Minorities don’t believe in DEI. Not when it counts.

I had dinner with a patient of mine a couple nights ago. He’s retired (of course — I work in Hilton Head), but he used to work as a general manager of casinos in Las Vegas. I’m fascinated by that industry for many reasons, and I learned so much from our conversation that night. He’s got an MBA from Harvard, and he spoke at length about how complex his business was — all the different sorts of gambling, of course, but also the hotels, restaurants, entertainment, and so on. Lots and lots of moving parts. Lots and lots of money, and tax laws, and local regulations, and union issues, and insurance concerns, and so on.

When he mentioned an Indian casino he was familiar with, I casually mentioned that it was great that the casinos offered opportunities for members of their tribe, such as being a general manager of a casino. He laughed and said, “Look, no member of their tribe is going to have the skill set or the drive to do this. They’ll hire a Harvard MBA like me. Everybody else will be Indians, but for leadership and other important positions, they don’t care. There’s too much at stake. Hundreds of millions a year. This has got to work. For the important jobs, they don’t care who you are.”

So America is using minority status to decide who to hire for extremely important positions, from who gets into medical school, to who gets the government contract bids, to who runs for president. And everyone agrees that affirmative action (or now, DEI) makes sense to help minorities. Well, everyone agrees except the minorities, who will hire whoever is most competent for their important jobs. I mean, they’re not stupid.

I am quite sure that when the casino’s board hired another general manager and released my patient from his job, there were no protests. No screaming, no name-calling, no riots in the street. After all, the board is just trying to get the most competent person in the job. If things aren’t going well, they’ll get somebody else. Perfectly understandable, and not a cause for emotional overreactions.

But it’s different when you hire someone because of their race, or their sex, or some other aspect of their identity. Then, when you fire that person, that will be taken as a personal attack. That person was hired because they are black. So if you fire them, you must be a racist. Obviously.

Hiring people based on competence not only leads to much, MUCH better results for everyone concerned, but it also reduces the conflicts, resentments, and jealousies that can tear a society (or any other organization) apart.

Capitalism is the greatest tool ever developed to create peaceful and just societies. We all get along better when we’re just trying to do the best we can.

If you can help me, I’ll hire you, and I don’t care who you are. Maybe I heard bad things about you before, but once we work together, we could end up being friends. Then multiply that by 350 million people.

Capitalism is an unimaginably powerful force, creating wealth, equal opportunities, and goodwill among people, wherever it is tried. Every single time.

I don’t understand the Democrat party. Neither do the Indians who run casinos.