I’m not a believer in equal outcomes. The only outcome that all of us is guaranteed is death. (It used to be taxes, too, until MAGA took over, and now the rich are pretty much exempted from paying their fair share of taxes.)
The wokes in Oakland, however, have embraced equal racial outcomes as the sine qua non of their march to communism. They demand equality, or “equity,” in almost everything, matching the racial background of Oaklanders. If the population of Oakland is 22% Black (which it is), then precisely 22% of high school graduates should be Black. Ditto for homeowners, teachers, physicians, and skilled laborers. If 22% of these groups are not Black, the wokes conclude that racism must be the cause. Evil, institutional racism.
At the same time, they want only 22% to be the percentage of Black people who are in jail, and who are stopped by cops for suspicious driving, or picked up in the streets for criminal behavior, as opposed to the 40% or more than is currently the case. If more than 22% of people involved in the criminal justice system are Black, there can be only one cause: systemic racism. It never enters the woke brain, such as it is, that people get caught by the police because they commit crimes, not because of the color of their skin.
Of course, this psychological obsession with equal outcomes has been rejected as insane by the majority of Americans. But here in Oakland, it’s the defining political fantasy of the wokes and the unions, who together choose—behind closed doors—who the candidates for elected office will be. This is one definition of fascism: centralized autocracy, suppression of opposition, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of one particular race, and an outright rejection of the natural order by which the most talented thrive and others do not. The promotion of race-based outcomes—slanted in favor of African-Americans—is the official aim of the City Council, the mayor, and the entirety of Oakland’s political structure.
They’re always looking for innovative places to shove their ideology into, and lately they’re found a hot new one: contracting. Somebody, connected with Carroll Fife, did a study and discovered that the percentage of city contracts (construction, engineering, etc.) awarded to firms run by minority groups (Black, Latino, etc.) is markedly lower than the percentage of those groups in the overall population. This, the study concluded, is unfair. “Under a fair and equitable system of awarding prime contracts,” it said, “the proportion of prime contract dollars awarded to [White males] should be relatively close to the corresponding proportion of available [White males] in the relevant market area.” This sentiment, expressed so simply, is the essence of the woke argument explaining so-called “disparities” in everything, from the number of speeding tickets issued to the number of tile layers hired by the city. According to the firm that conducted the study, Marshall Tillman, this finding requires a “disparity analysis” to determine where the racism is, and what to do about it.
This nonsense is right up Carroll Fife’s alley. When you’re determined to find racism (or anything else), you probably will, especially if you have the funds to hire a firm like Mason Tillman, which is essentially a Happy Hunting Ground for affirmative action. The company specializes in “contracting and hiring programs that increase minority and women representation.” So, if you’re Carroll Fife and you want more people of color being awarded lucrative city contracts, you can’t just pass a City Council ordinance mandating it: no, you have to justify it by awarding yet another fat contract to a minority-owned business that will provide the data proving disparities—which you can then use to clobber the City Manager into hiring more minority companies for city contracts.
As to whether these minority companies are competent, or honest, or provide value for the money, who cares? The only thing Fife and her crowd care about is skin color. (By the way, I tried to find out the racial breakdown of Mason Tillman’s employees, but was unable to.)
If I told you that 13 of the Golden State Warriors’ roster were men of color, while only four were White, and none of them were women, would you be outraged? Shocked? Would you demand more economic opportunities be granted to White people of both sexes who are obviously being discriminated against by the N.B.A.? Of course not. Being the rational person you are, you’d respond, correctly, that dark-skinned men are taller and better at basketball, that women are not, and so it’s only natural that men of color dominate professional basketball.
Only an idiot would dispute that premise. But when the venue is switched from professional basketball to city contracting, suddenly logic is swept aside. Race, race, race—it’s all that Oakland cares about. Logic, common sense, rationality all are sacrificed on the fiery altar of equal outcomes. Does it make sense to you? It doesn’t to me. We have to get rid of this unnatural prejudice, which is actually hatred of competence and true accountability.
Steve Heimoff