f you are a parent, you grew up in a “benighted” period when people were assessed and given opportunities on the basis of merit consisting of achievements such as grades, test scores, prizes, etc. That archaic period is now over. People today are assessed according to their race, gender, sexual preferences, disabilities, and minority status. Children of the wrong race, gender, and sexual preference are now often excluded, not admitted to university, not funded, hired, appointed or otherwise benefitted.
In the past, minorities—blacks, indigenous natives, Hispanics, Asians, Jews—were discriminated against. Today, it is the majority that is discriminated against, as well as successful minorities. The “enemy” of social justice is alleged to be white people (60% in the U.S.; 70% in Canada), men (50% everywhere), those of the majority faith–Christians, and also minority Asians and Jews. We have come far from the Rev. Martin Luther King’s plea to judge people by their character rather than their skin color, and from the U.S. Civil Rights Act. Now that we have become “woke,” we see that justice requires the good new racism, sexism, bigotry, and discrimination.
For example, when the American Friends Service Committee did a search for a chief equity, inclusion, and culture officer, they were delighted with the application of Raquel Evita Saraswati. A member of the search committee said, “In my mind it was, ‘Great, a person of color, a queer person of color, who happens to be a Muslim, it’s a woman, all these things, and someone who seemed to get it.” She hit four scores on the intersectionism scale of victimhood, and so was an ideal candidate. (As it turned out, she was a fake, born as Rachel Elizabeth Seidel and white as the driven snow.) The point is, what chance to be accepted, funded, or hired does your white child have if they cannot claim one or preferably more identities as a member of a victim category?
The justification of the new racism and sexism is “equity,” the requirement that each racial, gender, sexuality, etc. category enjoy results in education, economy, business, art, and politics equal to every other category. If there is a lack of statistical equivalence between races or genders or sexualities in academic achievement, admission to programs, hiring, income, or offices, etc., this statistical disparity is alleged to be proof of discrimination, whether racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobist, Islamophobist, or ableist.
It is true that measures of success are in reality unequal among members of different identity categories, which reflects differences in achievement and performance rather than discrimination. For example, Asians are highly successful, more so than whites, while BIPOC are less so. The accusation that these disparities are the result of discrimination is never supported by any evidence. Differences in success are deemed to be ipso facto proof of discrimination, while other relevant factors—family influence, community culture, individual choices—are never considered. In reality, this is an attempt to impose absolute equality of outcomes by fiat, by government imposition, always the ideal of communist regimes, at the expense of liberty, competence, productivity, prosperity, equality before the law, and justice for individuals. For the “woke” “anti-racists,” the practical solution is never to raise those doing less well, and always to lower those who do better.
Above all, your white children will be regarded as “oppressors” who are basically evil and must be punished for their sins. They will not be given equal chances, but be forced to stand aside for “marginalized minorities.” So too with the “bad” minorities, Asians and Jews who, while having long histories of marginalization, are now, due to their unforgivable success, classed with whites, now that being white is a bad thing. (Anti-Asian and antisemitic sentiments and actions are a growing popular trend.)
Your children will not be able to learn in a serene and constructive environment, because disruptive students who interrupt class activities and bully other students will not be disciplined. This is the result of the Obama Administration having decided that “marginalized minorities” were disciplined more than other categories of pupils, and that had to stop. (Today students who speak out against “woke” policies are punished without reservation and with prejudice.)
Your white, Asian, or Jewish children will not have the opportunity to take advanced academic classes or go to specialized advanced programs, because “equity.” For example, Culver City [California] United School District canceled advanced classes because there were too few BIPOC students in those programs. Now all students must be kept at the same, lower level. One parent said in response, “The district has not addressed the underlying issues of underrepresentation experienced by Black and Brown students in honors classes and has replaced previous honors English content with a one size fits all class that is not serving the interests of many students and in particular does not specifically address the need for additional support for underperforming students, while also ignoring the needs of high performing [students].” Canceling advanced classes is an attack on successful pupils of every variety; BIPOC, females, and LGBTQ2S++, as well as whites, males, and Asians; all lose opportunities. It is an attempt to annihilate excellence by removing achievement as a goal.
Your white male children have a double disqualification. Boys are disparaged for their boisterousness, adventurousness, and occasional aggressiveness, as opposed to girls, who are lauded and whose conformism is enforced by quiet, mean-girl tactics. In school, feminist teachers, that is, most teachers, will favor the girls at the expense of the boys.
White males continue to face barriers at university. Females are admitted, funded, and given benefits at higher rates. Campaigns are widespread to increase females in the few fields they do not already dominate. For example, the University of British Columbia has an unrelenting program to promote female participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). The reality is that female students themselves prefer and choose to enter programs in the social sciences and humanities, where they are the dominant majorities. In the final seminar I taught, there were eighteen female students and no males. So how exactly females are considered “marginalized minorities” when 60% of all students are female and professors and administrators are increasingly female is unclear, except that “woke” racist and sexist policies are not based on facts, but on prejudice and revenge.
Hiring at universities for professors or administrators today in many cases explicitly excludes your white or Asian children, with advertisements usually specifying preference for one or another of BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color—but not Asians), LGBTQ2S, disabled, or other “marginalized minorities.” Here are some examples from Canadian university websites:
- University of Victoria: “The Department of Computer Science at the University of Victoria is seeking to hire one faculty member with preference for candidates from any of the following three designated groups: indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, or women.” Who is not eligible for this job are able Ukrainian Canadian males, able Korean Canadian males, able Italian Canadian males, able Quebecois, able South Asian Canadian males, able Latin American males, able Finnish Canadian males, et al.
- York University: “The aim of these Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowships is to support up to 4 scholars annually who self-identify as black and/or indigenous.” Who may not even apply are Japanese Canadians, Latin American Canadians, Jewish Canadians, Iranian Canadians, Polish Canadians, Arab Canadians, and many more.
- Mount Allison University: “Mount Allison University invites applications for a full-time tenure-track interdisciplinary position in Mi’kmaw Culture. The ideal candidate demonstrates a broad experience in and commitment to Mi’kmaw culture, but the discipline and area of specialization are open.” Academic field is unimportant; ethnicity is all. With this approach, Mount Allison is no longer an academic institution. When members of only one small culture may apply, pretty much everyone else in the world is excluded. This is “inclusion”?
- McGill University: “Computer Science Approaches Against Racism … Preference will be given to candidates who self-identify as black.” Did you know that an important part of computer science is social engineering? Excluded are any people who are white, red, brown, or yellow, so no Asian Canadians, Pacific Island Canadians, or Jewish Canadians, because presumably none of these folks know anything about racism.
So too with many scholarships and fellowships, research grants, special housing and eating facilities, special ceremonies, special honors, all of which are directed at preferred categories of recipients, that is, “marginalized minorities,” and explicitly preclude white students. For example, according to Christopher Rufo, “The USF Counseling Center offered racially segregated counseling sessions for ‘Black & African American,’ ‘People of Color,’ and ‘White’ students, providing a ‘healing space for POC to discuss unique impacts of systemic racism’ and a ‘connecting space for allies to share experiences and identify ways to take action against racism.’” Racial preferences and segregation are now quite common in American and Canadian universities.
University is just a preview of opportunities in employment forbidden to white applicants, particularly white males. Throughout the business world, racial preferences and “diversity” are common, all precluding the hiring and promotion of white males. For example, United Airlines announced that hiring of new pilots will be based on diversity criteria, with 50% guaranteed for female or BIPOC applicants.
Your white children no longer have an open future, but one restricted and limited because of their skin color. Your white son is persona non grata in education, business, and government bureaucracy. You can thank “social justice” “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
But there is a glimmer of hope. Although most of our institutions have been corrupted by “woke” ideology, a large majority of ordinary Americans do not accept woke “truths.” Seventy-nine percent of Americans reject the assertion that only whites can be racist, and seventy-two percent endorse the assertion that “It’s OK to be white.” If only the population made its views felt in our institutions, some sanity might return.
Philip Carl Salzman is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
