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Diversity, Inc.
National Review ^ | 12/28/2011 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 12/28/2011 7:07:34 AM PST by Servant of the Cross

“Diversity” places appearances above “the content of our character.”

‘Affirmative action” was the logical sequel to the civil-rights legislation of the 1960s. The initial reasoning was attractive enough. New guarantees of equality of opportunity were insufficient to achieve the promised social parity, given the legacy of slavery and the existence of ongoing racial bias. Therefore, to counteract the effects of historical discrimination, the race of individuals must be weighed into contemporary hiring and admissions practices. The key was to avoid the word “quota.” That did not sound very “affirmative” for a program that supposedly was about growing (or “enriching”) the pie, not a crass zero-sum game of taking a college spot or a job from one person and giving it to another on the basis of race.

Second, although slavery was confined to the Confederacy, there was the general assumption that, as blacks in the postbellum era had migrated northward, they were subjected to all sorts of bias, and so the recompense was to be a national, not just a southern, obligation.

Third, it was soon clear that all sorts of groups other than blacks could lodge historical claims against the supposedly dominant “white” culture. Soon Latinos, Native Americans, and Asians likewise petitioned for inclusion in set-aside and compensatory programs. The subtext was that these groups, given racial bias, would not intermarry and assimilate as quickly or to the same degree, and would not do as well economically, as had other terribly persecuted minorities like Jews, Italians, and the Irish, who after decades of discrimination seemingly had morphed into the so-called white majority.

As these original victimized groups experienced success (though at differing rates), and as a legion of other cadres sought inclusion in the preference industries, “affirmative action” insidiously was replaced by a new euphemism, “diversity” ...

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: diversity; vdh
VDH provides an historical look at reverse discrimination.
1 posted on 12/28/2011 7:07:39 AM PST by Servant of the Cross
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To: Servant of the Cross
although slavery was confined to the Confederacy

I thought VDH had a better grasp of history than this.
2 posted on 12/28/2011 7:22:24 AM PST by chrisser (Starve the Monkeys!)
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To: chrisser

Agreed.


3 posted on 12/28/2011 7:31:50 AM PST by GoDuke
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To: chrisser

Exactly right. Even during the War Between the States slavery wasn’t limited to the Confederacy.

He also lacks the moral courage to just speak the obvious truth plainly: AA was a race spoils scam from the beginning and was never anything else. Now we have a privatized form of welfare - people in jobs that they don’t perform well because they never were as well qualified as others who lacked the gender/race “qualifications”. Now sodomites are joining the ranks of the “entitled”.


4 posted on 12/28/2011 7:51:16 AM PST by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: chrisser

Compare and contrast slavery in the ‘Confederacy’ versus in the ‘North’.


5 posted on 12/28/2011 8:17:50 AM PST by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: Servant of the Cross

“Anti-racism” is nothing more than anti-white.


6 posted on 12/28/2011 8:19:30 AM PST by junta ("Peace is a racket", testimony from crime boss Barrack Hussein Obama.)
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To: achilles2000
Even during the War Between the States slavery wasn’t limited to the Confederacy.

Post a thread on the idiocy of 'Affirmative Action' and a Civil War thread breaks out?

7 posted on 12/28/2011 8:25:26 AM PST by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: Servant of the Cross

Nah, just an aside. But I didn’t think all that much of the AA part of the piece either.


8 posted on 12/28/2011 8:28:08 AM PST by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: Servant of the Cross

Diversity is simply the rationale used to justify hiring women and minorities over more highly qualified white men.


9 posted on 12/28/2011 9:03:23 AM PST by Hacklehead (Lets stop bashing Republican candidates and get back to bashing OBAMA.)
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To: achilles2000
He also lacks the moral courage to just speak the obvious truth plainly

He calls AA an 'experiment', 'corrupt', 'unworkable', 'illiberal', 'counterproductive' and he calls for its entire dismantling. (who else is advocating this right now?) What exactly is lacking?

10 posted on 12/28/2011 9:17:15 AM PST by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: Servant of the Cross

AA was never an experiment. It was intended to function just as it does, and I am fairly sure VDH knows it.

By analogy, some people who know better think it is tactically clever to write “unions once served a legitimate purpose, but today...” The historical truth is that unions were always violent, lawless, and left-subversive. They terrorized workers and employers who didn’t want their “services”. Calling AA an “experiment” is much the same thing.

This isn’t a blanket condemnation of VDH.


11 posted on 12/28/2011 9:25:05 AM PST by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: Servant of the Cross

This site has an interesting overview:

http://www.slavenorth.com/


12 posted on 12/28/2011 9:35:36 AM PST by chrisser (Starve the Monkeys!)
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To: Servant of the Cross
What exactly is lacking?

There's a subset of FReepers who completely lose their minds any time the words "slavery" and "south" are used in the same article. Just ignore it and move on.

13 posted on 12/28/2011 10:13:18 AM PST by douginthearmy (1 vote for Paul = 2 votes! 1 primary vote for Romney and 1 general vote for Obama!)
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To: junta

the irony is that slavery was historically RARELY based on skin color. Even to this day when slavery exists in the sudan, it is not based on race but rather the point of a gun.

How does the left account for reparations for those enslaved who happen to be “white”? the answer is the can’t and don’t.


14 posted on 12/28/2011 10:43:28 AM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: Servant of the Cross
But at some magical moment, suddenly “Asian” was no longer grounds for redress, but rather a reason for discrimination. We see this clearly in the University of California system, and especially at the flagship Berkeley campus, where the GPA and SAT scores of Asian students have to be higher than those of their black or Hispanic counterparts for them to gain admission.

This will hurt rat diversity, IMHO. Most will probably join the bitter clingers.

15 posted on 12/28/2011 8:37:01 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: Servant of the Cross

Liberals view the world statically. It’s a zero sum game. Somehow their brains don’t register improvement. Yet, they tend to be totally enamored with tech.


16 posted on 12/29/2011 5:36:20 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Servant of the Cross

bookmark


17 posted on 12/29/2011 9:16:33 PM PST by presidio9 (www.catholicscomehome.org)
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