Posted on 05/13/2024 4:44:01 AM PDT by george76
'Equity' means realizing 'treating everybody the same might not be enough,' VA official Shawn Liu says ..
Joe Biden's Department of Veterans Affairs is offering race-based training programs and workshops that exclude white veterans—programs that one legal expert says are "of dubious constitutionality and legality."
The programs are taking place in at least four states, a Washington Free Beacon review of online offerings found.
In Battle Creek, Mich., for example, the VA offers a "BIPOC Support Group," an "8-week curriculum designed to provide support for Veterans that identify as people of color/BIPOC, or as multiracial or biracial," according to a program description. The Battle Creek VA also offers a "Race-Based Stress/Trauma and Empowerment" program, a "weekly group, tailored to our Veterans of color, to address race-based stress and trauma in a safe and validating environment."
In Long Beach, Calif., the VA also offers a "Race-Based Stress/Trauma Empowerment Group," which it says is for "Veterans who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and who are interested in addressing issues of race-based stress, trauma, resilience, and empowerment." A similar program in Palo Alto, Calif., invites "Women Veterans of color" to join a "10-week group to explore [the] impact of racism on your well-being."
In Minneapolis, meanwhile, a VA-sponsored "Black Veterans peer support group" welcomes "all Veterans who self-identify as Black" to learn "skills that help protect against the negative impact of racial stress and trauma by increasing feelings of belongingness, connectedness to racial/ethnic identity and empowerment." And the VA's Central Ohio Health Care System advertises a "Minority Stress & Empowerment" group, an eight-week series "open to Black, Indigenous and all Veterans of color who are interested in addressing race-based stress and trauma."
Under Biden, the federal government has made "equity" a guiding principle thanks to a June 2021 executive order instructing agencies to beef up their diversity programming. "Such training programs," the order said, "should enable Federal employees, managers, and leaders to have knowledge of systemic and institutional racism and bias" as well as an "increased understanding of implicit and unconscious bias."
In other settings, however, race-based offerings have landed private entities in hot water. Last year, amid legal scrutiny, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer quietly amended a fellowship program to remove a provision that barred whites and Asians from applying. Now, University of San Diego law professor and U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member Gail Heriot is expressing similar concern over the VA's programs.
"It seems like every time you turn around there's another race-exclusive government program of dubious constitutionality and legality," Heriot told the Free Beacon. "Race exclusivity should raise red flags. Yet for the past four years, we've been seeing more and more of this kind of thing."
The VA did not respond to a request for comment.
Agency officials have discussed their "equity" offerings on the VA's Ending Veteran Homelessness podcast. Communications official Shawn Liu said the department began "a lot of our racial equity work" in the spring of 2021, around when Biden issued his executive order on diversity. He said the race-based offerings prompted internal pushback, which he dismissed, arguing that "treating everybody the same might not be enough."
"I remember early on, I want to say spring 2021, especially when we were starting to launch a lot of our racial equity work within the Homeless Programs Office, that was a pretty common bit of feedback," Liu said during a February podcast episode. "I would probably also categorize it as a little bit of criticism, right? Which was very well meaning, you know, dedicated staff who were grappling with this idea that the values that were instilled in them were you treat everybody the same, right? That discrimination is bad and you treat everybody the same. And if you treat everybody the same, that's the morally righteous thing to do."
"And those folks who had that feedback … you could see in like real time," Liu went on, "they were kind of grappling with that concept because in many ways what we're talking about today is, number one, providing tailored different solutions for different things, but also this understanding that because people are situated in society differently, they come from different barriers, they come from different challenges."
"Like treating everybody the same might not be enough for some," Liu said.
VA Veteran Justice Programs national training director Matthew Stimmel, who was also on the podcast, agreed.
"I think we can treat all veterans the same, and we should in terms of the amount of respect and dignity and compassion that we show them," he said. "But that doesn't mean we have to just blanketly offer the same exact services in the same exact way to everyone, as a matter of fairness."
Stimmel also serves as an assistant professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Both Liu and Stimmel forwarded Free Beacon requests for comment to the VA's public affairs office, which didn't respond.
The VA has a history of implementing left-wing cultural initiatives under Biden.
In 2021, internal agency training included the "genderbread" diagram, which is also featured in some elementary school curricula. The diagram points to the brain, heart, and pelvic area of a gingerbread "person" to distinguish "gender identity," "sexual orientation," and "biological sex," respectively. The full body of the gingerbread "person" represents its "gender expression," the diagram says.
Weird. I remember the drills telling us that green was the only color that mattered... But that was long ago, in a less enlightened time.
They’re trying to set us against each other.
Anyone who talks about race is a Racist.
I’ve been a patient at two VA hospitals in my area since the 1980s. The staff at each facility is overwhelmingly black, except for the skilled positions. As a rule, most of them treat me with barely-concealed hatred. Some of the women are openly hostile. I don’t go there anymore.
If they knew this was how it would turn out, how many would have fought?
DEI = Harassment of Whites
The Memphis VA is overwhelmingly black and the service is less than desirable. I belong to the American Legion and the monthly magazine is becoming “woke” with their articles and focus.
If the Memphis VA is overwhelmingly black why do they need DEI ? To harass the few Whites ?
DEI bait you can join but you will obey or you don’t stay.
First of all, the VA has “hospitals” in widely separated locations. These care called Medical Centers, and outwards from the reginal hub there will be spokes — local clinics with varying levels of content, but there will be only one true “hospital” in an area.
Staff can be whoever gets hired. I have never rec’d poor courtesy from anyone there. Hispanic, black, white. No one was discourteous.
All that being what it is, please note that THERE ARE OCCASIONS when the different races should be treated differently. There are known statistics of likelihood of various diseases depending on race. Occurs more frequently in some races vs others. For example it is very rare for blacks to have melanoma, but whites, yes. So a black veteran will not have a focused exam for that issue and whites will. Hispanics are predisposed to glaucoma so they get a more careful exam.
And thus . . . equality indeed does not go far enough.
western civilization in decline
“Weird. I remember the drills telling us that green was the only color that mattered... “
It was a lie.
This has been going on since the 1960’s. It’s nothing new since Affirmative Action made hiring in government a priority. Everyone was given priority except white men. We have been under attack by the US government for 60 years. It’s just blatant now and fully out in the open.
First, let me state: the VA has been good to me. The staff at the Lexington, KY V.A. is also largely black as you described. Most of the blacks (and whites) are nice, but the ones who are nasty are women, as in your case.
DEI Hits the VA: Biden’s Veterans Affairs Department Offers Race-Based Training Programs That Exclude White Vets: Not racist
DEI Hits the VA: Biden’s Veterans Affairs Department Offers Race-Based Training Programs That Exclude black Vets: Racist
Very few, I would guess.
The good news, is our White sons are eschewing military service - and a lot of it is because of the way they’re being treated in the military - forced to undergo anti-White racial training, read “White Fragility,” and told they’re terrorist by Lloyd Austin, who:
* Announced the establishment of the Countering Extremism Working Group
* Emphasizes “Diversity,” “Equity,” & “White Supremacy”
I am reminded of this quote by David Irving:
“If the British soldiers who went up the beaches of Normandy could see what would become of their people and country, they would not have advanced another 40 yards up the beach.”
Bureaucrats admitting that they believe Whites are superior and don’t need help. Liberals are the true racists.
That's why they'll bring back the draft, and use white guys as cannon fodder.
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