Va senator calls for ending diversity programs

[shawn703]

Source: Yahoo News

RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia Sen. Jim Webb called for ending government-run diversity programs in a newspaper column Friday, saying they have disadvantaged struggling whites and hurt the cause of racial harmony.

Webb wrote an op-ed column in Friday's Wall Street Journal that said a "plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future."

Webb's press secretary, Jessica Smith, said Friday that the senator felt the column speaks for itself and that he would not comment further.

Federal diversity programs now primarily benefit new immigrants over whites and even black Americans, their original beneficiaries, wrote Webb, D-Va.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100723/ap_on_go_ot/us_virginia_senator_diversity

[DebbieCDC]

1. Someone's looking at relection and wants to lock up that white fundie VA vote

[No Elephants]

3. Before his election, Obama said pretty much the same thing, except

he said the focus should maybe be economic disadvantage, rather than something like race. I can see that.

[Ian David]

21. If that's what he means, then it's rather inartfully stated. n/t

[naaman fletcher]

36. nope... he has had these views for a long time. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I think it's better to read the whole op-ed. I was about to disown Webb until I did.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703724104575379630952309408.html

[No Elephants]

4. Webb has a history.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Webb seems to say something very similar to what Obama said... take away the race, and

look at economic need. No?

[Spazito]

6. I read the op-ed, as suggested, and it still looks like deliberate...

pandering to the anti-immigrant segment of the population while painting "white workers" as victims. Tough re-election or not, this kind of pandering is, obscene, imo, and serves none but the followers of Allan, his opponent, infamous for his racist "macaca" comment.


"Forty years ago, as the United States experienced the civil rights movement, the supposed monolith of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance served as the whipping post for almost every debate about power and status in America. After a full generation of such debate, WASP elites have fallen by the wayside and a plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future."

[draa]

13. I'm glad to see

you changed your mind after you read his peice. It comes off as teabaggish or worse. He also seems to forget that without those programs blacks wouldn't get many contracts here in the south. I remember a time when blacks were simply ignored when it came to contracts and hiring and that time wasn't that long ago.

[Spazito]

16. I think you have confused me with the poster who recommended...

reading the whole op-ed. I didn't 'change my mind', my only post in response was to state my perspective which is the one to which you responded.

I found the op-ed to be quite offensive immediately upon reading it.

[SalmonFritters]

17. That's insulting to black contactors in the south

Are you seriously suggesting that without mandated preference programs black owned companies can't compete on their merits?

[Ian David]

22. No, just to The South. It's called History. n/t

[boppers]

34. The whistles, let me count them:

"Pat Buchanan got into trouble" anti-PC
"there will not be a single Protestant Justice" anti-Catholic/jew
"White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance served as the whipping post" reversed slavery reference
"regardless of what people look like or where they may worship" anti-atheist
"recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites" anti-immigrant
"13th Amendment and on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which authorized the federal government to take actions in order to eliminate "the badges of slavery"" Yeah, he put scare quotes on it.
"white cultural groups that had also suffered in socio-economic terms from the Civil War and its aftermath." blaming the south on the north
" "people of color"—especially since 1965" longing for the 1950's.
" those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years." longing for the 1750's
"The Civil War devastated the South" more civil war bullshit (hint: it also devastated the north, they're not still whining about it)

Basically, it's a standard KKKonfederate screed.

[EFerrari]

8. He's as wrong as possible AND dog whistling to white racists.

He calls white privilege a myth, he misrepresents what the NAACP asked the Tea Party to do and he hilariously says that "harmony" will resolve discrimination:

"Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away."

Good grief.

[JerseygirlCT]

11. Yeah, reading that didn't help

add stoking xenophobia to his other crimes.

[defendandprotect]

31. How do you take anything seriously which suggests there is a "myth of white privilege" . . .???

[ezmerelda39]

7. By all means

let's make sure that all whites are taken care of and let
anyone of any color fend for themselves, that goes for you
Kermit and you, Gecko little feller.  As Kermit says, "It
ain't easy being green."

[bluestateguy]

9. While I agree with some of the points he made in the OpEd, I oppose his conclusion

nt

[JerseygirlCT]

10. Oh great.

What a winner we have there.

I suspect what he's doing is attempting to save his own political skin by veering hard right and playing to the (trumped up) fears of white people struggling in the Bush economy.

Which is actually quite despicable.

[LostinVA]

12. Remember why we voted for Kaine and for Webb

Remember who they were running against.

I voted for Webb, but will never forgive him for Tailhook.

[JerseygirlCT]

14. "I have dedicated my political career to bringing fairness to America's economic system

...and to our work force, regardless of what people look like or where they may worship."

But if they're female, or African American or a recent immigrant, well that's another story altogether.

[dtexdem]

15. Would that mean we could stop allowing Repukes to sit in Congress?

Or for that matter, blue dogs from Virginia?

;-)

[cynatnite]

18. I want my donation back. n/t

[Bette Noir]

19. He won the election because his opponent revealed himself to be a racist.

Now he's trying to step into that niche?

[defendandprotect]

20. The Repugs are rolling in the muck of racism . . . and unfortunately, it sells!!

[KamaAina]

23. He's a Dem

well, at least he has a (D) after his name. :eyes:

[defendandprotect]

30. ... behaving like a Repug . . .

and he shouldn't be permitted to wear a "D" --

[KamaAina]

24. Doug Wilder's not too happy, either

Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor who endorsed Webb four years ago, criticized the column and challenged Webb to produce the data he used to conclude that diversity initiatives should end.

"If it's not for the civil rights movement and diversity programs, he would not be a United States senator today," Wilder said, referring to minority support that helped Webb beat Allen by about 9,000 votes.

"Things are tough enough without having people you thought were friends do things like this," Wilder said.

[sulphurdunn]

25. Notes from Virginia

As the old saw goes: There are liars, damn liars and statistics. According to the national Poverty Center University of Michigan:

1. 83% of all college students in the US are non-Hispanic non-Jewish whites.
2. 16% of all college enrolless are non-Hispanic whites, Jews and all other minorities including Asians.
3. Children (eighteen and younger)comprise 19 to 24% of those living in poverty.
4. While whites comprise 48% of those living in poverty they are only 11% of the national total.
5. 34% of American blacks live in poverty.
5. 31% of Hispanics live in poverty
6. 13% of Asians live in poverty.
7. 15% of Jews live in poverty. (This figure has been estimated by the Jewish Federation of Chicago to be as high as 20%). According to the Jewish Federation of America, 25% of American Holocaust survivors live in poverty.

Sounds to me like Webb wants to steal the republican's Southern Strategy out from under them. The current targets are the NAACP, Affirmative Action and immigration programs. The purpose is to brand non-whites as racists and whites as victims. It is both false and very cynical. Like so many Democrats I voted for, Webb is a major disappointment.

[SoapBox]

26. Sounds great except...Given the chance, the angry tighty-whites would put those of color...

back into slavery like conditions.

[Tempest]

27. What about the black farmers who were discriminated against in loans?

They still are waiting for the government to pay damages from the lawsuit they won.

[dballance]

28. Screw Diversity - Focus on Unity

Let me disclose my bias right up front. I'm gay and I lost a job because of that. So you'd think my bias would be in favor of diversity programs. It's not. I abhor them.

Frankly, from what I've experienced, forcing people to take diversity classes and making them sign statements they'll abide by company "non-discriminatory" policy is not only ineffective it is counter-productive. It makes people angry when they're told how to behave. Those classes tend to further accentuate the differences between "us and them." That only makes the differences more apparent and offensive.

I think we should end all the diversity programs and start teaching Unity programs. All of us have the same goals regardless of race, sexual orientation or gender. We want to protect and feed our families. We want to have a home that is safe. We want our kids to have a better life than we had.

Let's stop teaching people why they should appreciate the difference in race, gender, or sexual orientation and start teaching people about how much WE, as individuals, are so similar. Our hopes, our fears - they are the same no matter who you are.

[westerebus]

29. He has said this before.

In his primary speeches and Q&A's.

It's the poor black kid that is in the same humvee with the poor white kid along with the poor hispanic kid that gets blown up in Afghanistan.

Poor is poor. It doesn't matter if your black or white if there are no jobs.

Webb has said this from day one. Jobs are the cure to poverty. Education brings better jobs. If there are no jobs to begin with then what?

He hasn't changed his tune. He said the law is being used to circumvent its original purpose. To bring opportunity to black people who were discriminated against by their government.

So today, you can hire selective minorities to fill the role and check off compliance when you put in for a government contract. Or hire illegals as subcontractors to under bid on jobs. Happens more and more in the construction trades.

[ProSense]

32. Webb Calls For White Americans To End ‘Government Directed Diversity Programs’

Webb Calls For White Americans To End ‘Government Directed Diversity Programs’

Our guest blogger is Sam Fulwood III, a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Maybe Sen. James Webb, the Democratic senator from Virginia, didn’t understand that what he was saying made him sound like a mossback from the last century. In a bizarre and unfortunate opinion article published in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. I’m being charitable because surely the Democratic senator from Virginia didn’t mean to sound as bigoted as the article makes him seem. No, surely he wasn’t arguing that white Americans suffer from federal policies that favor everyone but themselves.

“Those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs,” Webb wrote, arguing for a retreat from those unspecified federal programs. “The same cannot be said of many hard-working white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years.”

Beyond being grossly ignorant about the current effects of what he calls “present-day diversity programs,” Webb is engaging in reckless racial inversion. While he carefully exculpates black Americans, whom he describes as “still in need,” Webb makes a scurrilous case that white Americans – southerners and Baptists, in particular – are being harmed by nonwhite groups who receive “special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business startups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts.” His solution is a call for white people to unite and end “government directed diversity programs.”

Clearly, Webb is unaware that affirmative actions programs have been effectively dismantled by the Supreme Court. But worse, he’s oblivious to the fact that his screed treads dangerously close to the discredited divide-and-conqueror tactics of the Southern strategy. In this new formation, Webb pits the sweeping and swelling segments of America’s immigrant population against native-born Americans with the aim of rallying the nation’s “white cultures.”

If he thinks this is a necessary step toward racial healing, especially after the week the nation’s just had, then he’s even more misguided than his article reveals. Somebody, perhaps one of his congressional colleagues, needs to tell Sen.Webb to get his head out of the last, sad epoch of covert racist talk and join the rest of America in the 21st century.

[underpants]

33. Bad move Jim- you were going to be re-elected anyway

McDonnell is a chump and THE CUCH is a joke

[Tesha]

35. We have sacrificed so many of our fundamental party principles...

...that it's no wonder no one knows what Democrats stand for
any more!

Tesha