Oregon Health Authority: "Urgency is a White supremacy value."
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| Reason magazine |
Thank you for your interest in attending the community conversation between Regional Health Equity Coalitions (RHECs) and Community Advisory Councils (CACs) to discuss the Community.
Investment Collaboratives (CICs). In being responsive to partners from across the state, we're hearing the timing of this meeting is not ideal and that people would like more time to prepare for this important conversation. We recognize that urgency is a white supremacy value that can get in the way of more intentional and thoughtful work, and we want to attend to this dynamic. Therefore, we will reach out at a later date to reschedule.
Thank you so much for your patience, care and understanding.
Best,
Danielle Droppers, MSW (she/her)
The news of this comment is widespread on right wing media, including Fox, the libertarian journal Reason, and in numerous right-wing websites. It has been circulating for five days. There has not been a single word of it in the Oregonian nor Willamette Week newspapers, nor Oregon's NPR station, nor anyplace I normally find "straight" news. Google doesn't uncover any response from the Oregon Health Authority nor elected officials in Oregon criticizing the comment--nor affirming it. Democrats have made questioning or disagreeing with "anti-racism" language too perilous. It is offensive and politically toxic, but if one protests one might be called racist, also bad. Don't touch this, either way.
I think the assertion that punctuality, quality work, and meeting measurable goals is "White supremacy" is itself racist and damaging. The assertion implies that the attitudes and behaviors that any employer would desire in an employee are based on White supremacy racism. The comment is a red flag warning to employers--don't hire! It is signaling to non-Whites as to how little Whites think of them--even ones who present themselves as your allies. White supremacy culture explained.
Postponement and re-schedules are common when setting up a meeting among various groups. My concern is not the rescheduling; it is the justification she cites. Danielle Droppers, herself, knows better and acts differently. In her own recent testimony to the Oregon legislature she wrote that there were "immediate needs" requiring "urgent" response and that "inaction is complicity."My name is Danielle Droppers. . . I am writing to share strong support for HB 4052, and to request your support as well. Racism causes harm, trauma, illness, and death to Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) Oregonians. . . .
The Oregon Health Equity Task Force worked with Rep. Salinas to come back in the 2022 session to identify and fund two initial strategies through HB 4052 that begin to address both immediate needs of their communities to reduce racial and ethnic health inequities, as well as creating a pathway for future strategies to address structural racism in the future. . . .
This effort is urgent and critical because chronic illness is greater for many communities of color. . . . Full text
This language of anti-racism backfires on Democrats. It comes out of the mouths of White educated elites who have pushed ideas of structural, endemic racism to a point that the very subjects and supposed beneficiaries of anti-racism are abandoning Democrats. They understand when they are being insulted. They want opportunity, not pity. Black voters showed it in the South Carolina Democratic primary in 2020. Hispanic voters are showing it in Texas, Nevada, Arizona, and California where they are voting for Republicans.
White voters, too, see the insult. Values that they believe and teach their children--values of serious work and its rewards, consequences, and accountability--are called White supremacist. They don't believe it and they resent the accusation. Republicans are objecting. Democrats are afraid and silent, which implies consent.
I believe opportunity and the rewords of good work habits are progressive virtues, fully suitable for a Democrat to voice. They are American virtues. Newcomers to America embrace and exemplify them. They come here to work, to get ahead. They want hard work rewarded. A message of equal treatment, fair play, and just rewards is the true anti-racism. Anti-racism is racist. It is a disaster for Democrats.
There is political space for a Democrat who says this loudly and clearly. He or she will get criticized from the professional moralist scolds on the left, because they will think it is their duty to defend the position that America is deeply, thoroughly racist. They fear being criticized from within their group. But there is reward for that Democrat who speaks against it from the position of a desire for racial equality and respect for Blacks and others who are subjects of prejudice. It is, after all, what most Americans believe and what they consider genuine racial equality. Even the professional scolds know they have backed themselves into a ridiculous and untenable corner in their rhetoric. After all, Droppers herself understands that sometimes urgent is urgent. Democrats don't need to apologize for getting work done.
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13 comments:
The quote from the original email didn’t make it clear what the meeting was about or why it was postponed. The white supremacy comment, having no context, just seems gratuitous. However, I’d be surprised if such comments account for Democrats’ lack of appeal because when it comes to stupid statements, they hardly have the market cornered.
When Black civil rights leaders in the 1960s were agitating for equality, many white allies were saying: “slow down, be patient, change takes time.” But their urgency for change was not tempered by the moderates. They were unrelenting in their push for racial justice. Urgency was certainly not about white privileged. Aside from why we, as tax payers, are paying for a position called: Regional Health Equity Coalition Program Manager; when Ms. Droppers says that “We recognize that urgency is a white suprematism value,” who is the “we” she is referring to? It is clear to me that Droppers needs to be terminated from her position for at minimum poor judgment. She is a walking talking campaign ad for Betsy Johnson and Christine Drazan
Who Is Danielle Droppers?
Danielle Droppers is the Regional Health Equity Coalition Program Manager. She works at the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI), a section of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), and is responsible for managing Oregon's Regional Health Equity Coalitions (RHEC).
She holds a master's degree in Social Work, and the majority of her prior work has focused on racial health equity and social justice. She has been a steward for four years, and a member of the Citizen Action for Political Education (CAPE) Council since 2017.
She recently served on the Diversity Equity and Inclusion General Council Workgroup. She has been a member of SEIU for over six years.
And I had the temerity to hope that the Democratic penchant for forming a circular firing squad might not happen this cycle. It looks as though I was wrong..
The culturally-competent rejoinder to Mr. Sage and other white contributors here should by now be so obvious as to go without saying. That it must apparently be said yet again sadly demonstrates how just much anti-racist work remains to be done. The obvious rejoinder? Check Your Privilege.
Famously charted in 2020 at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African American History and Culture, valuing traits like punctuality, hard work, and politeness, or getting the "right" answers to math and logic problems, reflects "white" culture, even white supremacy itself.
As noted scholar of anti-racism Ibram X. Kendi teaches, no greater sign of stealth white supremacy exists than white undermining of anti-racist imperatives, even in--especially in--self-denominated white allies. What furrows a credentialed black or brown brow is, ipso facto, racist.
An amazingly newsworthy, blatantly stupid comment by this woke dope, and yet the mainstream media can’t be bothered to cover it. This tells us a lot about the bias of the mainstream media.
Two points:
1. "White Supremacy" actually means something quite precise. Definition drift should be avoided in order to keep the term relevant.
2. The use in this context is in my opinion a poor attempt at humor, or sarcasm. Maybe this person's next career will be standup.
Ms. Droppers is probably a victim of a DEI training that presented these stupid ideas as received wisdom.
I hate to say it, but what Ms. Droppers said sounds like something Butthead might say to Beavis, or vice versa.
Correction: The Oregon Health Authority said it.
This all sounds like a proverbial tempest in a teapot. If the mainstream media hasn’t joined the kerfuffle, it may be that they’re preoccupied with gun violence, a reactionary Supreme Court, the undermining of our democracy, a war in Ukraine, etc. I’m sure that if we have a slow enough news day, they’ll give a clueless comment by an OHA bureaucrat all the attention it deserves.
Most interesting is not her comment but the link you offered. In teaching we used to call this hokum, cooperative learning where no child is responsible for his own effort and knowledge but the work of the brightest in the group whose paper everyone copies.
The concept has value , learning to share and help those who are slower or less educated. However the end result is teaching
To the lower half of the class and never asserting the concept of failure to perform to a high standard, lest someone’s ego is destroyed. And then the kid enters the real world of capitalism without the skill of discipline, self motivation , struggle to learn everything about the job at hand. This is a white idea? The is why my 24 year old grandson who has two years of college thought
John the Baptist baptized people in the Ganges River. So where is India? Over there…
As a person who is a minority and of an immigrant background, allow me to express myself anonymously because I always fear speaking publicly due to intolerance and cancel culture.
I am tired of foolish political and social rhetoric that comes from both sides of the political/social spectrum. However, being in Oregon, I am especially jaded by loud, ridiculous, and facts-less leftist and woke politics that have invaded our schools, local and state governments, and even our private life. I recognize these "woke" social justice warriors want to fight racism, which is a fight I would love to join. However, their oversimplification of racism, structural racism, and white supremacy is repulsive and is counterproductive to what is needed to achieve equal opportunity and a society built on respect, diversity, and hard work.
The thing that most people are not aware of related to the comments of urgency is a white supremacy is that OHA's leadership and more generally state government leadership are supportive of them. That is the real shame because no actions or discipline will take place without public pressure and awareness of how far our left and Democratic Party values have been hijacked.
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