Let’s live a little dangerously and think a bit critically about the idea of “protected classes,” shall we?
First, we’ll define the term. The National Archives’ “Equal Employment Opportunity Program” provides a handy, succinct definition:
Protected Class: The groups protected from the employment discrimination by law. These groups include men and women on the basis of sex; any group which shares a common race, religion, color, or national origin; people over 40; and people with physical or mental handicaps. Every U.S. citizen is a member of some protected class, and is entitled to the benefits of EEO law. However, the EEO laws were passed to correct a history of unfavorable treatment of women and minority group members.
Within the definition is a barely-disguised schizophrenia. The very idea of “protected classes” points to exclusivity: Some are part of such rarified groups and others aren’t. And yet, in the penultimate sentence, we’re told that “[e]very U.S. citizen is a member of some protected class.”
Well, if that’s true, what the heck is the point? Is antidiscrimination law just the “real-world” version of participation trophy mania? As in:
Of course, that can’t be right.
Which is why I think it’s fair to say (and I join my voice here to that of Chris Caldwell in his new book) that while the letter of our civil-rights laws might be colorblind, their spirit is most definitely not. We all know, at some level, that the just-quoted hedge about how everyone is in some protected class or other (just squint a bit!) is a fudge; it’s meant to make the pill go down easier.
In truth, some people really are protected, which confers massive benefits (not just of the legal variety), and others are not.
Ok, you might be thinking, so what; why should anyone care? I’ll admit: If it were as simple and as anodyne as the National Archives puts it—i.e., civil-rights laws “were passed to correct a history of unfavorable treatment of women and minority group members”—then I’d agree. Who isn’t down to correct some historical injustices?
But that’s not the case, at least practically speaking. Something more, something deeper, is going on. It’s time to investigate. We’ll start with what we know and see what happens.
One thing we know for sure is that protected classes can’t be criticized—at least not fully and not directly, and certainly not without crippling negative consequences befalling anyone who does. This is critically important. “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”1
Therefore, in this light, it becomes clear that members of “protected classes” are not above criticism because they’re akin to fragile children whom the regime must shelter at all costs. Au contraire!
Instead, they have been elevated to royal status in all but name (though, you have to admit, “protected class,” despite the endangered-species vibes it can’t help but give off, is pretty damn close to being a royal title).
If the king (or the duke, or the earl, etc.) says something asinine, you nod along so that you don’t lose your head. Otherwise, you do your best to try to ignore it. You kiss the ring when it’s extended. You pay the (high) taxes and fight in the (stupid) wars. However, that was much easier done then than it is to do now. Back then, you probably didn’t have had a ton of interaction with the king, who also didn’t have all manner of electronic surveillance tools at his disposal, to call upon day or night. Even so, remaining emotionless, calm, in the face of rank asininity is tough, especially when that mendacity portends mistreatment and disadvantage to you, via the king’s rule.
Which is precisely what’s happening now.
Contradicting or criticizing a member of a “protected class”—that is, someone from a minority group—is immediately deemed and vehemently denounced as racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/whatever, not because doing so really is any of those bigoted things but because the logic of the spiritual practice of civil-rights law is that any not-positive speech about “protected class members” just is bigoted.
Res ipsa loquitur.2 Why?
Because they’re American royalty, and you don’t criticize royalty, no matter how stupid and wicked it’s behaving, that’s why. You comply.
America was groundbreaking in its intellectual and practical dismantling of that kind of ridiculous, unearned privilege. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . .” It is axiomatic that no man (or woman) is born with the inherent right to rule another—let alone the right to do so arbitrarily, against the interests of the one ruled, and free from any check or pushback, rhetorical or otherwise. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of [G]od.”
To deny this truth is not only anti-American, it’s morally absurd. But that’s what our civil-rights regime demands that we assent to, a demand more or less explicitly expressed in so many words of New York Times “guest essays,” EEOC demand letters, and DOJ-initiated lawsuits.
In America, and in any just regime, in fact, those who would lead must secure the people’s consent and, even then, their rule must protect the natural rights of all, within a natural-law framework. Skin color is a total red herring. To quote Jefferson again, this time from his presidential First Inaugural Address, the majority’s rule, “to be rightful must be reasonable,” i.e., “the minority [must] possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”
Civil-rights law, as practiced, is positively unreasonable, and it offends natural justice, because it makes some persons the unconsented-to rulers of others, on the basis of characteristics irrelevant to that rule.
Do with that information what you will.
This quote has been misattributed to the French philosopher Voltaire (who was a notorious anti-Catholic bigot). In fact, its rightful owner is Kevin Alfred Strom, “a convicted pedophile and Holocaust denier,” according to Reddit. Lesser men would fail to mention its origins or, worse, fail to deploy it altogether, for fear of being associated with such odiousness. But I’m not going to allow a concept’s seamy origins/inventor prevent me from accepting it—assuming, of course, that it’s true.
Pardon the lawyer humor (which I’ll do my best to limit in a possible, future paid version of Sed Kontra).
Nicely done, Deion! The funny thing is how little the letter of the law matters to the cultural interpretation of "protected classes", and the reality of how these matters are prosecuted and administered. Very frequently, for instance, whites and men are victims of real discrimination, illegal under any fair reading of current law, but almost never are they PROTECTED, by the law or by anything else.
A very interesting read, Deion. I do wonder, though, if you are a bit defeatist about the color-blind nature of our civil rights law. I do think that there is a contingent in America that sees it as only existing for the sake of those who have been historically oppressed or disadvantaged. President Biden certainly sees it that way, as evidenced by his attempt to offer COVID relief benefits only to businesses more than fifty percent owned by women or (certain kinds of) ethnic minorities. But if I'm not mistaken, the courts in most cases sided with the plaintiffs protesting this discrimination. White males were able to win lawsuits on the basis of civil rights law, despite not having been historically oppressed (at least qua being white and male), because they were being wronged in the here and now--and this despite Biden's actions being entirely in line with the "ruling class" theory that some Americans are more deserving of protection than others. I think civil rights law can be misused, and that it becomes more problematic the futher it is extended past its immediate aim of correcting invidious racial discrimination, but I don't think the situation is as bad as you do.