Why are straight white men overrepresented in positions of power?

‘Even in the current political climate, with relentless attacks on various remedies for discrimination, no court has ruled that inequality itself is acceptable.’ Photograph: H Armstrong Roberts/Getty Images

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 about 29% of the US population, according to census data.