06

This time, Rokita plans to persecute Butler University. He wants to investigate the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

He argues—and I’m not making this up—that Butler may be violating the rights of straight, white males.

As usual, Rokita is playing to the cheap seats, the folks in MAGA land who allow their heads to remain entirely uncluttered by facts and not in any way tethered to reality.

His contention is that America and Indiana are places where white guys just have it rough, rough, rough because all the goodies are handed out to other demographic groups.

The numbers tell a different story.

Overall, white men on average earn almost $20,000 per year more than Black men or Latino men. Looked at another way, Black and Latino men earn roughly 65% as much as their white male co-workers do.

That gap narrows a bit if everyone involved has a college degree but it’s still sizable. College-educated Black and Latino men earn only 80% of what their white counterparts do.

The difference is also significant when it comes to gender.

On average, women are paid about 83% of what men are. That’s not good, but what makes it even worse is that the gap widens the longer women work.

In 2022, women entering the workforce—those in the 25-to-34 age range—made about 92% of what their male counterparts took home.

By the time they had built their careers—when they were in the 55-to-64 age bracket—the difference had widened to a chasm. At that point, they earned only 79% of what men made.

This means that the longer and harder women work, the further they fall behind.

All this might sound fair to Todd Rokita, but not to reasonable people.

Now I realize that what I’m citing here are facts and—as we’ve already noted—the voters whose tender sensibilities our attorney general wants to stoke to red-hot fury are resistant to facts. They prefer to consult their feelings, particularly if those feelings allow them to evade embracing any way morally accountable for persistent prejudices or enduring bigotry.

This is where the JFK address comes into play.

In 1963, when he spoke to the nation and called for Congress to adopt civil rights laws, Kennedy posed a simple test to the Rokita-like panderers of his time. To those who argued—as our attorney general is now doing—that Black Americans in the early 1960s would be afforded unfair opportunities and considerations by what amounted to basic DEI initiatives, JFK asked:

“Who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?”

Good question.

In other words, the next time Indiana’s attorney general and other blowhards attempt to appeal to our worst and basest instincts by arguing that the Americans and the Hoosiers who own the most wealth also are the most harshly treated, ask them Kennedy’s question.

If their lives are so hard, would they like to switch places with one of the people they disparage?

Ask the 60-year-old white guy if he’d like to have his wages trimmed by 21% so he earns as much as the woman his age in the next building.

Or if he would be open to taking a 35% wage cut so that he can walk through life the same way a Black or Latino man does.

Or let’s take it out of the realm of economics and ask him if he’d care to live as gay people do and have the sanctity of his marriage and all its accompanying understandings and responsibilities constantly thrown into question by opportunistic and conscienceless career politicians, such as our attorney general.

My guess is that, once you pose JFK’s question to them, you won’t find too many takers in the MAGA crowd.

For all their caterwauling about how unfairly they’ve been treated by life, most DEI haters know that being white and straight in America is a pretty good gig.

As for Todd Rokita, well, he’s got to find something to do when he’s not trying to keep from being suspended or disbarred.

Pandering to bigots seems to be the hobby that relieves his self-created stress.