Alan, age 50, came home one day in 1996, feeling downtrodden, and declared to his wife: “I am so proud of myself! I got out of Dale’s office without losing my temper!” After being refused the GS-13 position he was extremely qualified for (he could not be promoted because he was white), the department manager invited Alan back into his office. He wanted Alan to transfer into his department, without the upgrade to GS-13 (that is, no promotion, no raise), in order to train the dark-skinned man^ who had been promoted into the job which Alan should have had.
White men in the Millennial Generation are not the only men whose careers were damaged because lesser qualified applicants were hired & promoted over them. Alan, a Baby Boomer and a veteran, watched in disgust as tasks were transferred to white men (without raises or promotions) because the DEI hires, who could not be demoted or fired, were not capable of handling them. AND the rules! Only straight able-bodied white men had to follow HR’s rules. The DEIs didn’t. Watching them repeatedly, blatantly, in-your-white-face, break the rules and continually get away with it infuriated Alan. In order to justify their existence, HR hyper-focused on the likes of Alan, quick to accuse him & his white male co-workers of violating some HR rule that no one knew about.
Alan took early retirement at age 63 in 2009. He could no longer tolerate the racist abuse. My subscribers have read about Alan’s experience as a straight white man working for the federal government from an article I published in October 2024. SEE ARTICLE LINKED BELOW. However, that article did not tell the whole story.
VIOLATING FEDERAL LAW TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST STRAIGHT WHITE MEN
Between 1921 and 1923 (after WWI) President Warren G. Harding (R) issued Executive Orders establishing a point system within federal employment. This new system added 10 points to the applicant’s score for disabled veterans and 5 points to the scores of non-disabled veterans in the hiring and promotion process. NOTE: This applied to veterans of both genders and all races.
As WWII was coming to a close, congress passed and President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) signed the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944 which consolidated these orders into law. NOTE: Since more blacks, proportionate to their numbers in the general population, are veterans than whites, this law disproportionately benefited black veterans. This law is still on the books today; however, DEI, which was never passed into law, wiped it out. It all started with President Clinton who claimed he wanted to make government “look like America.” In reality he turned whole agencies into sheltered workshops. In 1995, he famously used the phrase “mend it, don’t end it” to describe his stance on Affirmative Action in federal contracting and employment.
Clinton started this next phase of discrimination against straight white men by ordering agencies to 1) offer early out bonuses to anyone over age 55 at the GS-13 & above level, and 2) fill those jobs with anyone other than straight, white able-bodied men, thus ignoring the veterans’ preference law.
RACISM ON STEROIDS!
Alan had worked for the Bonneville Power Administration, an agency within the US Department of Energy, for over a decade after transfering from the USDA in the early 1980s. He was a highly sought after IT Specialist whom a number of department heads had tried to lure into their departments. Forty-nine employees at the GS-13 level & above had accepted Clinton’s early out bonus, creating 49 job openings in 1996. Two department heads asked Alan to apply for promotions into GS-13 vacancies in their departments. Alan interviewed for both and expected to have his pick.
THEN, HR belatedly advised department heads that they could not hire straight, able-bodied white men under Clinton’s illegal “look like America” Executive Order. The next day, the two department heads called Alan back into their offices to advise him that they could not promote him because he was white. Alan watched as the two jobs that he was qualified for went to two men who were not qualified: a man who was one-eighth black and a white man who was deaf. The former quit the job and the agency in frustration six month later. The later eventually asked to be demoted back to his former job because he could not handle the tasks required in the GS-13 job.
When that round of hiring and promoting was finished, only two of the 49 job openings had been filled by straight able-bodied white men. It was Alan’s understanding, after word got out, very few white men applied. Racism on steroids! In 1996, white men made up approximately 36% to 37% of the total United States population, but they got only 1% of these jobs.
Buck Sexton, a Millennial, describes it best: By the time straight white men in his generation (born between 1981 & 1996, with the oldest coming of age in 1999) arrived in the workplace, they did not have a chance. Click here to watch his short interview with Megyn Kelly.
Living Behind Enemy Lines, Tale #21: “Whites Need Not Apply”
Dale, a department manager, called Alan into his office. Dale had hoped for some time to entice Alan to transfer from his current department because Alan had special skills Dale wanted. However, this time, he wasn’t asking Alan to meet with him to offer Alan a job. Dale had an opening and wanted Alan to fill it, but President Clinton’s new executive or…
Living Behind Enemy Lines, Tale #77: “White Privilege” Died When Merit-Hiring Was Outlawed
I have wanted to write this article for two years, but did not want to come across like I was whining. Now, I have the courage to state the facts that brought America to this point in our history wherein standards have been so bastardized or ignored that an everyday American must not, for example, let a young black surgeon operate on him/herself. It isn…
^No one knew that Michael was one-eighth black, which was the only qualification needed, until he was promoted over Alan, an employee who was eminently qualified for the position. Previously co-workers assumed, from his black hair and slightly “tanned” skin, that he was part Hispanic. After six months in the new job Michael quit the agency in frustration, when he could have, upon asking, been demoted back to his old job.
The author, Diane L. Gruber, is a First Amendment advocate who writes for Substack. She calls her Substack newsletter America First Re-Ignited. Follow me on X @DianeLGruber.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us. Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA
Patriot.Online: @AFNN
Excellent post. Now, add the effects of H1-B hiring vs. hiring US citizens (with qualifications) on top of what your post exposes…. in the several years prior to my retirement, I used to wonder why it took sooooo many resumes to land even one interview…. too bad I went through this before it became fashionable to ‘identify’ as something other than what you are….. “I coulda been a contender” (for that job) instead of being put into the ‘white-guy’ resume pile, if I only could have identified as whatever category of person the Affirmative Action folks were pushing at the time… still, I realize that I am blessed that I made it to 68 before I got the final ‘layoff’, while on the yellow brick road to retirement….