Being White in the Workplace

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) went through a wide-ranging shake-up last week because its staff was too white.

The DCCC’s white executive director, Allison Jaslow, resigned on July 29 after the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and Congressional Hispanic Caucus complained to chairwoman Cheri Bustos, a white congresswoman from Illinois, that the committee had too many whites in top positions. Six or seven staffers — including the director of diversity — got the boot, in what is being called the “Monday Night Massacre.”

“There is not one person of color — black or brown, that I’m aware of — at any position of authority or decision-making in the DCCC,” Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, a former CBC chairwoman, told Politico. “It is shocking, it is shocking, and something needs to be done about it.” Rep. Fudge refused even to talk to Rep. Bustos: “Until they show me they are serious about diversity, there’s no reason for me to meet with them.”

Congresswoman Cheri Bustos. (Credit Image: © Us Senate/Planet Pix via ZUMA Wire)

Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva added the DCCC’s “Latino” outreach “doesn’t work anymore.” Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, an influential CBC member, said lack of diversity was one of “the biggest issues” with the DCCC. The now-unemployed Miss Jaslow apparently agrees. She burst into tears in a late July meeting over her “failure” to hire enough non-whites. Being a lesbian and a combat veteran didn’t save her.

The DCCC staff is already very non-white. A committee representative told Politico that 42 percent of the staff is “racially diverse,” 55 percent are women, and 13 out of 27 senior staffers are non-white. Some top non-white people recently left to work on presidential campaigns. This did not calm the fury against Rep. Bustos.

The DCCC’s job is to raise money and win seats for House Democrats, and the blood-letting disrupted operations, but non-white congressmen seem to think the race of the staff is all that counts. Rep. Bustos tried to defend herself by pointing out that her husband and children are of “Mexican descent,” and that her son is marrying a black woman. That provoked so much scoffing that her spokesman fired back: “It’s offensive, it’s petty and it reeks of political desperation that anyone would try to spin her words about her family into some kind of cheap political attack.” Still, Rep. Bustos has apologized and promised to take diversity and inclusion training — despite her husband and prospective daughter-in-law. Her critics just want a non-white in charge.

The DCCC’s chaos is just another example of discrimination against whites — in this case, invertebrate whites who go quietly when their non-white masters tell them to. Elsewhere, white workers are suing employers for racial discrimination.

A white professor at the historically-black Tuskegee University sued the Alabama school in July. Seventy-three-year-old Marshall Burns is claiming both age and racial discrimination. His salary was kept 30 to 50 percent lower than Tuskegee’s younger, non-white professors despite his four decades at the university. He also says that his “level of scholarship, and his white race helped Tuskegee University succeed in obtaining additional funding from more conservative legislators” in 1989. That year, the Alabama legislature named him “Teacher of the Year.”

A white elementary-school principal filed a five million dollar lawsuit against a Michigan school district in late July. Shannon Blick claims she lost her job because a black woman wanted it.

The lawsuit claims that the Ann Arbor Public Schools board has a record of “inhibiting and stepping on the civil rights of Caucasian and non-minority administrators when African American and minority administrators covet Caucasian and non-minority administrators’ legitimately earned and obtained positions, seniority, pay, jobs or duties.” It also alleges that district officials are known for “harboring, and acting on, racial animus towards Caucasians and non-minority individuals.”

William Tishkoff, Miss Blick’s attorney, told the press: “White people have rights.” Such an obvious statement is rare these days.

In May, a former Ohio State University program director filed suit against the school over anti-white discrimination. Mary Faure says her black boss, Monica Cox, was blunt. In one meeting, Miss Cox told Miss Faure, “I despise white people.” The black woman also complained that the engineering department she oversaw had too “many old white men.” Miss Faure fired Miss Cox over alleged performance issues, which the plaintiff claims are grossly exaggerated.

In March, a former Atlanta Hawks employee, Margo Kline, sued the NBA team for anti-white discrimination. She claims the Hawks’ black external affairs director David Lee discriminated against white employees, mocked “white culture,” and advanced less qualified black staff over more qualified white workers. Miss Kline was abruptly fired in March 2017, despite what she claims was a spotless record.

In 2015, a white man sued the D.C. Department of Public Works for wrongful termination. Christopher Lyons claimed he was fired because he was the department’s only white supervisor, and black employees didn’t want to work for a “honkey.” Black employees frequently insulted him and he once found a note that said, “Get Out White Boy!”

It’s good to see white people standing up for themselves. Their number will surely grow. Professional Democrats will probably never sue or make a stink, no matter how badly they are treated, but some will surely see what the party has in mind for them, draw the obvious lessons, and come our way.