Tuesday, January 25, 2022

From my friend Del

 OK, the US population of 334 million consists of 57.8% white, 18.7%

Latino, 12.1% Black and 11.4% Asian or other.  (I had no idea that
Latinos are half again as many in the country as Blacks.)  LBGTQ etc.
adds up to another 5.6% or thereabouts.  (Could be higher since not
everyone in all those groups, which include gays, lesbians, transgenders,
and a bunch of assorted other small subgroups) has declared themselves;
although in this time it seems most such individuals are not hesitant at
all to speak out frankly.

Several recent examinations of the advertising we see on TV (including
one I did myself one night watching a long movie with a lot of commercial
breaks with up to 10 commercials in each!) all indicate that from one way
of looking at it, Whites not only are no longer the great majority of the
people you see, they are now either barely at their fraction of the
population or may be below it.  Blacks make up no less than 30% of people
who appear in the commercials, and both gay partnerships and biracial
marriages are regularly encountered.  The least group to be found are
straight White men who appear reasonably intelligent or capable.  When we
do see White men, the are often in their 60's to 80's and were pushing
medication for debilitating diseases, reverse mortgages (Tom Selleck) or
Medicare plans.

One can argue that reaching a more level ground in representation in
commercials is long overdue, and that's certainly valid.  On the other
hand we now see articles from actors in CA complaining that as White
individuals their opportunities to work have been seriously reduced.  Do
two wrongs really make a right?

Hollywood issued guidelines for film makers last year, demanding a
substantial level of BIPOC on the sets, a minimum of 30% or so of them as
writers, with a goal to surpass that in a few years.  United Airlines is
pushing very hard to get women and BIPOC as pilots and has pledged to
have half the pilots belong in that category within a few years.  We're
seeing the same kind of quota decrees in lots of other places.

Apparently the condemnation of the imperialist/colonialist/Western
concept of meritocracy has really taken hold.  Whether you are a great
pilot or not is secondary to your gender, skin color, sexual orientation
or whatever else they use as criteria to put people in the cockpit.  All
of this drive to "fix" the injustices, real or perceived, of society by
ramming "equity" (at least) down the throats of every organization is
going to result in a whole bunch of counter productive things.  The
rampant stupidity of it is mind boggling, but it appears to have huge
momentum and will drive things along until the wheels fall off.  Unless
we get lucky and there's some kind of revolt and the tide of idiocy
starts to recede.  I sure hope so.

Del

1 comment:

  1. The woke library I attend sends emails with all these people of color in them. I have not once in nearly 30 yrs of using the same library seen a black person there. Just saying.

    ReplyDelete