111 Comments
Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

I hear you, Don. I won't say much because I have to write and edit DEI copy where I work. What I would say is that if a company doesn't perform, as in sell things, employees are let go. Non-essential employees go first. Every company has goals for its employees. One of my goals is to increase website traffic this year is by 8 % with content. So far, traffic this year is up over 10% and climbing, but I have to sustain that until Dec. 31 when a new target will be assigned. No target, no bonus. ( I comment here as often as I can while working.) DEI where I work also has targets and one of them "engaging with content" which means reading it. That is usually low. Where DEI succeeds is internally with all of its "positive" messaging and its employee groups. In my case, I do what is asked of me to the best of my ability because I am a professional. Other than that, I stay in the background because I am fearful of saying the wrong thing. I am even worried about commenting here. There is diversity but not diversity of thought. This will be the last time I say anything about the topic.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

Reading your comments, and the comments of the other thoughtful individuals is a true joy. I used to love to discuss world events and the culture war with my highly liberal friends in Boston. I think we both learned alot about each other and came to the conclusion that this country is made up of great people, even if they have different opinions. Social media and the mob have ruined alot of what was good about America.

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I enjoy your comments. Stay out of trouble. So sad the world has devolved to this. I’m a retired small business owner. I doubt I could survive in today’s environment.

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It's hard to stay out of trouble sometimes! I preface my comments at work ( not in the DEI case) but with a couple of people who know me with: I want to be my authentic self so I am going to say this... Even then, I am pretty careful. Even when a company is promoting "authenticity" I don't think they really mean it.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

My uncle was fired for being honest. When he was 62, they had him complete a paper listing his goals for the next five years. He put retirement as one of them.

They canned him for not being company oriented. He'd been with them for 40 years.

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That's how it goes now. I was asked the same question in January. I was my authentic self and said my brain just doesn't work that way to see into the future. I told my boss I would continue writing and editing the best content, on any and all topics, for the company's website. That was accepted.

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Good Lord, they had to be looking for an excuse.

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I believe that in many cases the target is already on a person's back and management is looking for an excuse.

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Yep. I had a boss that I thought liked me and was mentoring me, sabotage me and try to get me fired the entire 4 yrs I worked with her. I survived her but she fired a lot of others mostly because she didnt like them.

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Yup, corporate downsizing. They ended up losing the contract my uncle covered shortly after he was terminated.

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I understand LuAnn, Good luck w all of it. I only speak to one person regarding politics (my hubby) and comment here. Most of my family wouldnt understand, other parts do but are still squirrels. So unless I think I can nudge them into thinking, I keep quiet. I have old friends who are die hard dems. I really thought when the one started making real money she would see more paying lots more taxes. Nope.

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Thank you LuAnn. Keep up the good work - you’ll be the last one standing. And appreciate your posts here.

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Fortunately or unfortunately for some, I will be commenting but not DEI or anything related to it.

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I am thankful that my job consists of writing about many topics.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/what-stanford-laws-dei-dean-got-wrong/673410/

This is a link to an ATLANTIC ( yes liberal coverage!) of an incident well publicized at Stanford Law School where a presiding DEI officer of the school helped to silence an invited speaker not liberal enough for the students. I can't imagine that Stanford will stay a top law school if this is what its students think and how they act. The DEI office came with her own speech prepared...odd eh? and asked if the "Juice was worth the Squeeze.' ( perhaps a question we could direct to CNN now that Don Lemon is gone??...) Anyway she was obliquely implying that his position was not worth the trouble he was causing- except he was not causing any trouble- she and the students were.... and so it goes... There are and have been many other incidents like this. Liberals think there is a property right to opinion and they own it- beware...

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Thank You LuAnn noted and appreciated.

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LuAnn, may I kindly suggest you look up Tucker Carlson’s speech to the Heritage Foundation last Sunday? It was truly inspiring, and maybe even will inspire you to leave a job that has you cowering, afraid to speak the truth. We desperately need everyone to stop being afraid of doing and saying the right thing!

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I did look up Tucker's speech and it was great. The problem is I don't want to get fired and lose my paycheque. That is the silencing factor for many of us.

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Paychecks can be found even in honest work. Start looking for it. Or better yet, come to Florida where we have tons of jobs available that won’t corrupt your conscience. You sound young enough to live honestly, and God will take care of the rest!

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Also, remember the anecdote Tucker told of the honest man who put his paycheck and family at risk in the equation to be honest? It was taken care of, and rewarded with success, and most of all happiness for living honestly.

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Yeah but paychecks can be very hard to come by and every ones circumstances are different. I am constrained by older family members that need help. I cant abandon them. There are ways to push the envelop that arent obvious while looking for ways to help. And Canada is a lot farther along the socialism road than we are. I am glad LuAnn feels comfortable enough to share her thoughts here.

I know where I am in a mixed state political mess, you say the wrong thing or piss off the wrong person, it can haunt you. One of my husbands' former bosses shut down over 15 transfers at his company to another job after he got notice he got laid off. (he did 47 interviews on the way out). The former boss also still through contracts manage to kill at least 3 jobs offers over the next 5 yrs that were outside the company that we know of. For no apparent reason. My hubby got along with him up until the 3 round of layoffs.

There is a special place in hell for those people.

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Thanks, tj. Whether we like it or not, times have changed and too much.

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But if all of us leave, who will do the work?😁

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Get the people in the DEI community to do the work. "WORK, you near-useless corporate checkmarks!" *CRACK!* "EARN your salaries!"

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I worked in a field (policing) that for every DEI promotion, they required two or more of us non-DEIs to do the actual work. We eventually retired off and now my former organization is collapsing under the weight of its bad decisions. I’m not sympathetic.

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Reminds me of a family firm that gave their kids "jobs" with nice salaries; they were as useful as teats on a boar. The family was eventually forced to sell their firm and the kids had to find jobs elsewhere. Strangely enough, they managed to find jobs in which they were actually useful. They had kids so they HAD to find jobs in which they were useful in order to support them.

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Illegitimus non carborundum = Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor would reportedly write in his diary, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

We can hope this is so in this case as well.

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I also admire Yamamoto... and you. You shared his full name. I'm impressed.

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History buff. And a Navy Vet.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

my employer has been suffused with much of this nonsense. i work as an accountant for an academic medical center. the first word there is the source of the problem. the med school proselytizes critical race theory and the infinitely worse queer theory. a ridiculously large percentage of hospital employees are listing preferred pronouns in their email signatures. glad that i'm old and sickly enough that for the rest of my days there will still be a few physicians around who won't prescribe euthanasia simply because i'm not a pervert.

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just say when it come to pronoun 'I follow the rules of grammar.' and ...If you insist on using 'they,' show me a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder and I'll work with you on that.

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In the immortal words of Ian Hunter, "You're never alone with a schizophrenic."

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I resemble that remark.... =p

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When I see someone list their pronouns I think, “neurotic sheep” Baaaaa Baaaaa

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If it’s on social media, I delete them.

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Apr 26, 2023·edited Apr 26, 2023

👍🏼 If I see professionals I am thinking of using who list pronouns - I automatically 'unthink' that thought 🤣

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

DEI is the current liberal/progressive parasite sucking the lifeblood out of "the host" - usually formerly healthy companies.

I'm (now) a 65 y/o white male pastor in the mainline (sideline/old line) United Methodist Church, and I've experienced this anti-male, anti-white (and anti-conservative) bias for my whole career. I've watched women and minorities (and esp. minority women) rise to the top on a greased track, irregardless of job performance.

That nonsense can defeat you if you let it. Instead, I just kept my head down and grew every church I served (in both membership and financial giving), which included a couple building programs (and the capital campaigns to pay for them).

Now, close to retirement, I'm finally leaving the woke (and soon to be broke) UMC with my current church to join the new, more traditional/orthodox Global Methodist Church. It can't happen soon enough (June 1st)!

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

God bless you and keep you, brother.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

Rev you nailed it with the parasite example for that is it .Nothing more than free free free for me.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

God bless you and that is a good decision you've made.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

Another superb column, Don. Am going to circulate this.

Not too surprising that the event was held in Chicago-- hotbed of the Chicago Communist Cartel, Bill Ayers, Obama, Valerie Jarrett, etc.

D E I = Division, Enmity, and Intolerance.

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This is a very sad situation. First of all to implement such a program one must identify the people or characteristics that must be selected for 'special protection or treatment' under DEI (definitely excludes intelligence). One issue you may or may not be aware of is that college enrollment of males is down. There has been such a focus on race and women that the plain vanilla male is being excluded. What good can come of that? We know (all diversity considerations aside, and speaking here of just the raw facts) men are stronger than women. So what good will come of taking the 'alpha' of the species and condemning him to a second tier life ( although maybe he will be better off without all that 'useless' college debt??). The most pernicious thing is the tendency to wipe out advanced or accelerated courses because of racial imbalances., related to this is a movement in California (where else??) to declare MATH itself as racist and teach it differently in away that calculus will not be able to be taught in high school... FLASH!! colleges WANT calculus taught in high school...I gradate high school in sububran Detoit in 1968 had calc and placed out of my college 'requirement.' My wife (not as old as i am...) who went to school in Olympia Washington had a similar experience. How come we could do this in 1968 but can't do it in 2023? How is this progress in education? How will this make America more competitive? it surely will not. So... my father was a school principal in an all-black inner city school in the Detroit Area. His school was always one of the successful ones. why? He knew his neighborhood and compensated for what his K-4th grade students needed. He gave them a safe environment, good teachers, and brought in the federal breakfast and lunch programs. Kids can't lean if they are hungry... I spent time with him getting his school ready each new year and working with some local kids the school system let him hire ( he would not pay me out of school system funds...he paid me $20 a day from money out of his own pocket). Why this digression on me my dad and black schools? because THEY - not race - are the problem. I am an economist (PhD). there is an automatic stabilizer in our educational system like those we talk about in our economy- except it is not working...Why? The 'stabilizer' is that when you have a racial pocket it gets racial representation. So there should be an ability to fix issues of racial disparity when they arise. But this does not happen. 'Race' representatives to the state legislature or Washington or wherever and get sucked up in the power game and do not use their power and influence to fix what's broken back home. Would it help black children more to have a Juneteenth holiday, to take a birthday holiday from a US president and give it to Martin Luther King OR..TO FIX THE SCHOOLS?? Well guess that they have chosen to do? Look at Chicago, Detroit, NYC, all the Eastern cities dominated by Democrats for years. All with concentrations of black population, and high crime and CRAPPY SCHOOLS. If there is systemic racism in America it's because of CRAPPY SCHOOLS. and schools are local and political representation is local. so connect the dots... It's not hard. Why is there an Asian-Black Schism? Asians are NOT part of the 'rainbow coalition...why? Blacks reject education Asian embrace it (and embrace 'white values'). They embrace these things to such an extreme that they 'out-white the whites' to put it in racial terms. actually what the BLM folk call 'white values are simply the values people hold world wide who are successful. Dumbing down our schools, their course work, and offerings will only make things worse. We compete with China Russia, India, Europe and all other global areas, and these people are not doing these STUPID things called DEI. There is nothing useful or productive about DEI. It's an impediment. People of 'race' need to focus on issues instead of their race. Once they fix the right issues they will find differences of 'race' melt away. The very notion that math is racist is, well, racist!

WORD!- RAB

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Excellent comment, Brusca.

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Apr 26, 2023·edited Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

I don't know what a phrenologist is - or what one does - and I don't care enough to find out.

I'm pretty sure that by now, those of us who are not only capable of, but actually actively practice critical thinking know that, 'diversity' means non-white, and non-male except for token representation purposes, but always non-white male.

"...the School of Journalism and Strategic Media,..."

What the hell is, Strategic Media? It sounds like a euphemism for propaganda - probably because that's exactly what it is.

"The women and the man in that photo need to develop marketable skills."

Huh? Are you telling me that a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Victim & Oppression of Left-handed Mulatto Lesbian Single Mothers in the Inner City of Helena, Montana, Studies, is not the credential needed to gain the experience to develop such skills? Surely, you jest!

"On January 24, Kelsey Butler of Bloomberg reported, 'Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard'"

"On February 6, an alarmed Marguerite Ward of Insider reported, 'Layoffs sweeping Big Tech are putting corporate diversity efforts at risk.'"

Thank God for market forces!

"'Well-funded and well-connected GOP power players masquerading as aggrieved parents have been "harassing educators for policies they deem unfair to white students and antithetical to their values," per a Boston Globe columnist. It's "white backlash politics" that's "clearly coordinated, with right-wing money" and engaged in a campaign of "whipping suburban parents into a frenzy" to win elections for the Republicans.'"

Assuming that the above is true. How is it any different from this?

"'Well-funded and well-connected Democrat power players masquerading as aggrieved parents have been "harassing educators for policies they deem unfair to black students and antithetical to their values," per a Boston Globe columnist. It's "black racial politics" that's "clearly coordinated, with left-wing money" and engaged in a campaign of "whipping urban parents into a frenzy" to win elections for the Democrats."

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FYI if you were in AFRICA diversity would mean 'White.'

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

In war, healthcare or aviation you don’t want DIE because you don’t want to Die.

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I agree... mostly. I just called my gay brother in law and thanked him for being in my life. Like most evangelicals, I have a tendency to approach lifestyles I don't agree with a guilt stick and beat them. But my attitude completely changed when my brother in-law helped me when I was desperately sick. He became the Good Samaritan Christ talked about. It appears that Jesus was a healer as well as a disruptor.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

Wonderful that you did that!

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And your story is why our sexual orientation, or skin color, or reproductive organs, are the least interesting thing about us. Because a family member is gay or of a different race - more and more common these days with inter-race marriage climbing - doesn't matter. DO they want to be a part of the tribe, helping others when they need help, and accepting help when they need it. Joining in at holiday or birthday celebrations, and pitching in when the family is in real trouble. That is the measure of a person, not all this other garbage.

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What a beautiful comment. Thank you. We are all the same in God’s eyes. He gave us free will to think for ourselves. Skin color, sexual orientation political philosophy are the threads that make God’s Quilt so beautiful.

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My feeling on it, is they are family. I love them. I might not like their choices but those are separated in my mind. I love my family but I dont necessarily like them.

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100% correct.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

"“Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard."

Dead wood always gets trimmed first.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

As I remember it during the 90's one of the corporate trends was to identify the company's "core competency", strengthen that and outsource everything else. There are very few companies where DEI is the core competency; other companies are wasting money investing in it.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

1. People don't know how hard it is to speak the truth, to a world full of people who do not know they are living a lie. Edward Snowden

2. Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity, where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they are doing today? Thomas Sowell.

3. Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as to not offend imbeciles. Dostoyevsky

4. Yes. Don. DEI is DIE. Divide and Conquer. An old idea but a certainty. "Death by a thousand Cuts." Brought to you by the Fifth Column in America, funded by the source of that last truism. Old Joe is the American Quisling, supported by Foreign Dirty Money. And there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of fingers pushing buttons, pulling levers, in Government and both Political Parties.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

I very much agree with the author.

DEI, the cult of antiracism, Black Lives Matter, and the 1619 Project are a scourge. They attempt to replace all the gains of the Civil Rights Movement with a new form of racism, this time against white people and white males. Racism is not the solution to anything it is the problem.

But these combined movements which are about bigotry against white people, harm people of color and Black people most of all.

First of all these movements are against the police. A majority of inner city Black people want more police not less.

Secondly, these movements imply that people of color are defined by their victimhood. This has the effect of denying Black people any sense of agency, instead they offer Black people a way to avoid taking any responsibility for the quality of their lives. This is damaging to Black people.

Before Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty the majority of Black families had fathers. After the War on Poverty and as a result of this and similar programs, the minority of Black families have fathers. This is proof that reparations and making Black people into victims is destructive of Black families.

Robert Woodson, the head of the 1776 Project, describes this aptly in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gtaTgxshkY

Those on the Left, and the Marxists have no solutions for the problem of racism. Their policies have led to the destruction of Black families and impoverishment of Black lives.

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Destroying the black family was a goal, as was, as Lyndon Johnson so prophetically said, “We’ll have those (insulting n-word, plural) voting democrat for the next two-hundred years!”

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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are weasel words for c-o-m-m-u-n-i-s-m. When those Frankfurt School muttonhead communists came to the USA they knew the philosophy and ideology of outright Marxist-Leninist communism was a non-starter. So they decided to employ the vainglorious intellectual class to deceive the masses with divisive junk-talk. The Frankfurt School target-statement is always worth repeating: “We must organize the intellectuals and use them to make western civilization stink. Only then, after they have corrupted all its values and made life impossible, can we impose the dictatorship of the proletariat.” DEI is a big step in promoting that dictatorship.

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Oaf:

I always try to avoid the trap of pulling out old labels that put a person into the Right Wing/Left Wing divider. Communism, supposedly Left, and Nazism, supposedly Right, come full circle on the extremes. Ergo Totalitarianism. The Rule of Kings and Tyrants. Do what I say, for whether I know better or not, you shall obey/comply or I will have my craven underlings hurt or kill you.

The division of America is the Plan, not an accident.

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Divided we are easier targets to control. I think (hope) they stepped way too far in their power grab and now are being pushed back. A lot of diverse groups now find themselves banning together to fight the totalitarianism. Such as Gays against Groomers and the parents groups fighting for the kids to be kids, and get Porn out of schools.

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

In the internet early years for me, I read daily many conservative pundits like Neal Boortz (white man) Ann Coulter (WW) Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams (BM) and today Don Surber. If Don hadn't posted his pic I wouldn't know his race nor would I care! Nor did I care of the race or sex of the others listed above. The way it should be!

Around that same time period, Ward Connelly (BM) tried to get passed in CA a ballot measure removing from ALL government criteria the listing of race! All applications to schools grants etc. Would remove race. Liberals killed it. I wonder why?

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Apr 26, 2023Liked by Don Surber

We also had Ken Hamblin out of Colorado to listen to as he chastised white and black poverty pimps.

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Shelby Steele -another great Californian!

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...and War of Northern Aggression scholar extraordinaire!

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We keep pushing policies that seek to lower the river rather than raising the bridge; that reduce (rather than increase) skills rather than produce real wealth and upward living standard for ALL. Economic problems are not solved by slicing "the pie" into more equal slices - that will shrink the total pie over time - economic problems are solved by making "the pie" bigger over time. Diversity - a point in every direction - is no point at all.

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