[Rod Dreher] Quotas Are Back

If you think that this means he’s asking managers to make sure racial discrimination is not happening in their agency, you’re mostly wrong. All decent people would want to see racial discrimination eliminated in government agencies — but that’s not what “equity” means. You may not understand that “equity,” in Wokish, is not the same thing as “equality.” As the always-useful Translations From The Wokish glossary explains, in its entry on Equity, equity is the word progressives use to describe equal outcomes. If there are racial imbalances in a system — that is, if a disproportionate number of white people are in its management — then that is taken as proof of “systemic racism.” No other explanation is possible. The glossary adds:

Because of the blank slatism and simplistic ideas of power and identity found within Critical Social Justice worldviews, all imbalances of representation in desirable areas of work are held to be caused by these perceived power dynamics. Equity is the intended remedy to this problem, and it is made applicable only (and especially) to positions of status and influence. For example, there is no equity program that attempts to increase the number of female sanitation workers, though there are equity programs that seek to increase the number of female doctors and politicians, and these endure even in high-status positions that employ more women than men. Of particular concern are positions that have influence where power is concerned, including in terms of shaping the discourses of society.

I could be wrong about this, but I feel confident that the equity assessors will never find a system in which there are not enough white people in management. But let’s say it did happen. I would find it demeaning if I had reason to believe that I had been chosen for a job over a better qualified candidate of color, only because my employer had a quota to fill. I would be ashamed, frankly. The only way I could get over that shame and do my job would to be convince myself that the racial-spoils ideology of progressivism were somehow just. But then I would be a liar.