You all aren’t going to like what I have to say so let me give some context. I am a white man in his forties that was born and raised a democrat by a poor single mother. My wife and social circles are for the most part very liberal. We go to a Unitarian universalist church. I lived my whole childhood in diverse neighborhoods, and was one of a few white kids in my school at one point. I have three mixed children. I was poor. I remember eating only bisquick and powdered milk for a week at one point, and my mother needed social programs to help us survive. I’ve had many minority and gay friends over the years and a large portion of my extended family are minorities. I’ve got a nephew and babysitter who are trans, and very close gay friends and family members. I care a great deal about these people and want a safe and fair future for all of them. I’ve kept my mouth shut on these topics for a long time out of fear retribution and that is why this post is anonymous.

Despite some of my disadvantages I’ve gone on to be middle management. I manage a large department and I’m accountable for a lot of people. I’m fairly well known in my field to the point where I wouldn’t want to air publicly what I’m feeling now for fear it would impact my career. I’m highly educated from a good school in psychology and an MBA, with a very strong technical and analytical background in statistics and data.

I was shocked and disappointed and upset when Trump was elected the first time. I’m a student of history and I read it for fun. There are clear patterns that recur over and over. Populism, scapegoating, escalating rhetoric, targeting of political opponents and their loved ones in a very personal way are all standard lead ups to civil war and genocide. It happens quickly, much more quickly than people think. So I started monitoring the conservative side to make sure they weren’t taking those critical next steps of dehumanization, and ‘disappearing’ critics or identifying key people to target.

So I started monitoring the conservative side. What were they pissed about? What were they complaining about, why were they mad at the people they were mad at. What were the philosophies that they were subscribing to that made them take the stances they were taking? Once I filtered out the conspiracy theories and racist nonsense that was pure propaganda, some of the concerns started to make sense. I was shocked that I actually agreed with some of it. When I tried to discuss with people I thought would be fairly understanding and reasonable, I was met with vitriol and dismissive attitudes.

Social issues seem to be the subject that causes the most emotional pain for people and why everyone is pissed off on both sides. There are a couple easy steps to piss off group Y:

1. Tell them their pain isn’t as important as group Xs
2. Take their money and give it to group X while Y is struggling.

For the most part, in the United States, white men are saddled with the label of antagonist in most special interest stories(because they are). The history is pretty clear, they have been in charge, they have created the rules, and oftentimes those rules were created to support white men, or hold down group X.

Most of the current liberal strategy for addressing racial and social inequality seems to revolve around attempting to ‘educate’ or instill white guilt, and being overtly aggressive towards even perceived racism.

Instilling white guilt isn’t working for a lot of whites, especially white men. For me, this strategy doesn’t work. It assumes the target believes in original sin and feels a sense of responsibility for the crimes of their father. I don’t believe in original sin. I didn’t own slaves, I didn’t kill indigenous people, I didn’t invade anywhere and rape and pillage. I am not responsible for the crimes of people that look like me in a different generation and I got no inheritance as a result of those crimes, so I’m guilt free. “But you have benefited”. Have I? I don’t see it, and there are few people who can have their current wealth tied to old money that was made from oppression. A lot of the institutions responsible for those crimes are long gone, or already paid restitution. Go after the ones that haven’t.

Stop dismissing my pain and other white men’s pain because something a distant relative may or may not have been involved with. Stop being prejudiced and bigoted toward me. My dad was a dick and I refuse to take responsibility for his actions. I’m my own person, if you want to pay your parents debts, go for it, but I won’t. I’m not going to apologize or voluntarily take a penalty in life for crimes I didn't commit(who would?). It's a non-starter. I feel backed into a corner on this and I’m sure a majority of white males would agree, but we are all afraid to voice it. When I’ve raised discrimination or dismissal of white male concerns in liberal circles, I was at best dismissed, at worst I’ve been labeled a sexist or racist. So I don’t talk about it anymore with them.

“Speak your truth and confront racism when you see it” isn’t working. If every time somebody makes an off color joke, or makes you uncomfortable and you confront them, you just isolated yourself and increased the polarization of the country a little more. People who make others uncomfortable aren’t invited to the next party. The party you aren’t invited to will be a little more racist next time. Pick your battles. So put up with some discomfort in the interest of forming some relationships. What I’ve found is that many liberals have really poor judgment on what is prejudicial behavior. You all should not trust your own judgment.

Turn the aggression off completely in social settings if you are smart, and only confront people you are especially close with, and even then be selective and don’t make it a choice between you and X behavior. Just let them know you don’t like it. Gently. Stop being dicks.

I went to a racial sensitivity and awareness teaching seminar put on by my very liberal church. It spanned several weekends and frankly I wasn’t initially scared to discuss my frustration and pain. When I did express it, I was basically told by a feminist liberal elitist sociology college professor that my opinion didn’t matter because I was a white man, I’m not published, and I haven’t studied the subject enough. I was shocked at the interaction and it hit me that she was the cliche stereotype they talk about in conservative circles! Needless to say I felt marginalized and that my opinion and voice wasn’t valued. I didn’t talk much after that and don’t intend to any time soon.

I refuse to participate in the ‘white supremacy culture’ storyline. It lumps me in with prejudiced groups just because of who I am. I do not live in a nazi, kkk culture and it is insulting to imply that I do. I understand what they are trying to sell, and that whole theory has some weight, but for the love of good marketing of the ideas, stop associating it with Nazis and white supremacists. Labeling anybody who disagrees with your theories as a racist isn’t productive, and cuts down lines of communication.

Emotionally what finally shut me down completely was when the term ‘white tears’ was said to me after I expressed some frustration. Somebody used that phrase on me which basically implies… You are white, your problems aren’t as bad as mine because you aren’t a part of an oppressed group. It's dismissive and racist. People are just people. Their pain is all equally important. Your pain isn’t special. Aggression begets aggression, and indifference begets indifference. So while at one point in my life diversity and inclusion were important to me, they aren’t anymore. The people pushing for those things don’t care about me and my pain, so why should I care about theirs?

Stop taking money by gunpoint via taxes from group Y and giving it to group X. You want to start a special education program that is economic needs based and not race or special interest specific, I’m onboard. Economic help, sure, social programs for the needy, put it on the ballot. As soon as a program excludes white people, you are just taking their money. No special race related economic programs and scholarships. It isn’t justice for all If I can’t qualify for it as a poor white male who needed help. If a group is disadvantaged, they will disproportionately benefit from those programs and will begin the process of closing the gaps that history gave us.

Side note:

That race relations seminar stuff was a major echo chamber with about 22 white women, 3 white guys and an Indian. So much elitist unintentionally racist stuff was said during the meetings it was difficult to sit through. White savior complex is strong with the UUs. Stop talking about minorities like they are special and need your protection because they are helpless and disadvantaged. They are just people, some of them need help, some of them don’t, and some of them are assholes and racists too. A white lady almost cried when talking about a conflict she had with a black woman over the course of 3 years. She had asked if the person was from a cardinal area of the city not realizing that area was a slum. The black lady took offense and tortured her for 3 years until it finally blew up. Instead of just acknowledging that the black lady was probably just a jerk, the white lady had internalized it and was still trying to figure out what she had done wrong years later. Stop the white guilt… sometimes people are just assholes regardless of race.

Affirmative action, diversity and inclusion training etc is a problem for all of us, not just white men. I was raised to value diversity and equality and I still feel this way, but the implementation of these policies has hurt us as a country and let me tell you the story and experience that changed my position.

About 8 years ago I was a middle manager in corporate America with an organization with about 100 people in it. I had a group in need of a manager and the pool of candidates was fairly small. Of the internal candidates, several men and a woman applied for the role. Gail was by far the most experienced in the team's duties from my perspective, and none of them had leadership experience. I promoted her into the position and after a few months in the role, she was still learning and made mistakes occasionally. I had anticipated this and expected that she would need some time to adjust and learn. I was coaching her. This is where it started getting contentious. She wouldn’t take direction or adjust, insisting that she knew what she was doing. From my perspective none of the issues were a big deal. The situation never even reached the point where I felt the need to write her up or start establishing a paper trail of concern with HR.

We had another failure where I told her she needed to take responsibility and ownership of an issue to get it resolved over the weekend. Gail went on medical leave the next week for mental health reasons which was a bit of a surprise to me since I hadn’t thought much of the situation. Strange, but whatever, her team didn’t care for her, and they all worked independent of her since she hadn’t lived up to the role yet.

She was gone for months, but still on the roster. She used up her PTO and went on medical leave. The group moved on without her and I promoted an Iranian/British guy who had stepped up in her absence. I didn’t think she would ever return.

Just as I was starting to forget about her completely, Gail filed a discrimination lawsuit against the company. There was a lot more to the suit than me, and I was not a named defendant, but she did reference her time under me and that she felt she was discriminated against by me. She mentioned that I had recommended her read “Nice girls don’t get the corner office” and that she felt she hadn’t been given the same leeway as her male counterparts. The book is a self help coaching book about being assertive that I recommend my managers read and it sits on my desk still to this day. All of the parts of the suit that pertained to me were nonsense and the fact that I had promoted her flew directly in the face of discrimination. I had given her an opportunity. She just hadn’t risen to the role, and didn’t seem to be able to handle the stress.

It changed my whole perspective on affirmative action and discrimination related legislation and lawsuits. I now had a completely different concern during the hiring and promotion process. I never took race, religion, sexuality etc into consideration previously. The most qualified person for the job was my attitude.

Now I viewed minority and female candidates as a threat. My livelihood was personally threatened because they have a special power that white men don’t. They can sue for discrimination much more casually. Even if they aren’t likely to win, it can drag your name through the mud and ruin your career and life. Every time I think about hiring or promoting some I have to ask myself how likely it is that I will get sued by them. Why take on the liability? Acting in my own self preservation interests now made me a racist?

I had a lot of soul searching to do. So I started to read the academic research on affirmative action, and diversity and inclusion efforts. What I found was typical of social science. Not much mathematics or predictive modeling, but a lot of postulating and assertion and theory. Truth seemed to be that nobody really has done what I would consider an objective based assessment of its effectiveness.

Then the situation got even weirder. Gail wanted her job back more than a year after she had left her role open. I had promoted her replacement officially once it was clear she wasn’t coming back so her old job wasn’t even available anymore. She wasn’t around and the work needed done. Her replacement had knocked it out of the park.

I was told by our legal department that I was required to find her an equivalent role within my organization and to treat her as if nothing had happened. Gail was looking to add a retaliation lawsuit on top of the one she had already filed, and denying her request would just make her case stronger.

So we brought her back onboard and we had a vacancy in another but similar area, so I slotted her in there… It wasn’t fair to the person who had earned that promotion, but hey… the company has to protect itself so Gail got her position back.

I was told I had to treat her just like every other direct report and have 1:1s, give direction and feedback etc. I refused to do so without HR present, and all meetings with her were recorded. I didn’t even explain to her why they were being recorded, she knew.

After a few months of zero expectations of her and having to spend two hours documenting every hour of work I did related to her area, she finally quit and moved on. She didn’t accomplish anything during that time period other than getting on everyone’s nerves.

I left the company and I don’t know what happened with the suit, but I suspect it was dismissed as most of them evidently are.

Over the years since then, I’ve had a number of employees with performance issues. The vast majority of people don’t go to HR or file a suit, but it is always a concern when you give feedback to some demographics. Will this turn into a suit or an HR accusation? I’ve had several situations where people felt upset and that they were being discriminated against, but the reality was that they just sucked at their jobs. I had an elderly employee, a black employee, and another female employee go to HR and complain over the years, but I was always way out in front of them with a paper trail before discussing the performance issues. I even had a white middle aged man claim he was being discriminated against which was comical.

In all those cases, even the white guy, they were already poor performers, so they were on the cut list when budgets got tight, but between the time when they filed a formal complaint with HR, and when the layoffs happened… They all sat in their offices, collecting a paycheck, completely untouchable, doing nothing, because as a disgruntled employee, we couldn’t trust them with critical deliverables for clients.

Reality check, affirmative action isn’t working and it causes a lot of social tension on a very personal level when you tell people they are being discriminated against. It is like telling someone there is a bear in the woods waiting to eat them. Bears are rare and rarely attack even when they are around, but they get paranoid and see bears everywhere.

If the system wasn’t punitive but rewarded diversity via tax credits instead, it would cause less social tension and probably be much more effective. Instead, at this point, I feel it is pushing us into more division, not less. Is discrimination wrong? Yea, but the incentives of the law make it punitive and it just isn’t working the way people thought it would. Racists just find ways around the law and it turns people into racists. I feel it is doing more harm than good at this point.