CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
Harvard Business Review
by
M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
Miss Constitution has posited the abstruse proposition that abstracts stated as reality and repeated constantly can become “true” whether or not there is a correspondence between the abstract and reality itself. Last week she applied this to the notions of systemic and implicit racism and white privilege. She called these “clouds” – apparently real as they billow overhead but air when touched. Statements such as “Denying you are a racist only proves it to be true”, communicated repeatedly by various media, educators, clergy, and “smart” people, and then accepted by persons who have no reason to think this about themselves, wrap our society in a type of straight jacket from which there is no escape. The American Jewish community comes to mind in this regard. No other single community has done more for what they consider racial justice than this community but remain “white persons” within the paradigm of all white persons are irredeemably X, Y, or Z.
There is an “iron triangle” according to an MIT professor that keeps this going because large amounts of money have been made in keeping it going. He sees certain constituency groups, many in academia, lobbyists in partnership with some members of Congress, and executive branch bureaucrats, all profiting from programs that never end, and progress never made. After all, even if statistics and other data say one thing, new micro-aggressions or nano-aggressions, or micro-nano-aggressions can be invented to keep the straight jacket firmly in place and its wearer a permanent prisoner. In any case, the society is paralyzed with accusers able to freely self-label as morally superior, almost always another “cloud” masked as reality.
What many Americans of goodwill want to know is, “how do we untangle this and at the same time be true to a genuine wish for equal opportunity for all people in our society?”
Miss Constitution thinks the first thing to do is separate “clouds” from “concrete.” Actual laws on the books of all states and the federal government constitute reality. Racial laws after the Civil War were called “Jim Crow laws”. The question is, do any of these laws still exist? Are there real racist laws on the books or in administrative rules or in decisions of courts? The answer is “no”, there are no such laws, rules, or decisions anymore. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1868, stated the commitment of the country to equal protection of the laws. With no laws that automatically discriminate based on immutable “status” (race, gender, ethnicity) we have as a society fulfilled on paper a concrete promise. This is progress toward the goal of equal opportunity. This does not mean that all laws are equally applied or that the judicial system is totally “fair and impartial”, but it does mean that we have the reality of a legitimate starting point. The flaws in human beings account for the many variations of decision-making regarding which laws take priority, who should be prosecuted for what injuries to society, and what constitutes priorities for certain jurisdictions. In cattle country, rustling cattle would be a high priority. This would not be the same priority in New York City, for instance. So, where does this leave us? It leaves us loosened a bit from the straight jacket that blanket statements about racism create. All decision-making regarding what laws to enforce are not automatically racially motivated.
Another reality is that the United States Constitution is primarily about the development of the individual and not the group. We have individual Liberty within the constraints of the Rule of Law and individual rights against government power. Part of the Rule of Law is Moral Law, and it is Moral Law that guides certain of our business society to want equal opportunity for all people. Class action lawsuits motivate others. For the former, this means is that people of good will who are trying to honor Moral Law want artificial barriers to opportunity removed. This does not mean that all persons of any status have prepared themselves the same for opportunities, it means that for those that have prepared themselves no artificial barriers to being all they can be should exist. It is up to each person to prepare him or herself, and this is done through strong families, excellent schools, and moral leadership in families, schools, and communities. Personal development is “concrete”. For those individuals who do not have strong families, go to excellent schools, or find any moral leadership in the community the solution is to start with the concrete reality of that person and try and fill any voids. This has nothing to do with outcome or with status it has to do with the reality of each individual person. Translated this means if the schools in a child’s life are not excellent change the schools do not go to an abstract concept like “systemic racism” that has no meaning for a particular circumstance and paralyzes those trying to help. Our Constitutional system emphasizes the individual over the group because it is known that incentivizing individuals creates the most innovation, invention, opportunity, and prosperity for all.
Harvard University and Tel Aviv University professors in sociology, in a Harvard Business Review article, studied efforts by corporations to diversify their work forces and discovered what really works regarding equal opportunity sensitivity and what does not. What DOES work is active recruitment and mentoring programs that create a personal and close relationship between individual people so that each develops what the sociologists call “social accountability.” In other words, persons in management begin to take a personal interest in the development of a particular individual, a kind of protege program. What DOES NOT work is diversity training that amounts to a type of shaming, coercion of any kind, or a grievance system that possibly leaves an accused person’s reputation damaged regardless of facts.
Miss Constitution is calling out the language of the “social justice” community and those in the “iron triangle” who want to keep racial issues inflamed for job security or personal gain and whose behavior and devastating words imprison the well-intentioned of society. Seeing everything through a racial lens prevents personal growth and progress. It hurts the very persons those in the triangle claim to care about. True social justice starts with the actual not the abstract and is liberating not imprisoning. In conjunction with our Constitutional system true social justice embraces the optimistic and the possible. It throws off the ugly and the negative. This is the promise of our nation, and if freed from the straight jacket of the misleadingly abstract, can be made the concrete of the now and the reality of the future.
Copyright© M.E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
info@missconstitution.com
