Not the Headlines -- Demographic Data Collection

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The Listening Tube presents not the headlines.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

I'm Bob Woodley from the Listening Tube. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has decided to end a practice that's been going on since the 1960s. Having been around since the early 1960s, I can attest that that's been a while now. Since I was four years old, the government has been keeping track of people in the American workforce by a number of categories, including sex and race. When we started keeping track, it was because we needed data to determine to what extent bigotry and prejudice were playing in the hiring process, in the country's factories and office buildings. But what the government did was divide us up by race as the only measurement that mattered when it came to equality. The goal of equality became having a proportional number of each part of the way we were divided by the government. Or at least an overall average. So they could show that progress was being made. Eventually, this data became voluminous and promising. Kinda like my podcast catalog. What it showed was that minority participation in all kinds of fields was increasing as we move through the 1970s, the 1980s, the 90s, and so on until and including today. The United States of America is the most diverse country on the planet, and has more opportunity for anyone of any color or origin than anywhere else on the planet. Keeping track of the sex and race of each employee is both sexist and racist. As for sexist, well, flip a coin. There are only two. That part's easy. But when it comes to demographics that might be beneficial to businesses like education or skill, the government instead chose to divide us up into racial categories. A story published by the Associated Press describes the form used by the government to keep track of all the different ways they determined were important. The story says the form has evolved over time, but basically breaks down job categories from top level to grunts and asks how many men and women in each category and how many are Hispanic or Latino, black or African American, Asian, Native Hawaiian, American Indian, or Alaska Native people are part of the workforce. Huh. So that's all they want to know? There seems to be someone missing from that list. Do they not even keep track of the Northern European slash Caucasian people? Are they irrelevant to the data? It would seem so, except that all other groups are measured against white men. And people use the data to justify having fewer white men in top managerial positions. Not because they're not doing a good job, but because they're white. And the data suggests there should be more top leaders of the other groups the government established. That's become the reason for keeping track of us in such a racist way.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Well, that can't be right.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

I have said on this program multiple times that the federal government of the United States is one of the most racist institutions anywhere. Since the 1960s, the government has divided us by race, kept track of us by race, and promoted social programs based on race. I recognize that the initial objectives of doing so were both worthy and just. There was a huge problem with racism, bigotry, and prejudice in America. And that was a byproduct of diversity. You can't just throw multitudes of people together who have different life experiences and cultures and expect them all to coalesce into a civilized society without some conflict. We're still experiencing some of that conflict today, but it's much less prevalent than it was sixty years ago. Some of that relief is because of education. Some of it is because of proximity to those different from each other. Some of it is due to the fact that we're all human regardless of our skin color. Many of us are learning to be a part of the melting pot, and some of us are reluctant to assimilate to the American way of life. But that's another subject. It's a good idea to get rid of these racist categories of expectation. Mixed race people are more prevalent now, and if you include mixed European races, then you'd have to add a lot more categories. For example, I'm mostly Polish, but I also have some English and Scottish blood in my history. Would I be considered a mixed race person? No. But there was a time not long ago when Scottish and Irish people were discriminated against just as much as anybody. But those aren't qualifications the federal government is interested in following in the 21st century. My most recent guest, Joel Rako, said something that caught my ear. He said that constitutional rights are bestowed upon the individual, not groups. You relinquish your rights as an individual when you surrender them to a group. When you take advantage of rights rewarded to some subgroup of people, you become subservient to the group. Through the act of our government dividing us into groups of their choosing, we've become statistical data to be manipulated, specifically by the racial categories created by the government. That's why it's important to eliminate this type of division and record keeping. Despite the criticism from some, the United States is the most diverse country on the planet by a mile. Can it improve? Yeah. Will it improve? Yes. Does anyone have a clear definition of improvement? No. But it's still better than any place else in the world, and maybe the federal government doesn't need to waste money keeping track of some things nobody else in the world even cares about. Come to America, give it your best shot, and see if it works. Most people don't care about what color skin you have. All we ask is that you come here through legal channels, contribute to society, and don't live off the government. AKA The American Taxpayer. Keeping track of a person's race does nothing but promote racism and perpetuate the assumption that all issues begin and end with a person's race. Race should never be a factor in any consideration whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

You can hang your hat on that.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

I applaud the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for electing to eliminate this racist form of record keeping in the hope that race will eventually become irrelevant. Speaking of which, there is another action within the American federal government that also aims to eliminate race-based categorization of people within the government itself.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Send email to thelisteningtube at outlook.com.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace has introduced a resolution that will eliminate racism from being used to form subgroups in the House of Representatives. Not just race, but also ethnicity and national origin. I would imagine that if your national origin is American, there's a workaround. If passed, this new House rule would end such caucuses as the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, as well as the Black Republican Congressional Staff Association, the GOP Latino Staff Association, and the Republican Asian American Staff Association. We don't have a Congressional Polish Caucus or Italian or Russian or male caucus. A Fox News story quotes Representative Mace as saying race-based caucuses are not diversity. They are federally sanctioned segregation. You do not get to lecture America about inclusion while running an organization which checks your skin color at the door. The hypocrisy ends now. It is time to end taxpayer funded discrimination in this institution. And she's right. It's high time those who claim to be against racism stop using race as a tool and a cover for racism. The problem is the people who are championing these race tracking data compilers and race-based organizations often fail to see how they are racist. That's partly because for generations we were taught that only white people could be racist. Therefore anything any other race did to build themselves up was accepted as necessary. I recently saw a post on social media made by a black woman that was blatantly racist. When I pointed it out, I was immediately told by a white person that you can't call a black woman racist. That is absurd. So maybe if we stop keeping track of ourselves based on our race, and the government stops dividing us up by race, and if we put an end to race-based groups and organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus, perhaps then we can let racism extinguish itself.com, where you'll also find This Week in History and guest interviews. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Thou Ad Infinitum.