi, the only Law Review member to never publish.

I guess he was just too smart to lower himself to what those “average academic” white boys did.

Either that, or he’s been “affirmative action’d” his entire life. What’s your best guess, “Clavell”?


22 posted on 11/27/2014 10:18:10 AM PST by A_Former_Democrat (Get ready St. Louis . . . Guns Up . . .LnL . . .STK)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: hal ogen

Just some anecdotal evidence:

Recently I visited a major government office in San Diego. There was a large open room full of workers and cubicles. Of the dozens of employees I saw working there, I noted that there was not one single white man there. There were a number of minority men. The vast majority of people there were women. I would guess there were equal numbers of white females and minority females.

Understanding that government has been a leader in affirmative action, this story may not surprise too many people. And this is just anecdotal. But it seems to me that women and minorities are finding many jobs in government, anyway. If there’s any discrimination, it would appear that affirmative action formulas and recruiting have the effect of giving preference to certain people, and screening others out.


23 posted on 11/27/2014 10:19:35 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego (s)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Off to the vomitorium for me.

By the way. Why doesn’t Clavelle move to Sudan and make his fortunes where there ain’t no whitey holding him down?


24 posted on 11/27/2014 10:19:57 AM PST by Organic Panic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Where I work, if you’re black and female, your ticket up the ladder is punched.


25 posted on 11/27/2014 10:20:52 AM PST by Old Yeller (Civil rights are for civilized people.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Poor woman is lost at sea. She has nary a clue!!! Fact is: African-Americans are isolated, alone,...”adrift-at-sea”...set into that position by their own actions and culture and failed leadership....starting with POTUS Obama and going down through the CBC, the NAACP, The Democrat party, their religious leaders and shysters like the Reverand, Al Sharpton, etc.!!! Using idols like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown (Thugs) is no way to plot successfuly going through life.

Until they (Blacks) grasp the real world, a melting pot of multiple ethnics in America, etc.,....they will go nowhere. African-Americans are done, toast, politically....the “hope & change” promised to them by Obama never was and never will be. There is no such thing as a free lunch!!! You all gotta put up some merit points on the board...if ya all wanna be in this race for success and happiness and following the “Felon “Brown” family will not cut the mustard!!!!


26 posted on 11/27/2014 10:22:49 AM PST by JLAGRAYFOX ( My only objective is to defeat and destroy Obama & his Democrat Party, politically!!!.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kearnyirish2
all the colleges that are churning out graduates.”

The writer of the article is confusing credentials with competence, which as you point out, is not the same.

27 posted on 11/27/2014 10:23:20 AM PST by MUDDOG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: MUDDOG

I thought Eric Holder was headed in the right direction when he said we don’t have honest conversations about race (then he started bashing whites). The most basic problem for blacks now is the lack of honesty from institutions like schools and emplyers; people who barely speak (and can’t write) passable English shouldn’t expect that they have much to offer a potential employer. Giving unearned diplomas, degrees, jobs, and promotions only exacerbates the problem; they truly believe they have earned these things that no white would ever get with their skill set.

There is a big difference in what you can expect from a white guy and any “preferred minority” (black, Hispanic, and/or female) in any role.


28 posted on 11/27/2014 10:32:33 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
"How come I haven't been "shunted up the ladder in Corporate America" guys? I was cheated!! "

Don't get me started.

29 posted on 11/27/2014 10:34:19 AM PST by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kearnyirish2
True. They expect that merely to have a diploma or other credential is enough.

They're like the Pacific islanders in the Cargo Cult, who thought if they merely built crude models of the white man's airplanes, the goodies would flow in.

30 posted on 11/27/2014 10:39:38 AM PST by MUDDOG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Dilbert San Diego

There is a reason for the writer’s attitude.

If you can blame your problems and failures on someone else your failures are resolved - it wasn’t your fault!

Listen closely to children in the second grade and earlier explaining why they didn’t win the game. That is you can still find any of them playing competitive games at school.

BL - like or not we best learn from failure. The most important, IMHO, lesson to be learned in elementary school is failing at something is not the end of the world; it shows you where you need to work a little harder. My greatest failure as a parent was that I didn’t offer my children more chances to succeed and fail when they were living with me; when there was a safety net to support them.

Since that lesson, failure is a learning tool, is not taught in elementary, middle, high school, or college any more we see ‘educated” people writing articles justifying their failure because someone else didn’t do what they were supposed to do. We have a lot of 20-year olds that are behaving like 5-year olds; and it is only going to get worse.


31 posted on 11/27/2014 10:46:23 AM PST by Nip (BOHEICA and TANSTAAFL - both seem very appropriate today.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
"He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and yet people still accuse him of being incompetent. "

Teddy Kennedy was a graduate of Harvard, and he was provably incompetent, fat, stupid and a drunk.

32 posted on 11/27/2014 10:50:55 AM PST by Sooth2222 ("Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself." M.Twain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kearnyirish2

So true look at the WH resident nothing much positive expected from him.


33 posted on 11/27/2014 10:54:11 AM PST by nclaurel
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: CaptainK
Jackson who admits George Bush was a graduate of two Ivy league schools (Yale and Harvard, the names he doesn't mention) says he, Bush, was shunted up the ladder because he was white. But Obama, another Harvard grad, has his intelligence questioned.

So what is it Jackson? If Bush and Obama were both Harvard grads, doesn't that automatically make them both intelligent? You just have to laugh at the stupidity of the whole article.

34 posted on 11/27/2014 10:55:17 AM PST by driftless2 (For long term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
Bush never showed any great academic talent, but still graduated from two Ivy league schools.

I take it this person chose to ignore the life and times of Al Gore.

35 posted on 11/27/2014 10:56:02 AM PST by Lizavetta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: WashingtonSource
Dear God what a load of whining. Does she not know about affirmative action where minorities with weak credentials get moved ahead?

My ex got a faceload of affirmative action when he tried to get into the California Highway Patrol. Aced both the physical test and the academic test. But the fat black ladies didn't even come close but outscored him because of the preference points added on because of their gender and race. One of his interviewers let it slip that they had to do quota hiring. This was in the early 1980s.

Needless to say, he ditched all that and got his computer science degree.

36 posted on 11/27/2014 11:05:07 AM PST by Lizavetta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Other groups don’t have that opportunity. People of color and women are expected to be darn near perfect in Corporate America. Screw up a few times and you will be out the door. “

The idiot author has never been in a corporate office. Women and minorities are protected from firing for their stupid actions. It is amazing how some companies can stay in business with the PC actions from these groups. Companies are more worried about appeasing women and minorities than making a profit.


37 posted on 11/27/2014 11:14:04 AM PST by CodeToad (Islam should be outlawed and treated as a criminal enterprise!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

What a nasty little bigot snob.


38 posted on 11/27/2014 11:24:15 AM PST by SaraJohnson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Women and minorities hardest hit.


39 posted on 11/27/2014 11:44:07 AM PST by Organic Panic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MUDDOG

Good analogy; I’ve noticed they never view their jobs in terms of how it brings value to an employer. The reverse is the case; they want to know what an employer will do for them. Creepy, and it isn’t helping them.


40 posted on 11/27/2014 11:45:29 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-46 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson