"I Judge People Strictly on Merit"
So Why Does Everybody in Your C-Suite Look Just Like You, Then? or This is Why DEI is Essential, and Elon Musk—er, "Donald Trump" Can Sit Down and STFU!
First, my deepest apologies for not writing a post in almost two months. Things have gone from bad to worse over that time—my dwindling money has dwindled to nothing, my divorce seems to drag on endlessly, Fuck-America-Up Elmo Trump is tearing the country to pieces at lightning speed, and I had to borrow $1250 last week…to put the Meatloaf to sleep because of heart failure, fluid in his lungs, and his rear legs paralyzed thanks to a blood clot.
So I’m broke, grieving, and fucking Gods-Damned ENRAGED at my fellow citizens for voting for that fucking moronic Hitler Zero, Donald Trump—or rather, not voting for the country’s real dictator, Enemy Combatant Elon Musk.
Meanwhile, the Clinton Neoliberal Democratic Party is too busy bending the knee to these assholes to do anything, like fucking ramrod an investigation against Trump that’s every bit as brutal and sadistic as the one Hunter Biden endured! Or deport Elon Musk as an Enemy of the State and the People.
“In a country of Schmuck Schumers and Notorious P-Lousys, be an AOC and a Jasmine Crockett”—that’s MY election slogan for 2026, assuming we still have free and open elections by then.
This cri du cœur is brought to you by me, a citizen of the USofA.
As usual, this post comes courtesy of a response to another post—once again from Noah Berlatsky, who is right up there with Rohn Kenyatta as The Substacker I Turn to for Uncompensated Inspiration. Noah wrote a piece called “On Substack, Meritocracy is a Myth”, which prompted me to start writing this:
"Meritocracy" is a myth, period, because psychologically people in charge consider "merit" based on who they're comfortable being around. Even if they don't think they're being prejudiced in their choices, isn't it amazing how often, when choosing fellow C-Suite Executives, or Directors, or Club members, they almost always prefer...people who look and think just like them?
I’m confident that if asked 90 percent of these people, they would insist up and and down that they’re not bigots, no siree, not at all! It’s just, well, you see, this White Guy’s got more experience than that Black Woman, and that White Guy went to an Ivy League school unlike that Southern Asian Man, and this Straight White Guy…is just a better fit overall than that Openly-Gay Man. That’s the problem—it’s never “We don’t select anybody not Straight, White, and Male for the C-Suite, it’s just that there’s never The Right Black/ Female/ Indian/ LGBTQ Person for this corner-office slot….” And it’s likely there never will be, because that “Right” non-SWM person may as well be a unicorn for all the conditions they put on them.
I finally grokked this during the 2015 season of PROJECT GREENLIGHT, a reality TV series Ben Affleck and Matt Damon started to find new directors in Hollywood by staging a competition. Now, Matt Damon is widely considered to be an all-around great guy—liberal Democrat, good actor, gives new talent a shot at the big time, not full of inner demons like his dear friend Ben Affleck is. Why, that season of PROJECT GREENLIGHT I’m talking about hired a Black Woman, Effie T. Brown (But I’m a Cheerleader, Real Women Have Curves, Dear White People), as the producer of whoever won their competition! Surely, I can’t be accusing him of being a bigot, can I…?
Well, this Fine Handsome White Liberal Democrat, said when Ms. Brown, the producer he and Affleck hired to produce that season’s movie, recommended a project that was to be co-directed by Leo Angelos, an Asian American man, and a Kristen Brancaccio, a White woman, and this is a quote, “When we’re talking about diversity, you do it in the casting of the film, not in the casting of the show.” I’m pleased to say that Damon got pummelled with accusations of “Whitesplaining” and “Mansplaining” for that tidbit.
Damon, of course, insisted to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER that he was quoted out of context—didn’t apologize to Brown, didn’t apologize to the directing team, but answered charges of “Whitesplaining”…by Whitesplaining some more! (Read the linked article.) For some reason that didn’t quell the controversy any—nor did the judges’ final choice of director, Jason Mann.
I’m sure it will come as a huge surprise to you that Jason Mann
It’s easy, and fun, to mock Jason Mann as a pretentious White Male Jackass who thinks he’s the next Quentin Tarantino. Certainly everything that happened subsequently made that abundantly clear—from demanding to shoot his own screenplay, The Leisure Class, over the one provided by the series producers, Not a Pretty Woman; to shooting on film over HD Like Every Other PROJECT GREENLIGHT director did, even though that gave him fewer shooting days given the budget; to shooting an elaborate car stunt without having it planned out properly, then when they shot it and the stunt didn’t go right, demanding a retake that he’d already been told wasn’t in the budget! (Thankfully nobody was hurt, it’s just the car stunt looked bad on film.)
But that’s not the point I was making—or maybe it indirectly is, because a majority White Male producing team (in addition to Damon and Affleck, there was also Bobby & Peter Farrelly, Marc Joubert, HBO Films President Len Amato…and Effie Brown and Jennifer Todd) picked a film by a mediocre White Male director with an inflated view of his own talent. I don’t know if Angelos and Brancaccio would have made a better film, and I really don’t know if the reason the producing team picked Jason Mann in the first place was because it was a reality TV show, and Mann’s unearned arrogance promised a lot of juicy controversy for the cameras.
But I do know that how it came off was a White Man told a Black Woman about “diversity”, and rather than admit his mistake doubled and even tripled down on it. I’m not saying Matt Damon equals the openly bigoted White Men of the current Criminal Trump Regime by any means—but I am going to say that the reason for “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI), that bête noire of the Right, is because in a group of mostly Straight White Men, which is just about every group that gets to make major decisions about what happens to us or what we see? They’re going to almost always pick a Straight White Man over any other group, and they’re going to support that Straight White Man with a lot more enthusiasm than they would a member of any other group.
Ms. Brown, according to another HOLLYWOOD REPORTER piece, had trouble finding work after clashing with Matt Damon—who, surprise! Had no trouble finding work at all.
I really don’t enjoy tincupping, but I’m kind of desperate at the moment.
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