The slippery word equity

I asked Co-pilot (AI) how many government memos since 2021 have the word equity in them. It burped, but gave me just a few notables from 2023-24. They are all word salad, and will cause a lot of mischief, since there is no definition--it's a "concept" and very fluid. Equity is not equality, that much we know. 

AI doesn't like to work hard. I looked at one of the 2024 for AI and found 10 uses of the word.

"Since 2121, several government memoranda have addressed the concept of equity. Here are a few notable ones:

M-24-08: This memorandum focuses on strengthening digital accessibility and the management of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act1.
M-24-05: It emphasizes catalyzing sustainable transportation through federal travel1.
M-24-03: Provides guidance on advancing climate resilience through climate-smart infrastructure investments and implementation guidance for the Disaster Resiliency Planning Act1.
M-24-XX: Proposes advancing governance, innovation, and risk management for agency use of artificial intelligence1.
M-24-XX: A draft policy aims to modernize the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)1.
M-23-22: Focuses on delivering a digital-first public experience1.
M-23-18: Addresses administration cybersecurity priorities for the FY 2025 Budget1.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, but it highlights some relevant memoranda. For further details, you can explore the White House Memoranda page1. Additionally, the concept of equity has been central to various executive orders and initiatives, including the Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and efforts to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility across the federal government2."

I took the suggestion and added in EOs and initiatives to my query, and it cut it to three!

Fairfax County schools aren't Fair, they are woke

Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax, VA is an outstanding school with competition to enroll. Now its reputation is besmirched by some equity administrators who decided they could help black students by hurting Asian students. Why are there no calls for equity in sports? What if only 13% of all football scholarships could go to blacks and 7% had to be Asians? Now they are finding out it might be "systemic," with more than TJ administrators in on the game. https://wjla.com/news/local/thomas-jefferson-high-school-miyares-fairfax-county-schools-investigation-fcps-tj-controversy-award-national-merit-scholarship-delay-governor-glenn-youngkin-launch-attorney-general-ann-bonitatibus-parents-students-virginia-education

Racism is ugly. It's ugly when it's used against blacks and Mexicans and it's ugly when it's used against Whites and Asians. When we allow these D.I.E. mission and goals to infect our schools, businesses, military, award shows, investments, and churches it's just Jim Crow 2.0 in black face. And Jim Crow laws from the 1880s to the 1960s were a Democrat party method to choose winners and losers on the basis of race. Now the anti-white, anti-Asian push is being used to divide our nation and to make others sit in the back of the bus.

Good PragerU video on D.I.E.

 Good information. Don't be confused--diversity means divide and conquer. Inclusion means the opposite--exclusion. Equity is definitely not equality. D.I.E.

https://www.prageru.com/video/miseducated-the-decline-of-americas-schools

Why are schools obsessed with race and gender issues? Why are children learning revisionist history? Why are America’s schools teaching children to hate America—and each other? In Miseducated, PragerU Kids Director of Outreach, Jill Simonian, interviews experts who understand our K-12 education problem and are awakening America to the battle happening right now for the minds of our children.

Eat real food, get more rest, and move more

It's odd for me to enjoy podcasts (auditory processing), but I do. Since I got a smart phone, I use it more for podcasts than phone calls. Here's Bari Weiss (one of my favs) in a conversation with Dr. Casey Means, a Stanford trained physician who left the traditional medical system behind to solve the one problem that she says is going to ruin us all: bad food.

Honestly with Bari Weiss: Eating Ourselves to Death on Apple Podcasts

I've often wondered about the "equity" push in medicine and public health. A large number of health problems are caused by lifestyle--eating, drinking/drugs, exercise (or lack of) and sexual promiscuity. Like Covid. We knew 2.5 years ago obesity was a predictor of serious Covid complications, including death. But pushing pills and vax was the solution. What if "equity" is just one more way to kill off Americans, particularly minorities? (Someone out there hates BIPOC, and it isn't the Trumpsters).

Dr. Means in this podcast talks about all the body parts that go bad from poor nutrition, and particularly obesity. 4 out of 5 black women are obese or overweight. Body positivity can kill you and that's a hot trend. Healthy at any size is a lie. 93% of us have metabolic disfunction according to her even if we aren't obese. By the time you find out you're pre-diabetic, it may have been 10 years in the making. Is this all a part of Big Pharma profits? Which foods are really bad for you, according to Dr. Means? Fake meats (highly processed); seed oils; sugar. She approves of intermittent fasting.

Just bought Halloween Candy today. The first 4 ingredients in those little orange pumpkin candies are sugar, corn syrup, salt and honey. Now I'll have to hide it from me.

The Best and Worst Foods for Your Metabolic System – Dr. Casey Means - Levels (levelshealth.com)

The Purple Martin, Robin and Hummingbird

On my morning walk today I was thinking about some of the common birds I see--the purple martin, the robin, and the hummingbird. In central Ohio, the robin sticks around, but here near Lake Erie they migrate to get away from our bitter winters. The purple martins come in the spring and are gone by August 1--they eat thousands of mosquitoes while they are here and then fly 5,000 miles to South America. The hummingbirds are around for about 3 seasons, but they also migrate. They also eat a lot of bugs, but too many people try to "help" with sugary mixes to attract them--sort of like welfare, good intentions but bad results. Robins are omnivores--bugs and berries, but they are also a food source for predator birds.

So what if there were a government program for equity among the birds. What would that do to diversity if there were a D.I.E. department that tried to force the robins to fly the wind currents of the swallow family (purple martins are swallows) to South America.

 
Or what if Biden passed an executive order that purple martins had to sacrifice their lake habitat to become a food source for the hawks in my back yard in Columbus?

 
What if the hummingbirds had to be inclusive and share that bottle of sugary mix with the robins who then would stop eating bugs because the goo tastes better?

 
And what if the robins decided they needed the longer wings of the swallow so they could eat on the fly instead of toiling to dig the worms out of the ground? Would we have surgery clinics for bird wings?

 
How hard could it be to convince a female purple martin she'd look more sexy and be more successful if she only had longer wing feathers of the male purple martin? Maybe the female purple martin could apply to the government for the longer feathers transplant of the male (a sexual attractions feature).

 
Silly you say. So are the equity demands being foisted on us in the laws and regulations of a power hungry government--federal, state, local, and the lily livered, go along to get along woke corporations, non-profits and churches.

CRT in the schools, and the Democrats' denial

Democrat talking heads on news TV are denying that CRT is being taught in schools [defending Democrats who lost Tuesday around the nation on school issues], which is ridiculous.

Let me explain. You'll find no courses described as "Critical Race Theory" in the curriculum description in public schools. That's probably the extent of the producers' research, if they've done any. It is a full system to assure that every child learns he is either a victim or an oppressor and skin color is the defining quality. Racism is not "systemic," but teaching about it certainly is from math to English to cooking (if any schools still teach that).

 
Every university and college has a DIE department (diversity inclusion equity) and it is bloated. If you don't believe me search any university with which you are familiar, and count noses. At Ohio State, these are just a few that fall under that umbrella: 

African and African American Studies
American Indian Studies
American Sign Language
Americans with Disabilities Act Coordinator's Office
Asian American Studies
Bias Assessment and Response Team (BART)
Office for Disability Services
Disability Studies
Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU
Council of Graduate Students Diversity Committee
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
Latino/a Studies
Multicultural Center
President and Provost's Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series
Sexuality Studies
Undergraduate Student Government Diversity Committee
University Senate Diversity Committee
Office of Military and Veterans Services
The Women's Place
Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

The Buckeye football and basketball teams are not scrutinized for racial balance and equity.

The Wexner Medical Center at OSU has it's own list. I counted 27 people on its Advisory Council on DIE, and 2 vice chairs. Recent offerings are:

 
"Approaches to Reducing Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Mortality: Improved Risk Prediction for Black Women"
"Clinical Trials and Underrepresented Minorities: Mistrust, Misconceptions, Missed Opportunities and Moving Forward to Enhance Diversity"
"Black people from under-resourced neighborhoods are significantly more likely to die within five years of surviving a heart attack than Black people from wealthier neighborhoods and white people of all socioeconomic backgrounds."

And yet, reading through Wexner's own data, there are fewer minority males in medicine today than in 1978! I was in academe then, and I know there were many recruitment and special programs to bring in minorities.

 
Women are usually included in DIE departments, even if white and wealthy. Over 25 years ago I remember seeing posted in the building where I worked (Sisson Hall, veterinary medicine) a list of over 50 organizations and groups to help college female students! Must have worked for women because now females outnumber males in college--60% to 40%--and single, childless women have been earning higher wages than single, childless men upon graduation for over 15 years.

Each academic department in these schools of "higher learning" also have their own DIE departments and the universities also have departments of DIE that teach courses, usually in the humanities, leading to degrees. There must be jobs out there waiting for them in textbook companies, HR departments of businesses large and small, all levels of k-12 schooling, churches, marketing for TV commercials and magazines, etc. They definitely are NOT learning of the amazing achievements and progress of the past 50 years and the trillions the government has spent in establishing laws and regulations to assure that even the less than .1% trans-woman-disabled black has a good job and a fair deal.

The term POC, People of Color, keeps expanding and is frequently used in place of the term minority, which is why Dublin, Ohio (wealthiest suburb in Columbus area) politicians can claim the schools are 41% POC. Dublin is only 2.3% black, but almost 17% Asian, because so many executive and academic families choose to live there. Ohio's population is 12.3% black and 1.94% Asian. POC has become a marketing tool.

 
And DIE has become a necessity for every business, school, hospital, church, and club. But it's never enough. It must become an election issue because it is disguised racism and grievance policies for every group defined by color, ethnicity, ability level and sex. Oh, and fat has now joined in. Their word, not mine.

Update: "Defenders of CRT-inspired curricula and training programs often insist that these initiatives are aimed at teaching both the good and the bad in our nation’s history, and that opponents of racialized education are racists and neo-segregationists. In fact, these initiatives seek to advance a deeply divisive ideology of race essentialism, offering a distorted account of American life to promote a set of radical political ideas. That’s why the opposition to CRT has been so widespread and diverse, as evidenced by new data from Manhattan Institute and Echelon Insights. In a survey of 20 of America’s fastest-growing cities, parents oppose critical race theory in the public school curriculum by a massive 42-point margin, and a majority of black and Hispanic parents oppose CRT and support removing contentious “concepts such as white privilege and systemic racism” from the curriculum." Christopher F. Ruffo

Be a fool for Christ. But don't be fooled by this word.

Don't be fooled.

 
Equity does not mean equality and it doesn't mean equal treatment, fairness or justice. It's one of the deliberately ambiguous and contradictory words in the language of newspeak, a term that means whatever Democrats and Socialists say it means. Attached to a management job description, it means one more overpaid bureaucrat checking the rule books for speech, privilege and physical characteristics. Ohio State created its office in 1970 and still can't stomp out evil so it needs more staff and more grants. There may be 20-30 assistants and go-fers in Diversity and Equity divisions of universities, and they are growing in woke corporations.

 
Recently I heard a speaker say just toss out diversity and inclusion, and go straight for equity. The speaker was white, so did she mean to be diverse or inclusive, whites might be on the roster? I think the words diversity and inclusion will gradually go the way of "multiculturalism" and "non-discrimination."
Equity is not a Biblical value, but a political tool, although some Christians are trying to climb on that band wagon by cherry picking Bible verses. Although they say otherwise, Christians love being in the "world." In fact, what equity means in real life, in real workplaces, in real award shows or real institutions when codified or regulated is

envy
jealousy
greed
bullying
fear
injustice
spying
Idolatry
rivalry
strife
selfishness
dissensions
enmities
quarrels
humiliation

It means repaying evil with evil
not living peacefully with all
always avenging, never forgiving.

Be a fool for Christ. But don't be fooled by this word.

Check your investments for DIE

I've suggested that if you have a pension or private investments, you take a look at the Annual Reports to see what the DIE (diversity inclusion equity) statements are. Comcast makes this extremely difficult to find. The annual report was a filing statement, so I went back to the proxy and found it in the 2021 summary. Comcast has way overcompensated for diversity, with 44% people of color among employees. (Can't tell if those are management or line.) 30% are women on the board, 30% POC. I don't mind if they load up with women as long as they are qualified and didn't get degrees in dance and library science. By 2021 women should be able to tell if they are token or a relative. And does it really make a difference if super rich people who control huge swaths of stock are female or black? Is that really diversity? I abstained on almost all votes, except I voted against the "independent" Me Too investigation, just because in today's climate, no man or woman, gay or straight, in management can get a fair investigation, especially if the investigators comb through their social media posts of 8 years ago or find out about consensual affairs.

 
Comcast's language is a bit more trendy, using BIPOC instead of just POC. That's even more virtue signaling. Like I'm sure the board is loaded with "indigenous people." Donating $100 million for social justice, including "Lift Zones" and BIPOC small businesses affected by COVID. Comcast is another company that's made out like gang busters with the Covid pandemic. $100 million is probably small potatoes. And that revolving door with government? In 2020 124 out of 144 Comcast Corp lobbyists in 2020 have previously held government jobs. Way up from 2019. Yes, it was a very good year for Telecommunication companies.

Make your voice heard in your investments

What can you do about the "DIE" (diversity inclusion equity) mania infecting the corporations in which you or your pension are invested? And start calling it DIE, because that's the intention. It's certainly not "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

DIE has nothing to do with good values or Biblical morality or basic fairness. And no, the poor benefit the least. And the middle class foots the bill. The purpose of a business or corporation is to make money for the investors and to allow the CEOs to make ridiculous salaries while benefitting all the employees, but if they can punish the little guy start up competition by schmoozing with the latest fad and Democrat bosses, they will. It's the capitalist way. Without government interference and over regulation (to benefit their buddies), capitalism still frees the most people and in the last 30 years has lifted millions out of poverty. Back in 1990, The World Bank reports that 1.85 billion people lived in extreme poverty, but by 2013, the figure had dropped to 767 million. Socialism didn't do that. Socialism holds people back. It killed 100,000,000 in the 20th century. Capitalism works from the bottom up. The poor who risk their lives to cross our borders know that; our politicians don't. Nevertheless, smart capitalists fight the competition by joining what appears to be the enemy (socialism).

First, you'll need to start reading the documents that come with your investments. Second, you'll have to start voting. Yes, it's a pain. And I rarely read that stuff. Third, you may just have to write a letter or join/support a conservative political organization (not the GOP!).

Here's what I got from TJX today--that's formerly Zayre, and includes TJ Maxx and Marshalls. It has 4,557 stores in 9 countries, and based on the lie and line from the Left about Asians, I suspect many stores or suppliers are based in Asian countries. The DoJ tracks hate crimes (a stupid idea, I think), and this figure is so low that most cities report zero, and that which is reported is primarily black on Asian. It ignores the liberal crime of discrimination at Harvard, Yale and Stanford.

TJX annual report for 2020: "The increasing violence against the Asian and Pacific Islander communities is another stark reminder that injustice exists and that we must continue to work toward a better future for all. We are committed to listening to, and learning from, our Associates and taking actions to do better. We also broadened our charitable giving strategy to provide more direct support to Black communities, and increased our global giving to provide an incremental $10 million in grant funding over 2020 and 2021 to organizations that are actively working to support racial justice and equity. Hate has no place at TJX. In terms of environmental sustainability, we were pleased to exceed our goal to reduce our greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions per million dollars of revenue by 30% by the end of fiscal 2020, against a fiscal 2010 baseline, by achieving a 47% reduction. We also announced a new GHG goal, which is a 55% reduction in emissions from our direct operations by fiscal 2030 against a baseline year of fiscal 2017, a science-based target aligned with the United Nations’ Paris Agreement guidelines."

"Global giving" to organizations supporting racial justice is just blackmail. No black child will benefit. It's probably BLM, Inc. which has recently been in the news for the billions it's taken in from gullible white led corporations and white liberals so its Marxist founders can buy mansions and protest. It does not promote jobs or education, it exists to stir up trouble and make its founders rich (an old trick for non-profits which they probably learned from clever white people).

We all know that the Paris Agreement guidelines hold back American companies and allow Chinese factories to belch coal fired smoke and send us wind power blades that can't be recycled when they've ended their "service." When you see them filling up our prairies they are ugly as sin.
And no one even knows if reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) is a good thing--you've been told that. Science certainly doesn't agree. It's throwing billions at a future problem you can't measure and can't define, instead of improving life on the planet right now in real time.

So, you'll need to vote or write. Make your voice heard. Stop letting the Left drown you out!!!

Advice from an investment firm about Woke corporation

"As I have pointed out several times, the whole university left wing indoctrination has now permeated all of life, including large corporations who are being led to stick their nose in where it does not belong by Jeff Sonnenfeld of Yale. The best way corporations can help the poor and minorities, is to maximize profits, which leads to more hiring, which leads to wage increases, which leads to higher family incomes, and wealth creation for those willing to work hard and stay out of trouble. We saw it in 2019 when the economy was doing very well, and there were millions more job openings than people to fill them, and no government handouts to deter people from working. CEOs need to focus on building their companies to be the best profit and job producers they can, and leave the social crap to politicians, and those who make it their job. Well run companies that create jobs should hire the best people they can find, and build their talent base through apprenticeships where they can train the unskilled to be able to attain higher wages through effort, not skin color. The entire basis of “diversity and inclusion” is racist in that by hiring by skin color you are discriminating against the guy who had the wrong color, thereby undoing all that we all worked hard to overcome over the past 50 years."

Proportionality, equity and percentages, Thomas Sowell

So many areas of research and information are being damaged by the equity and/or proportionality myth. Every minor subdivision in archeology or biophysics or cytology or even librarianship must now have its search committees focusing on gender and color instead of number of research projects completed or published articles or work record.

Every time I pass a competitive sport event on TV (because I don't sit down to watch), I don't see anyone who looks like me, either on the field, on the bench or even in the stands. I think that's as it should be. And if it's football or basketball, if I didn't know better I would suspect that black men are 90% of the population. But, at least in professional sports, equality rules, not equity.

Thomas Sowell: "According to proportionality dogma, every group in society must be equally represented at work or school according to their percentages in society. If not so represented, the cause must be discriminatory bias and the only remedy is government action in the form of quotas, now passed off as “diversity.” Those who argue this way, Sowell explains, “cannot show us any society—anywhere in the world, or at any time during thousands of years of recorded history—that had all groups represented proportionally in all endeavors.” For example, Sowell cites the National Hockey League.

More NHL players are from Canada than the United States, and more players from Sweden than California, which has nearly four times the population. Therefore, Sowell says, “Californians are more ‘under-represented’ in the NHL than women are in Silicon Valley. But no one can claim that this is due to discriminatory bias by the NHL.” The discrepancies are “far more obviously due to people growing up in cold climates being more likely to have ice-skating experience.”

Diversity is more than appearances

Academe, media and some woke corporations believe that diversity is a matter of skin color or biology. Not so. Sitting next to a rich Nigerian at Yale graduation isn't diversity, and hiring an Asian female retired from the National Guard should not be a check mark for government regulations.
Here's my idea of inclusion, equity and diversity (IED).

• Spend a week or two at Walmart training a new employee who doesn't speak English and uses a wheelchair;
• stand on your feet for 8 hours at a register in a big box store--with any ethnic group;
• attend for a few months a Catholic mass or a Baptist revival with a colleague of that faith family if you're an atheist professor;
• learn to work with the crew and drive one of those huge street sweepers without hitting any cars;
• find someone on your board allergic to dogs and send her out to work at the pet rescue or pound;
• assign your president to the library reference room for weeks to teach the elderly how to use the computer;
• hand the CEO a set of earplugs and send him outside in the wind with the foreign workers to blow leaves for hours;
• drive, park and unload a semi at a dollar store;
• run on concrete floors and retrieve for immediate delivery for a full shift week at an Amazon warehouse;
• or any job that moves you out of your comfort zone and into the real world of work. And then do it over again, and again. That IED.