by Bonnie McCune
Political discussions and debates leave me cold. That’s because I abhor conflict, and politics always seem to be accompanied by disagreements, fights, raised voices, and anger. When I think about the hot topics in the 60s and 70s, many of them centered on matters of race, I associate those times with images of red-faced individuals confronting one another, not infrequently accompanied by fists, even guns. Sometimes soldiers or militias or mobs.
Fortunate for my peace of mind at the time, I was a mother of young children, and my days were devoted to issues like potty training and memorizing the times table or arranging play dates and stretching my miniscule food budget. But the older I get, the more terrified I become over the idea of violence.
This set me thinking about regulations historically called EEO/AA (Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action) and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). School busing was a primary one that set tempers aflame in parts of the country in days gone by. In my area out West, there wasn’t nearly the violence as, say, in the South, but still public opinion hovered at mild dislike. I thought the idea at least deserved a try. I’d learned by this time that the highfalutin ideals of American democracy often fell far short of what their originators hoped for. Here was an experiment I and my children could be part of.
We didn’t have an option in any case. Our public schools were part of the effort in our area. Having majored in psychology and sociology in college, I thought this the perfect opportunity to see models put into practice. Can theories do any good for society at large?
Life interfered. I became busier and busier, went back to work, became involved with parent groups, politics, writing, travel. Meanwhile my family experienced their lives in what was now an integrated society. Not perfect, but integrated.
Did the sky fall? Were we ostracized by friends and neighbors? Did our property lose value? The short answer? No. The long answer is much different, primarily because it is long. Complicated topics frequently take a great deal of time to develop and work on.
My son, at the time in first grade and the most laid back and placid child in the world, became the class peacekeeper. Teachers put the squirmiest vocal little boys next to him in class, where he tolerated their arm punches, and wriggles, and shouts without a blink. They’d even playfully clonk him on skull with their pencils. My extravert bossy daughter immediately made friends with all the bused-in kids.
Our family didn’t come into the situation with preconceptions about race and people. We had an easy time adapting without those biases. Two primary reasons for our neutrality—we’d always lived and gone to school in neighborhoods that were homogeneous, so we had no preconceptions to deal with. Second, our father was a nonpracticing or secular Jew. (My mother was a Lutheran, and that was how the children were raised.) But he was careful not to make racist comments or display any of the then-common traits of prejudice. I remember when I was in second grade, he told me to be especially polite to a little Indian girl because comments about her color might make her feel bad. The perfect approach for a well-mannered do-gooder that was I at the time.
Over the earlier years of their education, my son’s best friend turned out to be a little boy bused into the neighborhood. This friendship lasted for much of their education. My daughter simply added children of all colors to her immense circle of compatriots. As they so often do, these children mixed easily and amiably.
I can’t credit myself for the easy time my family had in adjusting to busing. Sheer chance dictated the selection of their companions, teachers, and staffs of their schools. As far as I know, no nut cases lurked in the background, such as are responsible for incidents nowadays like mass shootings.
My advantage in this experiment? Benign neglect. I wasn’t a mover and shaker. I was a busy mom with two kids and a husband. But on a personal level, I thought the social experiment deserved a decent trial. I was especially interested about impacts in the grander areas of employee recruitment, job placement, and evaluations. In my opinion, even 50 years later, the only effects I noticed were beneficial. In every employment situation, diversity enhanced all aspects of work. Greater reach to the communities we served, more talents and skills at work, tangible increasing opportunities. At one job, our extremely diverse marketing team won a major election to fund and operate earth-shaking improvements in our library system. Various studies and reports agreed on the positives and had almost no negatives.
So I’m confused why massive dismantling of EEO/DEI programs is now underway. Seems to me that the brouhaha brought these days by the feds to the forefront, if truly and equitably applied, should reach the same conclusions and results of the former programs.
We can see opinions from learned and experienced analysts of social movements of the results of the old EEO/DEI programs. Some of these include improving organizational performance, increasing innovation, and fostering equity. Key advantages include higher employee engagement and retention, increased productivity, improved decision-making through diverse perspectives, and expanded access to opportunities for marginalized groups. Almost nothing negative.
Cut to contemporary opinions. I had lunch recently with some relatives of about my age. I hadn’t given much thought to the attitudes of people around me as to their DEI outlooks, but to a man—or a human, rather—they couldn’t understand how anyone could be supporting the current administration’s failure to recognize that people are people and should truly be equal before the law. Presidential peeps and executive branch defenders claim in public assertions that that’s exactly what they’ll be doing. I hope so, but the tenor of public statements and comments makes me think I’m missing something. Are the contemporary process and statements truly trying to be positive and equitable, or just taking pot shots at their political opponents?
With all the ruckus nowadays about various initiatives, a swing in the opposite direction, with a simultaneous increase in emotional reactions, seems to be occurring. The White House has focused on reorienting Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policies toward a strictly merit-based, “colorblind” approach, dismantling many existing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Key actions include Executive Order 14173 (Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity) and directives targeting gender ideology in federal hiring. Isn’t that what we were trying to do before?
I shouldn’t castigate only politicians and their ilk. Look at Megyn Kelly’s “independent commentary,” remarks in which she accuses Bad Bunny of ‘Stealing Our Football’ in her recent major tantrum on television. It’s obvious her journalistic independence stretches only so far as she can agitate the public and its airwaves with opinions that will lend themselves to her harangues and increase her visibility.
Since I’m not a football fan in any case, she could be absolutely right, but I wonder how the many diverse players and sports fans respond to her crackpot theory? Might be interesting if they all decided not to participate in any manner in sports.
Does the new philosophy (in action as a Presidential Executive Order) resemble the same hopes and fears as previously? If both the prior Executive Orders and post Executive Orders are striving for the same ends, what’s the problem?
The strange thing about words is how identical words, phrases, paragraphs can carry totally opposite meanings to different people. If you read the phraseology of some of the new documents, they sound just hunky-dory. In fact, in tenor and sometimes in actual wording, they’re nearly identical to the old-timey documents.
What we need is people of good faith, not fast-talkers; honesty, not flim-flam; hard work and good will, not slights of hand and glib explanations. Simply CLAIMING things are screwed up is not proof, no matter how many people scream the belief.
I think of the many people I’ve known and worked and played with over the years from all sorts of ethnicities, cultures and heritages. A great deal of my exposure to them resulted from the old-timey EEO/DEI programs. No one raised hell, few accused anyone of anything. They didn’t necessarily agree on politics or approaches. By and large, they were people of good will who loved their families and their country, so they worked together to find solutions and create new approaches. Many of them are now good friends of mine and my family. I hope I can trust the new people to have motives and practices as good as my old friends.
I’m now well into my curmudgeon-hood and getting grouchier by the day, when I hear of the bigoted nonsense being peddled by knee-jerk, naïve politicians and self-proclaimed spokespeople.
Let us keep in mind the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Seems to me, noise coming out of people’s mouths is not proof of a damn thing. Just because some feel we need to rewrite all approaches to equal rights and opportunities, doesn’t prove diddly-squat. Somehow there are those who think they can foist their opinions into the public eye over anyone else’s. And just because, somehow, Executive Orders now hold sway over every political squabble that stinks up discussions, we’re supposed to kowtow to them.
I’d say statements that carry the weight and force of law but haven’t been created by the law should have limits. Then we should be building workable solutions. We’re supposed to be equal before the law, but where is the law nowadays? Seems to me every time I turn around, an Executive Order has dismantled or overturned some component that some power group, or Trump connection, doesn’t like. We all say we value equal rights and opportunities. Why don’t we start with that agreement and move together in a cooperative direction rather than running old scripts in which we all yell at one another and accuse and point fingers? Our children should be ashamed of us.
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