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August 5, 2010
Senator Webb's critique of affirmative action, agreement in Our Time Press, Russo Wrecking, and the disconnect with the Atlantic Yards CBA
Atlantic Yards Report
What does the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) have to do with Virginia Senator Jim Webb and Our Time Press Editor/Publisher David Mark Greaves?
Well, it serves as an example (in part) of the kind of affirmative action that doesn't address the inequities that prompted the policy.
Webb's argument
In a Wall Street Journal essay headlined “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege”, Webb recently argued:
Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end.
And Greaves, whose Bed-Stuy-based newspaper is aimed at black Brooklynites, agrees with Webb, in an essay headlined View From Here: Jim Webb is Right – Diversity Programs Are Too Diverse.
The AY CBA
While Greaves doesn't connect the dots, I'd argue, as I did in March 2007, that the Atlantic Yards CBA, negotiated mainly by black leaders representing (mostly new) groups in Central Brooklyn, has little connection with some of the beneficiaries. (And, of course, Atlantic Yards remains as an illustration of the difficulty of defining who represents the "community.")
Posted by eric at August 5, 2010 11:04 AM