From: Arthur_T_Hu@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american,talk.politics.misc,soc.women
Subject: Reflecting America with a Fun House Mirror
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 11:14:59 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

                                1


Hu's on First
by Arthur Hu
A Column for SF based Asian Week

Jan 4, 1993
1194 Fargate Circle
San Jose CA 95131
408-452-1873 eve
415-968-4800 x240 day

Clinton's Fun House Mirror

Bill Clinton showed some nerve to challenge the feminist
bean counters who demanded no less than 50 percent women in
writing after they heard his promise that his new cabinet
would "reflect America". Yet, amidst all this celebration
over this "exercise in diversity" nobody has bothered to
count up the beans and figure out why the Blacks and
Hispanics aren't complaining. The reason it doesn't look
like America at all not because it has too many White males
(40 percent is exactly right), but because it has too many
Black and Hispanic males at the expense of Asians and White
females. If this is Clinton's idea of a reflection, he's
using a fun house mirror.

The press has duly noted that Clinton's cabinet is "only" 27
percent female. Yet it seems no one has the mathematical
ability or the audacity to point out that Mr. "I'm Against
Quotas" Clinton has picked out 3 times as many Black and
Hispanic males as in the population. Hazel O'Leary may be a
twofer, but if we count her as one Black woman (not counting
her European features which probably make her far less than
100% genuine African ancestry) she falls at exactly the
correct 6 percent of the population. That's right. Black men
are 20 percent of the cabinet compared to 6 percent of the
population. Hispanic males are 13 percent of the cabinet,
but just 4.5 percent in the population.

The long haired bomb tossing radicals never demanded more
than parity with population back in the 60's. Even
universities caught red handed over quota outrages stop at
12 percent Blacks. Yet Clinton The Moderate has gone way
beyond parity in front of everybody, and nobody notices or
cares.  Maybe such an omission is understandable when San
Jose State had but one White male out of six finalists for
their president, and San Jose's 1991 fireman class had only
one out of 22. The only way to get more diverse was to
eliminate even the token one white male, yet nobody
complained, there was only celebration of "Diversity". Don't
be surprised if you hear Clinton repeating Berkeley and
UCLA's new terminology "historically underrepresented" for
groups that are over parity that were "supposed to be"
disadvantaged, and the weak defence "we're deliberately

                                2


trying to reverse a history of exclusion, and not be limited
by quota ceilings".

So who came up short? 20 percent of White women comes up at
one-half their population. But a cabinet that is 27 percent
female is about the same as the 31 percent of officials and
public administrators who were women in 1980. 27 percent is
also an of magnitude greater than the female representation
at the top any major corporate management where a
corporation stands to gain or lose millions if they pick the
wrong person solely because of her gender. Only a die hard
feminist and quota addict could insist on 50 percent without
regard to the qualifications of the applicable labor pool,
but then there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

Perhaps Clinton should have worked harder at convincing
congressman Norm Mineta to take the Secretary of
Transportation position because Asians are the biggest
gaping hole in the bunch. One position out of 15 is nearly
equal to the 5 percent of Americans with 4 year college
degrees who are Asian. If Asians were entitled to the same
doubling of their population as Blacks, that would also
justify an Asian cabinet position at 6 percent. Blacks got 4
positions and Hispanics got 2. Yet Asians got zero, zilch,
nada despite the fact that 5 percent Asians are nearly equal
to the Blacks who are only 6 percent and Hispanics who are
just 3 percent of college graduates. And that's not counting
that the math and verbal aptitude, along with income and
unemployment rates of the average Black college graduate are
no higher than the average White high school grad, while the
average Asian tests 2 years ahead of a White grad.

The Asian activists who kowtow to Clinton are completely in
favor of racial preferences and quotas as long as Asians
benefit, or at least aren't hurt any more than Whites. Yet
no racial group got screwed worse by Clinton than the Asian
Americans. Mineta may have not been the best man, but Asians
easily deserve one spot as long as the object of the game is
racial balance, not finding the fellow with the best resume.
This selection process is only more proof along with the
selection results of other San Francisco and San Jose
education and political positions that Asians rank at the
bottom of the pecking order of all Democratic interest
groups, and the activists are suckers if they think
Affirmative Action really works in the best interests of
Asians, and not just Blacks and Latinos.

This is a good time to restate Hu's Laws of Representation,
which briefly summarizes why quotas are a complete waste of
time is addressing the problems of differential
representation:

1. No two different groups will be equally represented in
anything in a free society. Underrepresentation is the

                                3


natural consequence of over achievement even in the total
absence of discrimination.

2. The only way to get equal representation is to apply
discrimination, and the higher the level of selectivity, the
more discrimination is required.

3. The only way to get equal representation without
discrimination is if the two groups are statistically
identical in qualifications.

To which, I shall add Hu's Laws of Affirmative Action:

1. Thou shalt not exceed parity with Whites unless the group
is better qualified.

2. Thou shalt not equal parity with Whites unless the group
is equally qualified.

3. Thou shalt use racial preferences only to remedy
underrepresentation. It should not be a rationale to exclude
as many White males or include as many Black males as
possible.

4. Thou shalt not equal parity with population if Whites are
themselves underrepresented because this violates rule 1.

I don't think the press is really so clueless that the news
staff of every city and network are utterly incapable of
figuring out that 27 percent of the cabinet exceeds the 12
percent Black population by a factor of two. Even if you
like it that way, it should be reported and celebrated, not
locked in the basement like Ross Perot's crazy aunt. I'm all
for loosening the rules a little bit to make sure than
groups are not excluded just because of the circumstances of
their race or gender.

If Bill Clinton is going to be true to his promise to not
tolerate quotas based on parity, he's also going to have
oppose policies which clearly exceed parity, and do his
cabinet over again, the right way. But the 1964 Civil Rights
Act prohibits discrimination against any group, even White
males on the basis of race or gender. That makes Bill
Clinton just as much a criminal as Nixon's Watergate or
Reagan's contra affair, but the only secret about this is
the fact that nobody wants to look at the math that 27 is
greater than 12, or admit that Blacks and Hispanics are far
from even equally qualified as a labor pool, let alone
entitled to over representation, and Clinton has even gone
out of his way to tell everyone that Diversity with a
capital "D" is his primary consideration. This could go as
high as Clarence Thomas and friends and lead to the
impeachment of Clinton on the basis of his first action. Or
more likely, nobody will notice, and  everybody else will be

                                4


encouraged to do more of the same with the blessings of the
nation's top leader. If feminists succeed in passing laws
that 50 percent of all government appointments must go to
women, do you really think Clinton will stop it? Don't count
on it.