An American tradition

We discriminate.

Of course we do! It’s tradition!

Just as playing “Dixie” by the University Band was tradition. And of course, it was wrong to play Dixie, and it was wrong for me to stand and cheer when the whole crowd roared.

In the past, I have served on numerous boards and commissions and every one of them discriminated, and of course, that was wrong. Those boards and commission mostly consisted of old, white men. That was wrong, and it was and is discrimination.

Worldwide, those traditions are under fire, but sadly, the United States is not leading the way. California has a new law that seeks to balance out the discrimination of women on corporate boards registered in California, but on the whole, Americans seem content to continue discrimination in multiple ways.

Let’s look at some examples.

If you are a left-handed woman of color living in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District, you are living a life loaded down with discriminations. First, let’s consider just being a woman of any color. Equal representation under the law is a founding principal of our country, and omitting women from have an equal say by having less than 50% women on any board or commission is discrimination, and it doesn’t matter if we have been doing it since 1836; it is still discrimination!

The Arkansas legislature is on record as opposing the Equal Rights Amendment, and it seems they are content to maintain the token woman approach to equality. A token woman is just what it says. Throw a bone to the ERA folks and say, “We have a woman on our board!” Of course, a 10 person board means the one woman represents 50% of the population, but has a 10% input on the board.

Equal representation? Who are we kidding?

The Governor appoints around 350 boards and commissions, and I don’t have a clue how many, if any, have an equal number of women. Of course, our governor could make an executive decision to not replace any men who finished their term with another man until the board or commission is at least 50% women.

If you think our governor is going to do that, you are living in a parallel universe. I did have a guy say to me, “There aren’t that many qualified women.” I would have slapped him if I were a woman.

Actually, Representative Deborah Ferguson introduced HB 1676 in 2019, which would require equal representation on some but not all boards and commissions appointed by the Governor and encourage constitutional officers to give equal opportunities to men and women when making appointments. It was withdrawn by the author after failing to achieve sufficient support from the referred-to committee.

I know we think American equality of “one person, one vote” is an example to the world of how to govern, but we aren’t keeping up with the western democracies. There are a number of countries that have a majority of women cabinet ministers, and several have laws and regulations that mandate equal representation.

If you are a man on an allmale board or one with just a token women, you could resign in protest of the obvious discrimination. If several hundred men simultaneously resigned it would send a strong message. Who is going to be first?

Now let’s move on and review the 4th Congressional District. If you want to see a masterpiece of gerrymandering, go to the internet and print out two maps: The counties in the congressional districts and a second map with the counties’ percentage of Black residents. Even a cursory glance will tell you that district boundaries are drawn to assure the state will be represented by four Republicans.

Union County, which borders Louisiana, and Madison County, which is in the far northwest part of the state, are both in the 4th Congressional District, and Chicot County, which is in the southeast corner of the state bordering Louisiana, is in the 1st Congressional district, as is Baxter County boarding Missouri. Wonder why?

Well, Black residents in those counties have voted heavily Democratic, and in

Chicot County they make up 54% of the populations, and in Madison County 0.2%, and in Baxter County 0.2%. Obviously, if you are a Republican, you don’t want Chicot County, Desha, and a couple of adjacent counties in the 4th Congressional District, and if you run the boundaries up to northwest Arkansas, you want to leave out Washington County, which has a lot of Democratic votes. Yes, toss in those 0.2% and 0.1% counties such as Madison and Newton, and poof! It is nearly a cinch to have a Republican Congressman in the 4th.

Yes, of course that’s is discrimination, and with the new Census it is going to get worse, and if Democrats were in the majority they would do the same, but Republican or Democrat, it is still discrimination.

But what about lefties and discrimination? Obviously, you aren’t a leftie or you wouldn’t ask that question. Actually, we lefties have gotten accustomed to discrimination, and when we walk up to double glass doors in a store front, we automatically grab the right hand door knowing the left door will usually be locked. Or, if you grew up in the 50s and 60s, most primary schools only had right handed desks, and you had to do a crab claw hook to write.

It seems the 10 to 15% minority of Americans who are left handed have been discriminated against almost since the beginning of time. Muslims are taught to be only right handed. The left hand is for sanitary wiping.

Everything we do is predicated by the bias of being right-handed. Many languages still contain references to left-handedness to convey awkwardness, dishonesty, stupidity or other undesirable qualities. However, a lefty tennis player does have an advantage when serving to the ad court. A good spin serve will send their opponent out on the sidewalk, but consider this: Do left-handed people have a better sex life? Of 10,000 people surveyed, 86% of left-handed people reported being “Extremely Satisfied” with their sex lives, compared to just 15% of righties. Well, I guess that evens things out as far as I’m concerned. (Yes, that came from the internet so we know it’s true.)

Okay, but how about Arkansas citizens of color? Surely you don’t think they are equally represented and not subject to discrimination? I would bet we don’t have a board in the state that is completely non-discriminatory. The governor appoints 350 boards, and if you add local boards and commissions the state total is easily over 1,000. The city of Little Rock has 40. To be non-discriminatory these boards and commissions should have 50% women and average 15% people of color. Do we have any of the 1,000+ boards or commissions that are equally proportioned? Equally proportions would have a board of 12 individuals made up of six women and six men, including two of color and one who is left-handed.

And for you Vertis fans; she picked up another accolade: Last week she had a dental root canal, and did it without any shots. The dental assistant commented, “She