POLITICS - The time I lost a job for being White and what it taught me -The USA tries to cure its race problem and fails terribly.

Good morning

For anyone who is new here, Mostly Asian History is devoted, mostly, to Asian history. So the intent of this column was from the beginning to write about Chinese, Asian, Chinese-American history and culture and other related subjects. Although the original plan here when the column started in March of 2024 was to avoid US politics, and, especially, never, ever mention the name of Donald Trump, the then very divisive former President, he then got re-elected, ouch, and then things got really bad, and now when I can find the time and think I have something that needs to be said, I write about politics, current events, and the underlying issues shaping the country. As regular readers know, the last few weeks I have been in the nation of Vietnam, and only recently returned. I’ve been busy and spent the weekend battling jet lag and stomach issues. Therefore, instead of running my usual Sunday evening column devoted to Asian history and culture, this week I will be shuffling in a column on politics, racial issues in the USA, and DEI. While the column focuses almost exclusively on events and circumstances in the USA, for what it’s worth, portions were written while in Vietnam, portions written while on lengthy layover at Narito Airport in Japan, and the rest written here in the USA. (And if anyone wonders, despite writing this column, my trip through US customs was surprisingly smooth and simple.)

First, politically, if you are here, you really should know what’s going on. We have an administration that not only started a war for no reason and then seems to have lost it or be losing it after much expense and waste of human life, but the President (surely) made money off of it (probably through insider stock trading, armament sales, and more). The president also tried to fix a non-existent problem on a reflecting pool, and messed that up too while ignoring the real problems that are still there, unaddressed on that very same reflecting pool. So he can’t fix a reflecting pool, and now he’s blaming non-existent vandals. But the President did make money off of it. And I am sure you have all heard about that very strange Ultimate Fighting Contest on the White House lawn, again with the President making money off of it, and a strange claim of an assassination attempt that I have to see details of before I believe it was real.

Things are falling apart in the Executive Branch, but Donald Trump is making money off of the chaos hand over fist, and his only plan is to desperately plead for a bunker while trying to build a small army consisting of ICE, January 6thers, and naive Christian Nationalists, and try to subvert the next election, knowing that if a fair election happens, he will be held accountable for his sins. Will it work for him? It might. Never underestimate Donald Trump. I can’t stand the guy, but one part of his undeniable success, is that people regularly underestimate him. So, if you live in the USA, expect hard, crazy times ahead, and do your best to work to maintain the rule of law and constitutional norms because the system will work if the system is maintained and free and fair elections stay in place, but the Trump regime is working to change that and has made no secret of it. If they succeed, and we do not have a successful election, things will get really ugly.

Meanwhile ICE is rounding up just as many people as it ever has, many of them people who have done no wrong or broken no laws and were following the laws expected of them. And while this agency is not calling attention to itself the way it used to, it is as active as ever. (And it just shot another innocent person and lied about it and the last two such shootings till remain unresolved.) Now like everything else the Trump regime gets involved with a lot of your tax dollars are being taken out of public funds designed to make the world and country better place and instead funneled to the ultra-rich and Trump supporters while increasing human suffering. These policies benefit people who have invested in or started for-profit prison type facilities that have extensive government contracts, and Trump wants to keep them loyal. In the Trump regime the pattern for projects generally includes both unnecessary suffering inflicted on the vulnerable and corruption and personal enrichment at the same time.

And through it all, and this is most visible in the actions of Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller, and the strange, rambling speeches of Donald Trump, there’s a lot of both anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and overt and semi-overt White supremany and racism. And that’s where I am focusing my thoughts this week.

So, how did we get here? Like so many things, it’s complicated, but let’s focus on the fact that we have a government that I am comfortable in describing as openly racist. This is particularly true of the Pentagon and the Department of Defense (that is its legal and official name, and it will be its name until an act of congress says otherwise no matter what a drunken, wife beating moron who appears to be on steroids proclaims.)

Obviously, the USA and American culture, is rooted in racism. The biggest examples are slavery of people from Africa and their descendants and the removal of the Indigenous Native Americans from their lands, mixed with widespread extermination and forced assimilation. But, obviously, there are numerous other examples and the more American history one learns, the more examples of historical racism you find, some against groups one never thought about. (How about the Jackson Whites? Anyone want to delve into the history of the American ethnic group, the Jackson Whites and the role racism plays in their history? 1 )

And since before the founding of our nation, there have been multiple attempts to address the nation’s racism and social and civil injustice issues. But it has not been easy. And it needs to be said that a lot of what was once considered to be sound social justice policies aimed at righting wrongs and seen as beneficial to mistreated and marginal groups, now, in hindsight, seem to us today as not only racist themselves but also acts of social injustice. For instance, there was widespread adoption of mandatory boarding schools intended to “civilize” (forcibly assimilate) indigenous native American children and thus reduce demands for extermination of these people and a long history of efforts to take free blacks, often ex-slaves, and encourage them to return to Africa and settle there. 2 The back to Africa concept was embraced not just by many in the USA, including many freed blacks, but also by the British in Canada. 3

And whenever such such attempts to reconcile these injustices took place, they were often accompanied by some kind of backlash from Whites who felt they were being mistreated.

To illustrate here’s a meme I recently found on social media. I share it as an example, not because I agree with it. It says what many people think, but please read my full column and see what I think before judging my views.

But first, when people are looking to hire for a job, despite all the crazy interview questions, it’s general wisdom that there are three things and three things only that they really want to know. All these other questions are 1) Can you do the job well? 2) Are you someone that the other workers and the management want to have around and spend time with? and 3) If hired, will you keep the job long enough to make it worthwhile to train you? But this general wisdom skips a fourth thing, and that is, did their boss tell them to hire a particular individual or a particular type of individual?

So with no further ado.

I spent several years of my life working as a security guard while dreaming of someday achieving great success as a writer. While I have had more success than most people who set out to become a writer, the full spectrum of financial success and fame never quite arrived for several reasons, some bad luck and things outside my control, and some, in hindsight, entirely my own fault. ‘Nuff said on that except for context, I was working full time when this happened as a security guard, a job that I will add allowed me the chance to read about three heavy duty books each week, something I miss doing greatly.

And during that time, one of the local private colleges was looking for security people and I applied. It was a good school and while the job was not a fantastic job it had a great benefits package including the possibility of free tuition at this college for both employees and their children. I mentioned it to my parents who were enthusiastic about me taking the job. If nothing else, it would be a possible in for employment in other positions at a good school.

“Hey,” said my parents. “We know the dean’s secretary over there, and you do too. She attends church with us, and not only that, she has a good opinion of you. Let’s give her a call and see what she knows about this position and this job opening.”

I agreed and it was done.

Soon, I got a call from the dean’s secretary at the college, a woman who I had met many times and whose house I had visited many times and who I had worked on political and social justice projects with, and who enjoyed helping people, and who did actually have good reason to say and had positive thoughts ahout me and was willing to say so. “And, do you know what, Peter,” she said, “not only would you be great for the job but the man doing the hiring owes me a favor, and I am going to call him up, I am going to tell him you are great, and you will get the job.”

And naturally I thanked her very much and was quite pleased.

Unfortunately, things did not work out that way and I did not get the job. Instead I got a call back from the same woman that went a little bit like this. “I’m sorry Peter. You are not going to get the job. I spoke to the head of security who does the hiring, and he said that while he has two openings, the rest of the security staff at the university are all White males. Therefore, he told me, and the fact that he actually said this to me,” she said, “indicates that we are close and he trusts me, that the college told him he should hire people for these two positions who are anything but White males.”

And, my initial reaction, as one would expect, was to be furious and shout about racism and racial discrimination and reverse discrimination. And for context, one sad thing about being underemployed is you often feel trapped and wonder if you will ever get a better job and escape your situation, even if you are read a lot of books and work and writing.

And just so I say it, if anyone tracks down the details of this, all those involved have long ago moved on to other things so while I am sharing things said in confidence, it’s been so long, the consequences to those involved or the institution are nil.

But those are the facts. I assure you they are true. I was promised that I would be given a job by someone who had the inside scoop, and then I was not hired because I was White. And this is the sort of thing that happens regularly in the USA, and it is one reason there is a widespread sense that these DEI issues are not just or fair and deny jobs to people who deserve them. Now when i saw widespread I can’t give an exact estimate, but even if it’s a mere 30% of people feel this way, and it could be much higher, it’s still a large number. And if you disagree, please continue reading.

But before I move on to my thoughts on how I feel about this now and the societal lessons learned, let me add an additional, related story.

Sometime after this, perhaps two months later, maybe four, something like that, I stopped in at a Dunkin Donuts one evening to get a cup of coffee. And while at the Dunkin Donuts, in came a security guard from that very same college in uniform probably running some kind of errand or another. Being a friendly person, and always anxious to get possible insights on things that interest me from strangers, I greeted him and told him that I had recently applied for a job with the security department at the college where he worked.

His response was to grunt and say “Ehh, you wouldn’t have gotten it anyway. They decided to hire a minority.” For the record, he said this, not me, and I did not respond to the comment. I most certainly did not say that I had an inside scoop and had been told that what he said was absolutely correct. This would have gotten the person who had tried to help me get the job and this man’s boss who did the actual hiring in trouble or made their lives more difficult. (And for the record, it’s been several years and neither of them works in these positions these days.)

But it was obvious that this guard at least considered the two new employees to be, to use the disparaging term, “DEI hires” who were hired for race and ethnicity and not for their ability. (More on this later.)

However, the implication of his statement was that not everyone who had applied for the position had been given equal consideration, and that there had been race based discrimination involved in the hiring decisions. And this was, in fact, the case. (Again, if this offends you, please read to the end of today’s essay.)

And not only that, this impression, which for the record although possibly distasteful and racist sounding was, in fact, factually correct, leaves the people who held the position with the impression that their new colleague may not have been the best qualified candidate and was hired because of their race not their ability. And this makes it more difficult for the new, non-White hires to be accepted. These two people were walking into an environment where they were facing hostility and resentment from at least some of their new colleagues, possibly the very same people who are responsible for training and orienting them. And, just so I say it, when two non-Whites enter an environment where many of their new colleagues seem to have a hostile, unwelcoming attitude towards them, and they have no idea why this attitude exist, then it is not uncommon for them to attribute this hostility to racism. I would argue that in this case, the issue of hostility to the new hires is much more complex than simple racism.

Now I am not going to deny that I was denied a job because I am White. And I cannot deny that the two people who were hired had an advantage in this case over me because they were not White males.

But let’s step back a bit and look at this issue in the context of the alleged goal of whether or not the university got the best possible candidate for its security position.

Was I the best possible choice for the position? This question needs to be asked. If you accept my statement that I had been promised this position and then not hired for this position due to my race, we need to ask if I was, in fact, the best possible choice for the position?

And the only possible answer is we have no way to know.

Really. I have no idea who else applied for the position. I had no access (or need) to examine the resumes and applications of alternative candidates. I may very well have been the best possible candidate, but it’s also very possible that I was not. We just have no way to know.

I was, perhaps, the best-connected candidate for this particular job, but that did not make me the best possible selection for the job.

And the fact that I was the best-connected candidate for the job was entirely due to people who my family knew and the jobs they held. And, we live in a society with a strong and proven history of racism. And this means that several generations back, it would have been impossible, absolutely impossible, for a Black American to have been hired as the dean’s secretary or the head of security. And this means that African American job applicants are traditionally not as connected as White candidates in the USA. Which means that in American institutions when word comes down from above that the new job opening or promotion should go to “Bob’s nephew,” (whoever “Bob” may be) the chances are that “Bob” and his nephew are White simply because Whites have a disproportionate number of important positions and people tend to help their family or the people they know. This is normal human behavior and it’s not racist.

So a lot of what really appears to be racism is actually something more closely connected to nepotism.

Years ago, I wrote an op-ed piece for the Daily Gazette, the primary newspaper in Schenectady, New York, where I argued that the best way for the city to racially integrate its hiring practices was miscegenation. At the time not only were almost all of the city fire department and many other city agencies almost all White, they also had a disproportionate amount of Italian Americans who tended to hire their own relatives. 4

My favorite lines from the piece, from memory, was an imaginary phone call where someone in the Schenectady government, after widespread miscegenation (interacial marriage) takes place makes a phone call to the hiring department of an unnamed Schenectady city department, “Yo, Vinny, this is Dom. I want you to hire my nephew, Jamal Malik, no I can’t spell it, it;s a Jig name, are you serious? But if you don’t hire him the wife’s gonna kill me, and I won’t get any nooky for two months.”

Which if you know Schenectady and how things have traditionally been done there, it is pretty funny and if you don’t then it is probably offensive. And if you find that offensive, stay out of Schenectady or you will go nuts.

Years ago, I probably would have argued no, but the older I get and the more I learn about how the world works, the more important I think it is.

And then I posted on Facebook about how much I enjoyed the film. And then Julie Wu, Taiwanese American novelist and author of the well-received historical fiction novel, The Third Son, a novel based on her family’s experiences during World War Two, a time when Taiwan was a Japanese colony and had been so from 1894, and the post war occupation of the island by the Nationalists and Kuomintang under Chiang Kai Shek, 5 decided to respond. “Hey,” she said. “Did you notice in that movie that all the Asian characters are bad? Not a single one of the Asian characters in that film is a good or decent person.” (or words to that effect.)

And I realized that to be truthful, I actually had not noticed that. And I am quite certain that one reason she noticed and I did not is probably that she is a racially Asian person and I am not. And she is smart too so we can’t be sure that it is a racial thing, but it’s undoubtedly a factor. And just to put in on the record, as far as I know, she does not read this column so do not assume she shares my views or opinion, but feel free to read her book if you want English language Taiwan oriented historical fiction.

Similarly, I used to work in a state office where one of the security guards was an over educated, semi-retired man from Africa who had done many interesting things in his life (and, yes, I am aware that Africa is a big place with many nations, but, as he is not trying to promote a novel, I don’t think there is any real need to give too many identifying details on him.) And this was in an office where there was constant emphasis on DEI, non-discrimination policies, and (pretty useless) annual in-services on such things. And we used to chat a lot. And one day he said to me, “Have you noticed how above a certain level virtually everyone in the management in this office, is White?” And while the quick answer was that “no, I had not noticed,” there was no doubt about it. When it was pointed out it was painfully obviouis that while at the lowest level of employee, probably about half were non-White, at the highest levels, probably 80% or more were White. As the pay grades increased, the percentage of White skin also increased. And a lot could be said about that, but the key point for the moment is that I had not noticed.

And for this reason, if no other (and there are others) it is a good idea to get many kinds of people working together on a project if you wish to have the best possible insight into what is going on.

So in conclusion, the USA definitely has a race problem. Whites hold more than their share of the most desired jobs. But this is not entirely due to racism and an unwillingness to consider non-Whites for important positions. There are many factors for this, and one is good, old-fashioned nepotism. People, being people, tend to hire their friends and family or those recommended by their friends or family. And this is most certainly not something exclusive to Whites. It’s a human universal. But in the USA, a nation where historically non-Whites were commonly denied many opportunities that Whites had for many generations and excluded, the non-Whites often do not have the same amount of connections and inside contacts as many Whites do.

And while DEI mandates (both written and in the case I described unwritten and concealed) do get more non-Whites inside the organization and give them contacts, they are resented by many or most workers for several reasons, including dislike of racially based hiring preferences, and the perception that such preference often precludes hiring the best qualified candidate.

So, like I said, yes, America has a race problem, yes, attempts are being made to fix it, but it’s complicated and its not uncommon for attempts to find a solution or make efforts to fix things, to produce new problems and create tension and resentment. 6

Not the greatest movie ever made but I enjoyed it. But please keep in mind that I love exploitation B-movies.

For no reason, a song from the early 1980s, hard core album “Minor Threat,” release by the band Minor Threat. It resonated with many who I knew back in teh day:
(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Threat and from that page)

Minor Threat’s song “Guilty of Being White” led some critics to accuse the band of racism,[9] but MacKaye has strongly denied such intentions and said that some listeners misinterpreted his words. He claims that his experiences attending Wilson High School, whose student population was 70 percent Black, inspired the song. There, many students bullied MacKaye and his friends. In an interview, MacKaye stated that he was offended that some perceived racist overtones in the lyrics, saying, “To me, at the time and now, it seemed clear it’s an anti-racist song. Of course, it didn’t occur to me at the time I wrote it that anybody outside of my twenty or thirty friends who I was singing to would ever have to actually ponder the lyrics or even consider them.”[8] Thrash metal band Slayer later covered the song, with the last iteration of the lyric “guilty of being white” changed to “guilty of being right.”

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