When we wonder why marginalized groups are \u2018underrepresented\u2019, we are asking the wrong question<\/p>\n
For the most part, we have been doing it wrong. For decades, the way that government entities, institutions, organizations, and even advocates and activists have gone about addressing inequality in this country has been fundamentally flawed. We\u2019ve asked the wrong questions, pursued the wrong solutions, and accepted the wrong premises. We\u2019ve mainly obsessed over why people of color, women and LGBTQ+ individuals are \u201cunderrepresented\u201d rather than asking: why are straight white American men so dramatically overrepresented in positions of power?<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t about semantic hairsplitting. It\u2019s about asking the right question, a strategic reorientation in thinking that gets to the heart of the matter. The problem isn\u2019t that people of color and other marginalized people are lacking the necessary qualities \u2013 intelligence, ambition, discipline, networks and other qualifications, other merit \u2013 to climb their way up to positions of power and influence in greater numbers. The problem is the longstanding and widespread practice of granting preferences to straight white American men. White men make up about 29% of the US population, according to census data.<\/p>\n
Twenty-nine percent: white men make up approximately 29% of the US population<\/p>\n
The percentage of top positions in an organization, institution or entity held by white men<\/p>\n
The organization\u2019s overall workforce demographics<\/p>\n
The demographics of the relevant qualified candidate pool<\/p>\n
The demographics of the communities the organization serves<\/p>\n
Industry benchmarks (where available)<\/p>\n
The overall general US population?<\/p>\n
Who makes hiring decisions for senior roles?<\/p>\n
What criteria are used for promotion to leadership positions?<\/p>\n
How are \u201ccultural fit\u201d and \u201cleadership potential\u201d assessed?<\/p>\n
What networks and relationships influence succession planning?<\/p>\n
How are board seats filled?<\/p>\n
This article was adapted from Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else?: Playing Offense in the Fight for Racial Justice in America, out on 21 April from New Press<\/p>\n
Steve Phillips is the founder of Democracy in Color and author of Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority and How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good<\/p>\n
Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When we wonder why marginalized groups are \u2018underrepresented\u2019, we are asking the wrong question For the most part, we have been doing it wrong. For decades, the way that government entities, institutions, organizations, and even advocates and activists have gone about addressing inequality in this country has been fundamentally flawed. We\u2019ve asked the wrong questions, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}