UPDATE, 6-4-07
I received a reply from the Community Development Authority to my open letter, and the reply related that the CDA website is in transition. There will always be some positive achievements from the past that should be continued, but other perspectives and legacies should be relegated only to distant memory.
Rome was not built in a day, I wish the CDA much success in its efforts to promote development and progress in Whitewater, and look forward to the new website.
To the City Manager of Whitewater, Wisconsin
Good evening, Mr. Brunner
I am a long-standing resident of Whitewater, Wisconsin, having lived in the city for more years than I can easily remember. I am also a blogger, and publisher of the FREEWHITEWATER.COM website, a blog dedicated to reform in our beautiful, but troubled, city. I write under the pseudonym JOHN ADAMS; anonymous commentary on matters in the public interest is a part of the American political tradition, and my very small efforts follow in the footsteps of larger-than-life Americans, who acted to improve their communities, and benefit their neighbors.
Our city of fourteen thousand seeks growth, progress, and civic improvement. It is easier said than done, however. We are beset by attitudes and opinions that recall another, less pleasant era. A description of my fair-minded purposes and concerns about our city may be found elsewhere on my website. For tonight, I wanted to write to you about a matter that I wrote about previously on FREEWHITEWATER.COM, and about which I emailed the Community Development Authority (with no reply being received).
Here’s what I wrote, a few days ago:
I believe strongly in growth for Whitewater, and in the the importance of attracting new businesses to our city.
The Whitewater Community Development Authority is part of that effort. Here is how the Community Development authority describes itself, from its website:
The Whitewater CDA is a Housing and Community Development Authority formed in 1983 by the City of Whitewater under Wisconsin State Statute 66.1335. It has a seven-member board appointed by the Common Council, and two full-time employees. Although technically a part of the city government, the CDA operates with a great deal of autonomy. Major decisions by the CDA Board must be ratified by the Common Council.
To attract businesses to our city, it makes sense to post information about Whitewater on a website, so that prospective business owners can learn more about our community. So far, so good.
What’s more than a bit troubling is how they describe our potential workforce, on the Community Development page entitled, “Work Force.” Here’s what it says, as of this evening, May 31st:
Our workforce is listed as “white, non-minority 95%.”
I have a few quick questions:
1. Why would the Community Development Authority describe our workforce as “white, non-minority” when the law itself forbids hiring based on racial preference?
2. Who are “non-minorities?” Would Jews, or Mormons, for example, be considered minorities?
3. If the goal were diversity in hiring, why not directly mention by group those who are “non-white, minority” rather than emphasize whites, and leave others out by express exclusion?
4. Who actually wrote this description of our workforce?
5. From the point of view of the free market, why would race matter? Education, or experience in previous jobs, of course. But race?
I can find no similar statistics (‘white, non-minority’) listed for neighboring Fort Atkinson’s website, and that’s unsurprising: the Whitewater Community Development description of our workforce speaks for itself, and its authors, and none too well.
That’s what I wrote then, and I find our Community Development Authority’s description of our workforce no less puzzling now. You must know, as I do, that the description appears to hold out the idea of a “white, non-minority” workforce as a positive thing. No dissembling could contest the point: the point of each characteristic of the workforce listed is meant to be appealing to incoming businesses. (The defense that it’s just a straightforward description is false and disingenuous — a childlike excuse, nothing more.)
When the Community Development Authority posted these words on its website, did no one bother to challenge what they assuredly mean? Will no one change them now? If not, then any reasonable person will conclude that we are a community that considers being white, and a ‘non-minority’ a better, more desirable trait. I do not share that belief, and our deepest American principles do not, either.
Now I am a citizen, resident, and property owner, with an ancestry that goes far back on this continent. If race, ethnicity, ancestry, and background compelled one’s destiny, then I would have remained — however wrongly — aligned with this town’s small, insular elite. Yet, now I find, one cannot be wholly committed to the values of this country, and do one’s best for this beautiful city, and not call out for reform. It is far better to write what I write, and be where I am, than wrongly to believe that one race is preferable for businesses over another.
Here’s your chance to make a small difference, quite easily. You may explain convincingly the Community Development Authority’s Work Force webpage, and justify it, and then I’ll be proved wrong. Alternatively, and far more likely, you may act to persuade others to change an odious description. You will not have changed the world, but you’ll have started to change a few minds about the difference a description makes.
Best regards,
JOHN ADAMS