President Joe Biden has repeatedly said he wants to make his administration “look like America.” His implication is that true equality isn’t possible until the federal government represents every single demographic and group in the country.
But this message is exactly what’s wrong with the diversity, equity, and inclusion narrative being sold across the nation. True diversity isn’t predicated on appearances; it’s rooted in an equality of opportunity that values individuals for who they are and what they can offer, not what they look like. The Left, however, wants a diversity that is skin deep.
The Biden administration isn’t alone. Many corporations have tried to make their offices “look like America” as well. For example, American Express offered 15% bonuses to recruit more black employees. Google promised that 30% of its leadership positions would be filled by “underrepresented minorities” by 2025. At least 37 CEOs of other top companies have pledged to hire a total of 1 million black Americans by 2030.
The goal of these programs is to make offices, universities, and even bureaucratic agencies proportionally representative of American census data. That means slightly more than half of the positions should be filled by women, roughly 13% should be black, nearly 19% should be Hispanic, and so on.
But here’s the problem: America doesn’t even “look like America.”
For example, in Mississippi, more than 37% of the population is black. North Dakota, meanwhile, has a black population that hovers around 3%. If Mississippi employers were to try and make their businesses “look like America,” they’d have to turn away roughly two out of every three black candidates, while North Dakota’s wouldn’t even be able to hit 10%.
And who’s to say where we draw the line as to which groups should be represented proportionally? Does the Biden administration need 5.7% of its employees to be Asian Americans, or should it be more specific to have an exact percentage of employees of Japanese, Korean, or Chinese descent?
What about gender? Alternative gender identities are becoming more common by the month, but the fractions of the population who identify as atypical genders are so slim that hardly any company would be able to represent all of them.
It’s easy to see how ridiculous the Left’s goal is.
The reality is that not every group of Americans is interested in the same thing. There’s a reason you don’t typically see burly, bearded men working in makeup stores or petite women signing up to work in the logging industry. And that reason isn’t sexism — it’s a personal choice.
The same can be said of the presidential administration. Just because Biden feels he must have proportional representation in every corner of his administration does not mean that minority workers in the country are going to flock to whatever bureaucratic position he needs filled — nor should we want that.
Our woke leaders have completely abandoned the value of individual freedom and merit. Individuals have different interests. They pursue different careers and opportunities — not because of systemic racism, as the Left likes to claim, but because the experiences and values with which they’ve been raised lead them down different paths.
Moreover, not every individual is qualified to do every job — and cutting merit out of the equation just to hit a racial quota is a mark against the republic’s foundational ethos: e pluribus unum. Without the one, the many fall apart. Making America “look like America” at the cost of sacrificing the most qualified people because of their skin color is not a worthwhile goal.
The U.S. Census should not be used as a hiring guide. Individuals should be left to pursue whatever interests them in areas where they’re qualified. And if that doesn’t match the color-by-number the Biden administration wants, then so be it.
Christian Watson is a spokesman for Color Us United, and the host of Pensive Politics with Christian Watson. Follow him on Twitter at @officialcwatson.
