Plus, I seriously doubt our conservative friends think there was any wrong doing in those cases at all.
I’m the end I get the sense that our anti-diversity posters here won’t be satisfied until we have defacto segregation in jobs again. Seeing even one Black pilot or medical doctor will be enough to blame on wholeness gone mad. Remember, they think diversity in certain jobs is unnatural and by definition decreases competency.
Trump didn’t go on and on about Black jobs for no reason.
Take all those personal anecdotes with a huge grain of salt. I have no doubt they are written by real people rather than Russian bots, but they are in no way objective. It is very common when someone doesn’t get a job they’ll say they were the best qualified and they’ll blame all kinds of systemic biases like nepotism, DEI, racism, anti-gender bias, etc. as to why the didn’t get it. They may truly feel that’s the case, but that doesn’t make it true. Even the fact that they say they were the most qualified should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Everyone says that, but that can’t be true for everyone.
I’ve been involved in interviewing and hiring many times throughout my career. I rarely picked a candidate solely on objective ability. I was also looking for someone who was a good communicator, a good team member, could handle meeting deadlines, had a personality that would be a good fit, and many other subjective things like that. In most cases, I’d rather have an average programmer who was dependable instead of a prima donna programming wizard who would only work on passion projects on their own deadline. The programming wizard was the most qualified, but they wouldn’t necessarily have been the best fit, and therefore wasn’t the best candidate. If they were passed over, they may have thought that it was because of DEI or whatever, but that’s likely to just be their own sour grapes about not getting the job.
If you mean me and @Ms2001, we both count as ‘diverse’ under such policies. Renewed segregation in jobs would be directly against both of our interests.
No offense, but white women are quite eager to enforce segregation against Black and brown people. This has been historically proven again and again. So you two think you’ll be fine. You obviously don’t think white women are mentally ill-suited to certain jobs, but I suspect for other demographics your opinion would change.
100% correct. When a White person doesn’t get the job it’s because of DEI. When a Black person gets denied the same job is because they weren’t good enough.
I am offended, and I don’t think I’d be fine. Twitter is now full of men wanting to bring back the patriarchy, and I’m not a fan. I’d prefer the left not add fuel to the fire by blatantly discriminating against an entire large and influential demographic, while encouraging them to define themselves by their race and gender. How damn hard is it to just treat people equally?
There’s the rub. Some people will never be convinced people are being treated equally as long as there are too many Black or brown in jobs they shouldn’t be in.
For example, what maximum percentage of Black pilots would you feel is safe and that standards didn’t have to be lowered to let them be a pilot?
I don’t know. How damn hard is it to just treat people that are not straight, White, men equally?
There is no hypocrisy here. On the cases you mention, I would usually say if it were the case that police fired on an unarmed black man posing no threat, then they should be prosecuted. Then, when all the evidence has been revealed and the case concluded then I hold an opinion on what actually did happen.
This is exactly the same way I have treated the FAA case.
No, it’s just a factor that inclines me particularly towards skepticism. It’s like if someone were to present evidence of a Haitian person eating a dog. Sure, I’ll take a look at the evidence but I am going to be extra suspicious because it’s exactly what validates a right wing talking point that pre-dates it.
Once again: That’s not what DEI is.
And I note the deflection too. Can you acknowledge that it’s in society’s interest that the widest set of people train and apply for roles, and that, without some kind of initiatives, both self-selection and unconscious bias mean that that can take a long time to happen?
If not, why do you think it has taken so long for those groups to reach the level of representation they have today in senior and expert roles? Why wasn’t it simply the case that as soon as women could study science in the mid 19th century *bang* a third of scientists were women, as we have today?
Well, now I’m torn…
On one hand, I want to take offense to this remark. It is pretty insulting, and tacking “no offense” onto the front of a racist, sexist remark doesn’t make it any less insulting. You’re putting words in my mouth, you’re accusing me of horrible things, and you’re dead wrong on every count.
On the other hand, it’s affirming to be lumped in with the rest of the gals, you know? It reminds me of the time someone passing by on the sidewalk called me a “dumb bitch”. They were still a jerk, but if that’s the epithet that popped into their head, then I must be doing something right.
On the third hand… I work in a field that’s 75% male. The DEI programs I’ve seen my employers run have largely focused on women, and the women who participated in them seemed to think they were important. But here, you seem to be suggesting that, as a white woman, I don’t need to rely on DEI to be treated fairly at work. Why do you suppose all those other people thought they did?
It would not, and what a nasty accusation! Are you proud of that?
I encourage you to take a minute to think about why you were so quick to assume the worst about the people who you disagree with here. Consider only responding to what people actually say, not what they hypothetically might say in a scenario you’ve imagined.
You have been the one strongly insinuating that DEI isn’t needed at all, and in fact its main purpose is to generate underqualified hires. You obviously don’t think DEI is important because you want it destroyed.
I did, it is more or less clear that you are not in favor of the bigots, but in the end DEI opponents, by not countering the efforts of the bigots by demanding better alternatives, do help them a lot.
DEI can cover all of these. Those books you don’t like? Blame DEI initiatives. Black people getting prestigious jobs? DEI is at fault. Annoying young student activists? Too much DEI on university campuses. It’s hard to find a hot-button issue or social context where DEI can’t be hurled as a term of abuse to undermine marginalized people.
And that’s just what has happened. A Republican lawmaker in Utah blamed the Baltimore bridge collapse on DEI saying, “this is what happens when you have governors who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens.” Others called the city’s Black mayor, Brandon Scott, a “DEI mayor.”
In response to a door falling off a Boeing plane, Elon Musk asked Twitter users: “Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety?”
Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz claimed that a “DEI bureaucracy has become a central contributor to anti-Jewish attitudes on campuses.”
Read more: University equity and racial justice strategies urgently need to address antisemitism
However, DEI is more than just a convenient catch-all term for culture war flashpoints. This rhetoric is having a real effect on how various institutions run. Universities in Texas and Florida have cut dozens of jobs in response to state bans on DEI initiatives.
DEI as a dog whistle
When people blame DEI for airplane doors coming off, or a bridge collapsing, they are really blaming Black people without saying so explicitly. As American TV host Joy Reid noted:
“At this point it’s evident what they mean by ‘DEI,’ right? It means Black people… It’s not fashionable to be openly racist anymore in America… so referring to a Black mayor as a DEI mayor gets the point across.”
Baltimore Mayor Scott was even more pointed:
“We know what these folks really want to say when they say DEI mayor… They really want to say the N-word.”
Dog whistles require two meanings. The surface, more acceptable one, is widely understood; the other is the less acceptable one, hidden because it needs to be.
Good post @GIGObuster, and on that topic, tangenting a little:
Here in the UK, a member of the Reform party has called for the repeal of the Race Relations Act. (NB: Reform is the UK equivalent of MAGA, and the race relations act is our equivalent of the civil rights act (and also passed in the mid 1960s); it makes things like refusing service, or whether someone can rent an apartment on the basis of race, illegal).
So increasingly the mask is slipping; DEI is just a handy TLA for the talking points. If you take away DEI then they’ll be some other noun to function as the dog whistle, just as AA, BLM, CRT have been (aside: seems we’re working our way through the alphabet).
Because, as you say, the real problem is brown people being the equal of or, in some cases – horror – the bosses of white men.
I’d like to say “Let’s go Brandon!” . . . but I know what that dog whistle means too.
I don’t see you personally being accused of horrible things, and the fact that you yourself are nice does not in any way serve as evidence as to the make-up of other women. “You insult them, therefore you must also be insulting me directly!” is something I have seen many times before, and is something I have rejected many times before.
Multiple times now, you’ve claimed to know what I was thinking, and you’ve been wrong every time. It ought to be easy to figure out what I think when I’ve written it down, and I’ve been writing it down all over this thread. How many times must we go through this?
It’s as if you’re under the impression that what I’ve said here isn’t really what I think—like I’m trying to smuggle in some kind of secret opinions, and it’s up to you to crack the case and figure out what I really believe.
There’s no mystery to solve. I don’t speak in riddles or subtext; what I mean is what I say. I lovingly handcraft each and every word to make sure that the text of my comments reflects my actual thoughts. Comments like these:
Offering solutions that would help achieve DEI goals fairly and effectively
Praising DEI's goals as noble
Praising a company's DEI efforts
Explicitly rejecting the idea of ending all DEI programs
Is it possible that that was all an elaborate ruse? Am I the kind of person who would invent a whole fictional world just to tell anecdotes in support of political arguments I don’t really even believe? Go to all that effort just to prop up someone else’s beliefs… for free? Hell no. I only put in that kind of effort in my spare time if it’s funny, and this hasn’t been.
Here’s the comment I was replying to:
That was a response to one by @DemonTree that mentioned me by name. Who else could “you two” have been referring to? I think it was clear from context that I was one of those two, but if I’m wrong, perhaps @Zoobi can clarify it for us.
Although it has no bearing whatsoever on your own posting habits, it must be pointed out that what I quoted from you is indeed standard practice among many that oppose DEI, and not the extreme rarity you present it to be.
Yes, I believe you both believe that DEI efforts could be removed and you two would be just fine. You have both positioned yourselves as the anti-DEI side of the discussion and spent multiple posts explaining how DEI is a net negative on society.