Why are straight white men overrepresented in positions of power? | Steve Phillips

When we wonder why marginalized groups are ‘underrepresented’, we are asking the wrong question For the most part, we have been doing it wrong. For decades, the way that government entities, institutions, organizations and even advocates and activists have gone about addressing inequality in this country has been fundamentally flawed. We’ve asked the wrong questions, pursued the wrong solutions, and accepted the wrong premises. We’ve mainly obsessed over why people of color, women and LGBTQ+ individuals are “underrepresented” rather than asking: why are straight white American men so dramatically overrepresented in positions of power? This isn’t about semantic hairsplitting. It’s about asking the right question, a strategic reorientation in thinking that gets to the heart of the matter. The problem isn’t that people of color and other marginalized people are lacking the necessary qualities – intelligence, ambition, discipline, networks and other qualifications, other merit – to climb their way up to positions of power and influence in greater numbers. The problem is the longstanding and widespread practice of granting preferences to straight white American men. White men make up ab