I read a lot of books by Black activists explaining their anti-racist work. This is because the issue of racism is consuming America and has been for a long time, and I want to understand just what their grievances are. I criticize these people rather frequently, so it only behooves me to listen to what they have to say and determine if it makes any sense.
The latest is a 2022 book by Daisy Auger-Dominguez, who’s made a great success in her career, having been a top executive in what she calls “inclusion practices” at such corporate giants as Google and Disney. Her book, “Inclusion Revolution,” maps out what she terms the “definitive roadmap for revolution” in the workplace in order to achieve “racially inclusive management.” It’s really a how-to for DEI in American companies, although it was written just before Donald Trump launched his current, successful war on DEI.
If there’s a single message that comes across in all these books, it’s that the authors believe passionately that DEI programs are a necessary antidote to the “structural” racism they believe runs through all American institutions. Their argument is always the same: from slavery to Jim Crow, from segregation and redlining to the [sometimes unconscious] negative attitudes White people have towards Black Americans, Black citizens have been handed a raw deal, and it is both morally and pragmatically correct for us to change these conditions so that Black people can enjoy the full benefits of American citizenship.
It’s obviously undeniable that Black Americans are in a state of crisis. There’s too much poverty and criminality, too much crime and sociopathic behavior, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. From the point of view of a resident of Oakland, I would say the city’s gravest problem concerns its Black residents and how far they’ve fallen behind in so many measured categories. The authors I read—most of them serious academics—have all settled on an anti-racist agenda they believe will resolve our racial problems, and their philosophy or ideology has become an almost official part of the Democratic Party’s approach to policy. Government, corporations, educational institutions, charities, all have eagerly embraced this anti-racism work and made it central to their missions. Yet somehow, all this effort hasn’t yet resulted in major change, and the backlash it has caused is immense. The inequalities remain enormous between White (and Asian) achievement, on the one hand, and that of Blacks, on the other. Despite two generations of government-sponsored wealth transfer from Whites to people of color, those gaps in education, income, health, lifespan and so on continue to plague America. And now, DEI is on the ropes, having been reduced to a punchline.
I read these books with a sharp eye. Their logical inconsistencies leap off the page to me. You could describe my usual intellectual reaction as, “Yes, but.” The “Yes” means that I recognize the truth of what the authors say. Black people do have a tough time in corporate environments (which is Auger-Dominguez’s speciality). They’re often asked to “fit in” to an office that is culturally skewed toward White men. If they wish to retain certain hairstyles, clothing fashions and speaking patterns, they can further exacerbate the psychic distance between themselves and their White colleagues. This may be regrettable, but it’s true: in a collective work environment, everybody has to leave a piece of themselves on the way in and adapt to the greater norm. Otherwise cooperation is unachievable, and that’s as bad in an office as it is on a sports team.
The “but” in “Yes, but” is my sense that America does not have a race problem of the sort Auger-Dominguez writes about. There is an inequality problem but it isn’t because most Americans woke up one day and decided to be racists. The reason is far more complicated, and culpability cannot be removed from Black people themselves.
Auger-Dominguez’s dream is of a workplace where “all employees feel included, valued, and physically and psychologically safe.” But “a dream” is precisely what it is. Anyone who’s ever worked in a corporate (or government) bureaucracy knows that not “everybody” is always going to feel “included and valued.” (Of course, we need to insist on their personal safety, which is non-negotiable.) But psychologically, it can be a jungle out there. While it would be nice to work in Auger-Dominguez’s ideal workplace, it’s impossible. People will rub each other the wrong way, not just racially but in other ways, and the most a manager can do is try to keep a reasonable amount of mutual respect between co-workers, punish bad behavior, reward good behavior, and maximize his team’s chances of achieving their corporate objectives, whatever they are.
It’s Auger-Dominguez’s use of the R-word, revolution, that depresses me the most. American are quite tired, frankly, of revolution. We already fought one revolution (and one Civil War) and we hanker for a period of calm before being drafted to bleed for another revolution. But for Auger-Dominguez, the mere fact of going to the office every day is like reporting to the battlefield. Consider, for instance, the things Auger-Dominguez argues every worker should do every day at work: “start conversations about White fragility or calling out racially charged incidents” in the office. Engage in “challenging conversations about power, privilege, access and opportunity.” When you hear a colleague commit “a microaggression against a person of color…use that as an opportunity to educate.”
I can just imagine some of my former workplaces if I was that guy who was always talking about “White fragility.” Believe me, I wouldn’t be invited to many lunches! People hate complainers, and besides, the office is a workspace, not a 12-step meeting. It’s ironic, because Auger-Dominguez explicitly writes that “no one should have to spend all their physical and emotional labor figuring out how to navigate work spaces so they can survive.” Yet that is exactly what she’s telling us to do: become cultural warriors in the office. If you think that’s going to get you a promotion, think again. It could get you an command performance in Human Resources.
That’s my inevitable reaction to these books. I enjoy reading them but really, most of the time I just want to tell the authors, “Shut up already! Stop the carping, the griping, the constant complaining. People don’t dislike you because you’re Black, they dislike you because you’re a drag.” And that’s why the entire DEI movement, and the anti-racist agenda overall, has become the most discredited political ideology in America. The left has become scolds—angry, judgmental finger-wagging censurers, whose role in life is to admonish everyone for being a racist—everyone White, that is.
Based on my personal experience, all human beings want to be loved, and are capable of giving love in return. My recommendation to the anti-racism crowd is simple: Get over it. Stop being so damned sensitive. If you seek racism everywhere, you’ll find it—and you’ll also make lots of enemies. Somewhere deep inside her, Carroll Fife is probably a sweet, loving human being, but she’s so self-damaged her mind and heart with her obsession with racism that all anyone perceives is, yes, an Angry Black Woman. Is it racist to say that, or is it true?
Steve Heimoff