A small venture capital firm faced tough questions from conservative judges Wednesday as it defended a grant program for Black women-owned businesses in a lawsuit that has become emblematic of a growing legal backlash against corporate diversity programs.
Pretty sure I could make a grant program for kilt wearers and it’d get less backlash than this. The fact that black women can’t try to help elevate eachother is ridiculous.
Well it is clearly racist and sexist. Not sure why such programs caught on to begin with
The problem with that logic is that when awards and scholarships exclusively go to white people or men, it’s because “they have the correct merit and deserve those things” and the fact that they all happen to be white and/or men gets overlooked because it’s socially accepted that white men tend to be more intelligent than other demographics.
If that fact can go without scrutiny, particularly investigation about the underlying cause of why that is, then calling out race or gender based action that seeks to correct it is hypocrisy.
If we are going to say “It’s not fair for black women to have an exclusive way to empower other black women” then we must also say “It’s not fair for white men to perpetuate the tendency of also empowering only other white men”, because that may actually be intentional by racist white men in power. But that aspect is never even looked at in the same context as something like this.
The way we acknowledge this is either by being conscious of the ratio of white men being handed awards and money or by being conscious of the fact that generational poverty exists and is causing black people, particularly black women to fall behind, and allowing groups like this to exist.
If you can’t do either, then you’re asserting that it’s ok for white men to go without even asking if what they’re doing is racist, but not black women. Which is inherently racist and sexist.
It’s not necessarily racist or sexist. It does, however, discriminate on the basis of sex and race, and I assume that’s what you mean. That would be a problem in some circumstances–for example, housing, employment, or college admissions.
But this is–as I understand it–a private grant. If you’re giving away your own money, you should be able to give it away to whomever you want on whatever basis you want. And that’s the crux of the litigation. If the court decides the thing is actually a contract, the discrimination would be a big problem. But as a gift, it’s a different animal.
Because the world is currently racist and sexist, so we shouldn’t be surprised when racism and sexism crop up in the other direction.
