Diversity audits/committees/consultants are a complete fraud – Part 2

How do we stop racism? Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man, and I’m going to stop asking you to call me a black man. – Morgan Freeman

When we last left off we were discussing how, not only are diversity audits/consultants/committees a complete waste of time, but they’re also the worst kind of reverse bigotry.

With St. Charles D303 spending 44 grand on an “equity audit” and another $132,000 on a Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, does anyone within in the sound of my voice really think that report is gonna come back with anything other than the situation is “beyond dire?”

Because if they come up with any other answer, the consultant stops getting paid and our DEI Director would be out of a job. Oh! And that D303 staffer is black because those inherently irredeemable white folks can’t possibly handle any possibility with the word “diversity” in it.

It’s a good thing I’m an honorary Mexican!

Meanwhile, a group of 50 Batavia D109 teachers sent a desperate missive to District administrators demanding that action be taken against “the racist, homophobic, and transphobic incidents that plague our district.”

That, of course, is another fine example of progressophobia whereby those loony lefties insist that things are always worse than they’ve ever been. Yes! Because black folks are still relegated to the back of the bus, women can’t vote, and our gay compatriots can’t get married.

Then that gaggle of overcaffeinated educators had the temerity to accuse those scurrilous administrators of willfully refusing to respond to their epic email until a local paper printed that response. C’mon! Progressives don’t want to solve a problem because how could things be worse than they’ve always been if they did?

But as absurd as those initiatives are, they pale in comparison to Geneva, Illinois,’ brand spanking new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force which only serves to highlight Mayor Kevin Burns’ blatant dishonesty and rankest form of hypocrisy.

Here’s what I mean.

For the first time in the quarter-century I’ve called Geneva home, last week I saw a black public works worker toiling alongside his all-white peers. I was so stunned by that revelation that I may have gawked while slowly driving by which might’ve sent the entirely wrong message.

But the truth is, while Mayor Burns thrusts “diversity” and low-income…I mean “affordable housing” on the rest of us, he presides over a city workforce that’s at least 96 percent white – in 2022 no less. When I say “preside,” I mean the Mayor is far more involved in the hiring process than most Genevans would think.

And the reason he’s so hands-on is every four years the entire City workforce, and particularly Public Works, springs into action as his de facto “volunteer” campaign team. Since he’s a part of that exclusive club himself, he tends towards hiring lifelong Genevans who are far more likely to go along with the program, and lifelong Genevans are pretty much Caucasian.

Burns clings to the Mayoral gig like a Titanic survivor to a floating door because his vast narcissism makes it impossible for him to hold a real job. But since that “job,” along with being liquor commissioner, only pays 20 grand, he relies on his various girlfriends for housing and sponges off them for everything else.

It’s nice to have a mayor who’s so invested in his community, isn’t it?

Burns will let his managers hire folks from St. Charles, Batavia, and Elburn, but the political dynamic remains the same. And when I said “volunteer,” I meant we pay for all that “free” staff campaign work because the Mayor gives Geneva employee unions everything they ask for during contract negotiations as a reward for their efforts.

The result of this blatant cronyism is Geneva can boast ONE black firefighter, at least one public works employee, and if you ever walk through the hallowed halls of city hall, with very limited exception, it’s a strikingly white proposition.

The singular departure from this monochrome-osity is Human Resources Generalist, Mera Johnson, the only minority occupy a Geneva municipal management position. Ms. Johnson is also the liaison to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force because we inherently biased Caucasians couldn’t possibly do that job.

Again, imagine the fallout if any local town reserved a position for a white male.

The only antidote to this abject lack of diversity is the Geneva Police Department who’ve hired four Hispanic and one black officers which, considering their 25 to 30 strong patrol team, effectively represents central Kane County.

So, my first suggestion to the somewhat newly appointed nine-member Task Force is to turn their sights inward to the City they purport to represent. And I’d start that process by asking the Mayor why he insisted on inserting the impending low-income rental housing in the kind of geographically segregated area that makes it bound to fail.

Even Chicago finally gave up that notion. And the Geneva Police thought they had their hands full with me!

Then I’d move on to addressing the kind of hypocritical sanctimony that would allow our progressive “Republican” mayor to shove his form of “diversity” down our throats while he personally and publicly avoids it like the plague. That low-income housing ain’t going up in his neighborhood, now is it?

Furthermore, were I Task Force Chairperson Ashley Nuzzo-Ericksen, before I asked Genevans be inclusive, I’d examine the kind of internal hiring practices that led to a city staff that’s the very antithesis of the word “diversity.”

Just a thought.

Of course, I reached out to the Mayor for some sort of comment on what can only be perceived as a vast pretense and the silence was deafening.

Because when an artificial “diversity” and not merit is the preeminent consideration, it’s nothing more than the reverse side of the same bigotry coin. Worse yet, it only serves to promote a narcissistic victimhood that immediately proceeds to perpetuate itself. Those insipid committees’ vainglorious mission statements really oughtta read something like this:

“To create solutions in search of a problem and inevitably make the situation worse by persistently highlighting our differences instead of resolving them. To maintain the status quo under the guise of actually doing something about it because to solve any problem would render us obsolete.”

At least it would be the truth!