Equality Isn’t All Black And White
I have this recurring nightmare.
In it the Temptations, a group I love more than life itself, are hiring a new lead singer when in walks this suit from the government:
He says, “I see your new member is black,” and they say, “Yeah, so?” And he says, “Our records indicate that all your members have been black” and they say, “Yeah, so?” And he says, “That’s a clear violation of equal employment laws, so we’ve chosen a new lead singer for you. Either hire him, or we’ll sue you till you bleed.”
At which point Michael Bolton vaults into the room, falls to one knee and starts wailing, “I knooooow you wanna leave me, but I refuse to let you go …!”
I wake up screaming.
I’ve been having that dream a lot lately. Can you blame me? First the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission goes after Lillie Rubin, a swank, Miami-based women’s clothing store. It seems the retailer refuses to hire men among a sales force whose job description includes assisting women with their finery in the dressing room.
Then the EEOC takes on Hooters, the Atlanta-based restaurant chain whose corporate identity is built on the backs - actually, the chests and backsides - of its skimpily dressed female servers. If the feds have their way, the next generation of “Hooters Girls” will have beards, armpit hair and a genetic inability to admit when they’re lost. In a word, they’ll be men.
Hands up, those of you who feel this is a textbook case of good laws gone bad.
Of course, if you feel that way, then you are obligated to ask yourself, why?
What’s the difference between this and women sports reporters demanding access to men’s locker rooms? Women and minorities fighting for inclusion in exclusive men’s clubs? Shannon Faulkner’s quixotic campaign to break the gender barrier at an all-male military school? Why do we, some of us, take seriously those cases, but not these? Is it, simply and unfairly, because the excluded class this time is male?
Candidly? Maybe.
But maybe, too, society’s search for equality has devolved into a surrealistic farce. Indeed, follow the EEOC thinking to its logical end and you have to wonder whether the law protects the National Organization for Women from having to hire a male executive, Playboy from being forced to run Denzel Washington centerfolds or the Tempts from high-stepping behind the tortured wailing of Michael Bolton.
The feds say companies can make sex, age, religion or national origin a condition of employment if one or the other is “reasonably necessary to the normal operation” of the particular business. By those criteria, it seems odd that the feds are picking on Hooters and Lillie Rubin.
If an organization derives a special or unique character from confining its membership to persons of a given race, creed, or gender; if that segregation was not imposed with the primary intent of depriving or stigmatizing others; if those others are not significantly injured as a result of their exclusion, then what’s the point of government intervention?
It seems as if the EEOC is crusading to erase all signs of sex and race - not sexism and racism, but sex and race - from society, to impose upon the bickering masses a sterile “equality” that presumes each human unit is pretty much the same.
But we are NOT the same. Women are not like men, blacks are not like whites, Jews are not like Gentiles, Detroiters are not like Miamians. This is not a bad thing - variety seldom is - nor does acknowledging it obviate a faith in the principles of equality.
Consider: 10 minus 5 and 2 plus 3 are equal, right? But they are not the same. Similarly, we are different equations amounting to the same total: human.
Granted, it’s too much to ask that a government agency have the imagination to understand that. But if more of us were larger of spirit and less enamored of pettiness, it wouldn’t matter.
Admittedly, my interests are purely selfish. I give less than a hoot about Hooters or Lillie Rubin, but that nightmare has me losing sleep.
I want it to go away, and I ain’t too proud to beg.
xxxx