The OFFS Awards: Senator and Concern Troll Jim Webb

Democratic Senator Jim Webb has penned quite the piece for the Wall Street Journal. Titled "Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege," it's all about how poopy-doopy it is that diversity programs have helped Latin@ and Asian and recent African immigrants who "did not suffer discrimination from our government," but don't help poor white southerners, most of whom, even "at the height of slavery," had, according to "eminent black historian John Hope Franklin... 'neither slaves nor an immediate economic interest in the maintenance of slavery'." Webb must have forgotten to mention that many of them supported the Confederacy nonetheless.

There are a very lot of dishonest things in this article. Things like:

A recent NORC Social Survey of white adults born after World War II showed that in the years 1980-2000, only 18.4% of white Baptists and 21.8% of Irish Protestants—the principal ethnic group that settled the South—had obtained college degrees, compared to a national average of 30.1%, a Jewish average of 73.3%, and an average among those of Chinese and Indian descent of 61.9%.

Those numbers are functionally meaningless without any context about the typical standard of living for, say, a straight, cis, able-bodied, white male Baptist born in 1950 who never went to college versus the typical standard of living for, say, a straight, cis, able-bodied Jewish woman born in 1950 who got a college degree. Anyone want to wager a guess on who was likely to make more money?

Webb might argue that comparing men and women isn't fair, which underscores one of other deceptions in his argument: This isn't about white people; it's about privileged white men.

Because the "special government programs" that promote diversity about which he's complaining were designed to help women and/or gay women and men and/or people with disabilities and/or trans women and men. Lots of the "white people" about whom he's writing qualify for, and have been aided by, "special government programs."

You'd think someone who complains about whites being "treated as a fungible monolith" might acknowledge that reality.

Of course, that does significantly undermine his race-baiting argument that white people are being treated unfairly. Ahem.

It's truly embarrassing that a sitting Democratic Senator would write such an appalling piece for national publication. Or for publication in the Poopsburg Daily Cageliner, for that matter.

Then again, this guy was almost Obama's vice-president, despite being an unabashed misogynist. So I guess we oughtn't be too surprised that he's now spending his taxpayer-funded time penning garbagetorials that mask "what about the white menz?!" whinging behind an exhortation to get beyond racial identity politics.

Posted by Melissa McEwan