by Thomas E. Radecki

Diversity is a political catchword for giving cultural, academic and job preference to individuals with some amount of black, Hispanic, Native American or Asiatic genetic inheritance. The rest of us get lumped together as whites. It’s especially bad if you’re a white male.

The Daily Egyptian and signs at SIU’s Law School give me daily reminders as to what are the preferred national heritages and the preferred sex. For instance, there are separate law student associations for Blacks, Hispanics, Asiatics and women, but none for white, non-Hispanic males. Indeed, such an organization would quickly be attacked as being racist.

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My grandfather came to America from Poland to escape cultural and political suppression imposed on Poland by Imperial Germany and Czarist Russia. In occupied Poland, you were fined if you simply spoke Polish in public.

In the United States, my grandmother had to pretend she was German to get a better job. In my youth, dumb Polacks were the butt of many jokes. We weren’t allowed to join the country club because we were Polish Catholics. Then, at age 21, I was physically assaulted because I had white skin. I was repeatedly taunted as a honky. (This was not racism, because only whites can be racists.)

Now, I’m a former psychiatrist and current third-year SIU law student who speaks French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese from having lived three years abroad. I find that my family and I are still discriminated against, and my heritage is still second-rate. The feds and SIUC seem to have decided that Polish-American is just a plain white male.

In my daughter’s math book, of 29 individuals on the multi-cultural advisory committee, not one has a Slavic surname. PBS from Sesame Street to Reading Rainbow is loaded with stories and characters from the preferred cultures. Slavic-Americans, Germanic-Americans, Arab-Americans and Romance-American are all but forgotten. Polish people and Polish-Americans have made many great contributions, but my children are never allowed to see their cultural heritage as anything to be valued.

SIUC has Hispanic awareness, African-American awareness and Asiatic-American awareness months, but pride in other cultural backgrounds is suppressed. I get frustrated when asked to check off my race and sex on application forms, since I know that its sole purpose is to discriminate against white males. I recently was not allowed to apply for a federal grant in my area of research because only organizations headed by a woman, a black, a Hispanic or an Asian-American were permitted to apply. My nephew couldn’t get into the college of his choice, despite an SAT score of over 1,500, because he is a white male. All the white male slots were filled.

Asiatics receive preference from many college admissions committees despite their percentage of college attendance being higher than whites. Colleges want to pad their minority percentage. I just attended the National Tobacco Control Conference, a feast for government bureaucrats. The sacred diversity theme was prominent with special youth programs for women, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asiatics, but nothing for white males despite the young white male smoking rate being second highest, only behind Native American males.

I worry for my own children, knowing there is a good chance that they will be discriminated against when applying for scholarships, graduate schools and jobs. The child of my second brother, who married an Hispanic-American, and the children of my third brother, who married a Japanese-American, may get preference. Because I married a Croatian-American, my children may be disadvantaged. While I can see reasons to give African-Americans some special assistance, it is simply unjust to continue to give any preference to Hispanics, Asiatics and women.

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I share Martin Luther King’s dream that one day my children will be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by their character. I dream that one day the cultural heritages of Polish and other European-Americans will be promoted on an equal basis with today’s politically favored cultures.