Albuquerque Journal Editorial

Avoiding Racist Rants Isn't Rocket Science

    It's one thing to encourage diversity. That usually entails some combination of understanding, tolerance and appreciation of differences.
    It's another to devolve into a name-calling rant that paints one race with a broad, bigoted brush.
    Even if that race is white. And especially if you're on the taxpayers' time and dime.
    But that's what happened at Sandia National Laboratories last week, when management encouraged workers via e-mail to sign up for the 19th Annual Diversity Leadership Council Forum on Diversity.
    Yes, the summary of the April 24 talk on "White Privilege and Diversity" by University of New Mexico faculty member Ricky Lee Allen was pretty much verbatim from the forum's flier and Web site. No, lab management didn't author the statement that whites "may learn through multicultural education but are likely to persist in racist behaviors unless persuaded to abolish the privileges they receive as members of the white race."
    Labs spokesman Michael Padilla says Sandia isn't responsible for the wording and didn't intend to imply all whites are racist. But Sandia is a co-sponsor of the all-day multi-seminar forum, and once the lab distributed the wording along with strong encouragement to attend, it took more than a little ownership.
    The bottom line: Sandia is a taxpayer-funded institution. Padilla says Sandia apologized to the dozen employees who called up offended by the e-mail.
    But for using their time and their equipment to distribute what amounts to a rant, officials should also apologize to the folks who pay their salaries.