Steve you don’t use the online discourse slang of the internet right, but I have to ask you as someone who has been focused on American race politics for so long… have you ever seen so much winning? In all seriousness though, it felt so bleak during the great awokening, did you think we’d whiplash this much in the other direction this fast and sudden?
I like winning as much as the next guy, but I’m afraid these wins are written on water. The one thing that gives me a glimmer of hope is that almost all of the young men and women with whom I’m acquainted through my children are very vocal in support of President Trump and what he’s trying to do.
I share your concern over many of the “victories” we’ve had since Jan. 20. Anything done/undone by executive order or other administrative actions can be done/undone by the next administration. That’s why these actions (e.g., eliminating racial preferences, DOGE cuts) must be enshrined by legislation.
Executive order is as good as it gets. At the heart of it is disparate impact, and a new president after Donald can argue this way as that way.
It's the same with, for example, tax on capital gains - with an executive order, you could include an adjustment to inflation, making it a real capital gain. Or you could continue as it is now, with no inflation adjustment.
This is what it means to elect a chief executive. The "stolen" election in 2020 showed that very clearly.
Uh, no! Legislation barring racial preferences would be “as good as it gets.” Any executive order can be revoked in January 2029 by a new president. With a Republican House and Senate, this should be what we’re aiming for.
We are not talking about explicit "racial preferences". As far as I see, no one has mandated so far to employ blacks at 2x times the demographic rates as medical doctors, senior judges or flight controllers.
What we are talking about forbidding use of disparate impact. That would then have to focus on: what tests and metrics are allowed, which ones are malicious and should be forbidden. I don't see enough courage in Republican senators or representatives to address this issue by legislating.
Surely there is value to a Hispanic contractor pouring concrete to having a black contractor pouring concrete nearby. The Hispanic man's views on concrete come from his own cultural experience and having a diverse viewpoint on concrete can only make concrete better.
I don't know how specifically, because I am not in the concrete business. Which is not to say I am in an abstract business.
Why would all the minority contractors immediately go out of business if the program went away? Do the contractors in the program make more money for a given task than the white male contractors?
What are the criteria for awarding these contracts absent the racial thumb on the scale? It has to be some combination of price and record or evidence that you can complete the job on time up to government standards, right? Why is it assumed these minority contractors would fail?
I've had a joke queued up since I moved to LA. If anyone should ever ask me 'do you have representation' I respond 'unfortunately not. I'm completely abstract'. I considered making the punchline 'completely virtual' but that's a bit too computer science. I expect no laugh from the recipient. I'll settle for blinking incomprehension.
I've spent way too much time fantasizing about getting to use this line.
It would probably help if I left the house more often.
It sure sounded reverse-sexist when I was approached by a few guys who wanted me to head their non-existent construction company to help a few more white guys with a real construction company to get quota points for city contracts. It would be a no-show job, they promised, as if I would ever take one. Of course, the white guys with the real construction company subcontracted all the work to companies that only hired illegals, who got paid less and paid no taxes.
It's complimicated, you see. I saw prejudice, theft, and political graft as far as the eye could see.
That might be an argument for it. If the whole system is corrupt, shouldn't blacks get a slice? Do we really want to go all meritocracy and insist that the contracts go to the people who are most talented and hard working at corruption?
No. You require e-verify, lose the illegal labor, and end affirmative action. I'm not amused when jobs become job programs on my dime. Government needs to be distinguished from the mafia.
I agree, but construction was plenty corrupt in the 1950s and 1960s too, at least in the large cities. If we wanted to, we could eliminate that from federal road contracts pretty easily.
The extension of affirmative action to higher paying/prestige jobs is definitely a factor in why there hasn't been as much opposition to Trump's initiatives as some would think. It's one thing for some troglodyte blue-collar work to be done by non-whites. It's COMPLETELY DIFFERENT when GoodWhite jobs are affected.
What's the long term plan here, though? Black people lose their jobs en masse? That's not good for them and it's not really good for the rest of us either. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to share a society with employed black people rather than unemployed black people. For their sake and mine.
Blacks do very well in government. Think about a city like Baltimore. Most of the politicians are black. The pols have a coterie of aids almost all black. The city school system is almost all black. Teachers. Administrators. Custodians. Security. The city jail is almost all black from administrators to jail guards. The judicial system is heavily black from judges to prosecutors to public defenders to administrators to bailiffs to security to para-legals to clerks to clerical workers. The sanitation department will be all black except perhaps a small group of engineers for the sewage treatment plants. The police force is heavily black from administration down to patrolmen. Road crews would almost be all black. Handling traffic lights and the like would be heavily black with perhaps some oversight. Public records would be heavily black. The tax department would be heavily black with a few white brainiacs at the top. The men cleaning up the city parks, emptying the trash bins, mowing grass and the like would be all black. The trashmen would be all black.
When you realize that blacks dominate hundreds of cities, big and small, and scores of rural counties throughout the South, one can see why blacks support the party of big government, the Democrats.
Sandra Day O'Connor, who graduated #2 in her class at Stanford, used to complain about how in the 1950's, law firms would only hire her women to do probate work. Nowadays, women lawyers in big firms typically handle ..... employment and probate work.
Walter: I had a woman on my staff in the ’70’s who was denied entry to Purdue University’s veterinary medicine program simply because she was a woman. I marched with MLK Jr in the ‘60’s. I just don’t believe repeating the sins of the past is the way forward.
Post-1980, which is roughly when law school classes became 50% women, the legal landscape is extremely interesting for the dearth of women in what might be called "high pressure" cases. My experience is in California. Take personal injury/insurance bad faith: since about 1988, the most successful trial lawyer in the state (whose office is 13 miles from Steve's home) is a guy who finished last in his class at a TTT. If he turned down my case, I could think of 20 men with a track record in the same ballpark, but not a single woman.
In IT litigation, I can think of one woman (who was in my '83 class). In high stakes criminal defense (e.g. murder or insider trading), I can't think of a single woman who handled the trial. In employment law, you have waves of female lawyers working the management side, where all effort goes into a hundreds-pages long summary judgment motion in the hope of avoiding a jury. There are many women winning for clients in divorce litigation, which is incredibly messy and emotional and doesn't involve facing a jury.
When I was young, I was one of those natural feminists who just assumed that women could do anything men could that didn't involve biceps, so I've been surprised that trial lawyering has remained so male.
I know some exceptions, but on the whole you are right. But consider this: maybe women are better at relational/emotional law, and men are better at law that uses technical fields. In general. Aren't both valuable and profitable? And since so much very profitable law is government relations-based, even minus affirmative action, don't women have an upper hand in at least half of relational government law, especially regarding healthcare?
It's too soon to draw conclusions. Men and women are slotting themselves into fields in which they excel. Some deviate. This seems like normal growth to me. Practicing law is a rare field that calls on a broad range of skills. Progress would be healthier if the law schools were not so leftist.
I am somewhat familiar with the public procurement, not in the US.
It’s absolutely possible that the ownership and externally focussed people at the firm to be completely different from the people who do the substantive work.
There is simply no legal or philosophical ground for affirmative action, quotas, or set-asides. (Which means that leftists will continue to push for them.)
IMHO the problem with DBE programs is that the beneficiary becomes reliant on the program without the need to excel to get or retain jobs. Without competition they rarely become better and it becomes an exercise in rent seeking. At my first job we were a small firm hiring individuals to meet the DBE requirements. It was horribly inefficient.
“But of course, a lot of the female DEI beneficiary contractors are just fronts for their husbands’ (or other male relatives’) contracting businesses.”
Yup, it’s all horseshit. Contractors are not morons and if getting DoT money requires “minority” ownership, then that’s what the articles of incorporation will show.
I was part of the quota racket for a short time in 1986-87. I worked for a very white Syracuse engineering firm called O'Brien and Gere Engineers that had a branch office in Landover, MD. I was hired out by my firm to be an inspector for a black-owned engineering firm who did business with the Washington Suburban Sanitation Commission. This black-owned firm also hired three Indians as inspectors. Black engineers are fairly rare in America but when you are black with an engineering degree, you are sitting very pretty.
I have dealt directly with minority contractors, having been required to use them on construction projects. Ninety percent of them were terrible and/or a skim operations in which white subcontractors do all the real work and the minority frontman gets a cut. There are some legit XBEs that are decent but not enough to organically meet the demands of government mandated set asides, plus they probably lose out on business from people like myself who have been burned by the crappy ones and will just write the whole category off.
Much like higher ed where NAMs who are genuinely high achieving are tainted by everyone assuming they are affirmative action cases, most still cling to their identity and the need for quotas.
When white Americans who aren't lefties chat amongst themselves on their patios grilling steaks or burgers or are having drinks at the local pub or watching a ballgame in their living room amongst friends, they'll tell you that they're tired of the quotas and the affirmative action and the crime and the black adherence to the Democratic Party. The sympathetic figure of kindly Sidney Portier has long receded into the background and been replaced by the late Tupac Shakur, "Reverand" Al Sharpton, P-Diddy Combs and millions who aren't as famous. The end of quotas are the logical end game for the Republican Party and they should dare the Democrats to bring back quotas when they return to office.
We're ready to be done with this and move on.
Some of us have been ready for over 50 years.
Right with you. Sigh.
Steve you don’t use the online discourse slang of the internet right, but I have to ask you as someone who has been focused on American race politics for so long… have you ever seen so much winning? In all seriousness though, it felt so bleak during the great awokening, did you think we’d whiplash this much in the other direction this fast and sudden?
I like winning as much as the next guy, but I’m afraid these wins are written on water. The one thing that gives me a glimmer of hope is that almost all of the young men and women with whom I’m acquainted through my children are very vocal in support of President Trump and what he’s trying to do.
I share your concern over many of the “victories” we’ve had since Jan. 20. Anything done/undone by executive order or other administrative actions can be done/undone by the next administration. That’s why these actions (e.g., eliminating racial preferences, DOGE cuts) must be enshrined by legislation.
Executive order is as good as it gets. At the heart of it is disparate impact, and a new president after Donald can argue this way as that way.
It's the same with, for example, tax on capital gains - with an executive order, you could include an adjustment to inflation, making it a real capital gain. Or you could continue as it is now, with no inflation adjustment.
This is what it means to elect a chief executive. The "stolen" election in 2020 showed that very clearly.
Uh, no! Legislation barring racial preferences would be “as good as it gets.” Any executive order can be revoked in January 2029 by a new president. With a Republican House and Senate, this should be what we’re aiming for.
We are not talking about explicit "racial preferences". As far as I see, no one has mandated so far to employ blacks at 2x times the demographic rates as medical doctors, senior judges or flight controllers.
What we are talking about forbidding use of disparate impact. That would then have to focus on: what tests and metrics are allowed, which ones are malicious and should be forbidden. I don't see enough courage in Republican senators or representatives to address this issue by legislating.
I think you have to consider how the judiciary may react to legislation. Their actions against the executive don't make me think anything is a given.
Surely there is value to a Hispanic contractor pouring concrete to having a black contractor pouring concrete nearby. The Hispanic man's views on concrete come from his own cultural experience and having a diverse viewpoint on concrete can only make concrete better.
I don't know how specifically, because I am not in the concrete business. Which is not to say I am in an abstract business.
Why would all the minority contractors immediately go out of business if the program went away? Do the contractors in the program make more money for a given task than the white male contractors?
What are the criteria for awarding these contracts absent the racial thumb on the scale? It has to be some combination of price and record or evidence that you can complete the job on time up to government standards, right? Why is it assumed these minority contractors would fail?
I'm no expert, but that sounds kind of racist.
C’mon, man, you can’t tell the difference between Hispanic concrete and Black concrete? 😎
Sounds like a good set up for a joke your dad would have cracked them up with at the Moose lodge in the 1970s.
What we need most of all is racially diverse concrete.
Yep. One speaks Ebonics
We did ask for a concrete example.
I've had a joke queued up since I moved to LA. If anyone should ever ask me 'do you have representation' I respond 'unfortunately not. I'm completely abstract'. I considered making the punchline 'completely virtual' but that's a bit too computer science. I expect no laugh from the recipient. I'll settle for blinking incomprehension.
I've spent way too much time fantasizing about getting to use this line.
It would probably help if I left the house more often.
It sure sounded reverse-sexist when I was approached by a few guys who wanted me to head their non-existent construction company to help a few more white guys with a real construction company to get quota points for city contracts. It would be a no-show job, they promised, as if I would ever take one. Of course, the white guys with the real construction company subcontracted all the work to companies that only hired illegals, who got paid less and paid no taxes.
It's complimicated, you see. I saw prejudice, theft, and political graft as far as the eye could see.
That might be an argument for it. If the whole system is corrupt, shouldn't blacks get a slice? Do we really want to go all meritocracy and insist that the contracts go to the people who are most talented and hard working at corruption?
No. You require e-verify, lose the illegal labor, and end affirmative action. I'm not amused when jobs become job programs on my dime. Government needs to be distinguished from the mafia.
I agree, but construction was plenty corrupt in the 1950s and 1960s too, at least in the large cities. If we wanted to, we could eliminate that from federal road contracts pretty easily.
The extension of affirmative action to higher paying/prestige jobs is definitely a factor in why there hasn't been as much opposition to Trump's initiatives as some would think. It's one thing for some troglodyte blue-collar work to be done by non-whites. It's COMPLETELY DIFFERENT when GoodWhite jobs are affected.
We appreciate the sly reference to Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous Supreme Court ruling in Buck v. Bell: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell#Supreme_Court
Trust a former marketing exec to do smooth subliminal associations: Quotas = Imbeciles.
What's the long term plan here, though? Black people lose their jobs en masse? That's not good for them and it's not really good for the rest of us either. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to share a society with employed black people rather than unemployed black people. For their sake and mine.
Nobody on any side has much of a long-term plan because you aren't allowed to speak about the IQ realities in polite society.
Blacks do very well in government. Think about a city like Baltimore. Most of the politicians are black. The pols have a coterie of aids almost all black. The city school system is almost all black. Teachers. Administrators. Custodians. Security. The city jail is almost all black from administrators to jail guards. The judicial system is heavily black from judges to prosecutors to public defenders to administrators to bailiffs to security to para-legals to clerks to clerical workers. The sanitation department will be all black except perhaps a small group of engineers for the sewage treatment plants. The police force is heavily black from administration down to patrolmen. Road crews would almost be all black. Handling traffic lights and the like would be heavily black with perhaps some oversight. Public records would be heavily black. The tax department would be heavily black with a few white brainiacs at the top. The men cleaning up the city parks, emptying the trash bins, mowing grass and the like would be all black. The trashmen would be all black.
When you realize that blacks dominate hundreds of cities, big and small, and scores of rural counties throughout the South, one can see why blacks support the party of big government, the Democrats.
O/T
RIP Rick Derringer (77.9)
Rick had a bit of a career renaissance by being Weird Al's producer
“Rock and Roll Hoochiekoo”!
Spread the news.
It’s simple Democrats discriminate on the basis of race and sex today because in the past there was discrimination on the basis of race and sex
Sandra Day O'Connor, who graduated #2 in her class at Stanford, used to complain about how in the 1950's, law firms would only hire her women to do probate work. Nowadays, women lawyers in big firms typically handle ..... employment and probate work.
Walter: I had a woman on my staff in the ’70’s who was denied entry to Purdue University’s veterinary medicine program simply because she was a woman. I marched with MLK Jr in the ‘60’s. I just don’t believe repeating the sins of the past is the way forward.
Is that true? Is it true across the profession, not just big firms?
Post-1980, which is roughly when law school classes became 50% women, the legal landscape is extremely interesting for the dearth of women in what might be called "high pressure" cases. My experience is in California. Take personal injury/insurance bad faith: since about 1988, the most successful trial lawyer in the state (whose office is 13 miles from Steve's home) is a guy who finished last in his class at a TTT. If he turned down my case, I could think of 20 men with a track record in the same ballpark, but not a single woman.
In IT litigation, I can think of one woman (who was in my '83 class). In high stakes criminal defense (e.g. murder or insider trading), I can't think of a single woman who handled the trial. In employment law, you have waves of female lawyers working the management side, where all effort goes into a hundreds-pages long summary judgment motion in the hope of avoiding a jury. There are many women winning for clients in divorce litigation, which is incredibly messy and emotional and doesn't involve facing a jury.
When I was young, I was one of those natural feminists who just assumed that women could do anything men could that didn't involve biceps, so I've been surprised that trial lawyering has remained so male.
I know some exceptions, but on the whole you are right. But consider this: maybe women are better at relational/emotional law, and men are better at law that uses technical fields. In general. Aren't both valuable and profitable? And since so much very profitable law is government relations-based, even minus affirmative action, don't women have an upper hand in at least half of relational government law, especially regarding healthcare?
It's too soon to draw conclusions. Men and women are slotting themselves into fields in which they excel. Some deviate. This seems like normal growth to me. Practicing law is a rare field that calls on a broad range of skills. Progress would be healthier if the law schools were not so leftist.
I don't get it; what's he aksing?
I am somewhat familiar with the public procurement, not in the US.
It’s absolutely possible that the ownership and externally focussed people at the firm to be completely different from the people who do the substantive work.
Yep.
There is simply no legal or philosophical ground for affirmative action, quotas, or set-asides. (Which means that leftists will continue to push for them.)
IMHO the problem with DBE programs is that the beneficiary becomes reliant on the program without the need to excel to get or retain jobs. Without competition they rarely become better and it becomes an exercise in rent seeking. At my first job we were a small firm hiring individuals to meet the DBE requirements. It was horribly inefficient.
“But of course, a lot of the female DEI beneficiary contractors are just fronts for their husbands’ (or other male relatives’) contracting businesses.”
Yup, it’s all horseshit. Contractors are not morons and if getting DoT money requires “minority” ownership, then that’s what the articles of incorporation will show.
I was part of the quota racket for a short time in 1986-87. I worked for a very white Syracuse engineering firm called O'Brien and Gere Engineers that had a branch office in Landover, MD. I was hired out by my firm to be an inspector for a black-owned engineering firm who did business with the Washington Suburban Sanitation Commission. This black-owned firm also hired three Indians as inspectors. Black engineers are fairly rare in America but when you are black with an engineering degree, you are sitting very pretty.
I have dealt directly with minority contractors, having been required to use them on construction projects. Ninety percent of them were terrible and/or a skim operations in which white subcontractors do all the real work and the minority frontman gets a cut. There are some legit XBEs that are decent but not enough to organically meet the demands of government mandated set asides, plus they probably lose out on business from people like myself who have been burned by the crappy ones and will just write the whole category off.
Much like higher ed where NAMs who are genuinely high achieving are tainted by everyone assuming they are affirmative action cases, most still cling to their identity and the need for quotas.
When white Americans who aren't lefties chat amongst themselves on their patios grilling steaks or burgers or are having drinks at the local pub or watching a ballgame in their living room amongst friends, they'll tell you that they're tired of the quotas and the affirmative action and the crime and the black adherence to the Democratic Party. The sympathetic figure of kindly Sidney Portier has long receded into the background and been replaced by the late Tupac Shakur, "Reverand" Al Sharpton, P-Diddy Combs and millions who aren't as famous. The end of quotas are the logical end game for the Republican Party and they should dare the Democrats to bring back quotas when they return to office.
And demand Cuba to return multiple-cop-killer Assata Shakur to the U.S. electric chair. She can share a cell with murdering Professor Angela Davis.