A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the U.S. Minority Business Development Agency, founded during the Nixon administration, must avail itself to disadvantaged entrepreneurs of all races and ethnicities, including whites.
The summary judgment rendered on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, appointed in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, was the latest in a recent series of federal court decisions rolling back decades of affirmative action programs aimed at remedying racial discrimination.
Pittman, a judge in the Forth Worth branch of the Northern Texas District, sided with two white businessmen who sued the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), a branch of the Commerce Department, last year after being denied benefits on the basis of race.
The plaintiffs were told they were ineligible for agency assistance because they were not members of any of the races or ethnicities included on a list of qualified minorities presumed to be disadvantaged and thus entitled to services, according to the judge’s summary of the case.
I hate everything leading up to this and what will lead after this with our political judiciary, hate that this was in no way brought up in good faith, but basing assistance on class is literally the best way to do it, and sell it to the people at large.
I lowkey find this ruling OK in a vacuum. Assistance should be based on wealth, not race.
You can be rich or poor, black or white, and still be left behind economically. Race is a good indicator because history, but doesn’t capture the fundamental underlying problem of oppressed underclasses.
When you base assistance on class/wealth, you help EVERYONE who needs help, and you both help and sidestep the hillbilly voters wondering why “Dem Blacks” have a hand up while their family farms (their lives for GENERATIONS) are left to rot and are left behind.
Seriously, pro-worker policies are possible in the US, it just has to be framed as pro-worker in general, not just pro-a-race-america-fucked-over policy.
Thank you for coming to my Drunk Hick Ted Talk