Scruton on Egalitarianism

Roger Scruton’s lament on America’s obsession with egalitarian principles at the expense of the white male majority reminded me of 1970 and the first job I didn’t get (“When All Are Victims, We’re Equal at Last,” Column Right, April 11). I was up for a teaching position in a school system where I had put in a lot of hard hours and gained a good reputation as a substitute teacher. I lost the job to a black woman because, as was explained to me by an insider, the district was under pressure to hire more blacks.

I was too young and too liberal at the time to let the incident bother me, and, as it turned out, I was too white to let it stop me from getting another teaching job, which is probably more than can be said for the black woman on the job I didn’t get.

Like a lot of people in my generation, I’m neither as young nor as liberal as I used to be. I get cantankerous now at the incessant drumbeat of racism and sexism directed at every real or imagined social injustice. But I’m still honest enough with myself to admit that being a white male is a huge advantage, and any white guy who says it isn’t is either a dumbbell of a crybaby.

DAN RILEY, Thousand Oaks