One of the interesting things about throwing around my opinion as a columnist in this publication is the interesting people who want to share their opinions with me at length, particularly if they disagree with me. I’ll try not to make too many presumptions about the fact that my most vocal critics rarely seem to be able to write a message that includes punctuation or much in the way of proper spelling and grammar. Just because they gave up on school, apparently, at some point doesn’t mean they cannot have views on the world.
My most recent naysayer (we’ll just call him Mr. Majority) was happy to point out to me at length (from what I was able to decipher from the rambling and often garbled e-mail message) that apparently, Maine doesn’t need any minorities mucking up the place. Maine, being 97 percent white, give or take, and not having collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean or having suffered a complete economic meltdown is, apparently, proof that an almost all-white system works. That was his gist, at least.
Funny, I don’t think I’ve ever said that states and cities are unable to function without minorities. And I’m not sure if Mr. Majority has some odd reason to think that cities with minorities in positions of influence like, oh, Atlanta or Los Angeles, are unable to function and prosper. Oh, Mr. Majority, and before you pen another message to me about a place like L.A. and tell me that crime is proof that whites should run everything, let’s remember that crime is attracted to places where there is money and people. The more people and more money, the more crime, regardless of the number of minorities.
But I digress. The real reason I bring up Mr. Majority is that I think he’ll be saddened to see the story in the February 3 Portland Press Herald about the city’s efforts to recruit more women and minorities to city jobs, particularly in upper management where women and minorities get short-shrift.
People like Mr. Majority like to whip out terms like “reverse discrimination” and quotas at about this time. As if a push to widen the recruitment net outside this state and outside the white lines is going to result in a crushing wave of minorities stealing away plum positions from non-minorities. And, if Mr. Majority is as sexist as he seems to be bigoted, he probably isn’t happy about women leaving the kitchen and bedroom to work in positions of influence either.
But the fact is that it’s ridiculous to think that any effort to help make a more diverse workforce and bring more diversity into the upper echelons specifically will somehow be discrimination against whites. Is the population of Maine going to drop below 90 percent white any time soon? I think not. Does anyone really think there are minorities lined up on the borders to move into Maine in droves? Putting an end to a practice of favoring whites even when there is an equally or more qualified minority is just plain stupid. Isn’t the point to get talent? Isn’t the point to have skilled people?
