This debate feels somewhat surreal because I feel like both sides are wrong.
Conservatives are clearly doing this because they're pretty, vindictive, reactionary ethnonationalists. DEI is clearly harmless.
Conversely, I've not seen any evidence of these meaningfully ameliorating systemic racism at all. Honestly, they feel like another successful effort to turn a serious social problem into a profit generating industry, like carbon offsets.
(Maybe that's what they'll replace DEI with: some kind of Racism offset./s)
Anyway, what I'm saying is I have no horse in this race.
From my experience, DEI is not about making racist people not racist, or sexist people not sexist. It's about making people from varying backgrounds feel welcome, and making sure people don't feel isolated if they're different.
I think that's the intention, and it's laudible, but in my experience it's become something of a racket. An industry of consultants exist to receive money from corporations to launder their images. I think some of their recommendations are good, but ultimately it seems tokenizing and designed to brag about the fact that a board room full of ruthless Harvard grads isn't all white men.
It seems highly performative. I haven't seen credible evidence, for instance, that having more queer people on the board of a fossil fuel company changes their behavior or the long-term consequences for the poor families forced to live next to the company's pollution.
I don't mind these programs. I just don't think they're a money maker and branding exercise rather than a genuine tool of change.
Now, socially responsible investing: that's a conservative bogeyman that I think has some teeth.
I think you're confusing diversity hiring practices with DEI programs. DEI can be a great tool to help employees/students from feeling isolated. I also suggest you stop watching so much cable news; I don't think DEI is as big a deal as the media makes it out to be.
It continues to be amazing that so many of them are sticking to the lie that there's a "leftist revolution" going on. How can it be that anyone still falls for it?
It's a convenient excuse that allows them to reject any social progress without having to examine or defend any of their own views. It doesn't matter that the ideas of the "leftist revolution" may in fact be correct and completely justifiable, because introducing it through a "revolution" is inherently bad.
I thought treating people differently based on race was to be avoided? There's no good racism right?
Wouldn't a better and fairer idea be to give people a hand up based on economic issues?
You can't tell if someone has experienced racial discrimination based on the race they ascribe to (ask Megan markle).
However you can definitely (and without bias) tell someone is going to be disadvantaged if they grew up in a poor neighbourhood, neither parent earned much, no family history of higher education etc etc.
Well sure, but that's not how they would frame it. I'm curious what their arguments against it are. They usually put a little spit and polish on their turds before feeding them to their faithful masses.
It would be nice if at least once a page someone fucking explains an acronym. It's a little more understandable when you can infer a meaning through context, but when the context is that people are using it as the new woke bogeyman it gives zero clue as to what it even is.
You aren't wrong with your criticism in general (from a purely journalistic pov). But actually typing DEI into Google and clicking the first hit, would be more constructive than ranting.
If my only point was to learn what DEI was, sure. But that doesn't help with the next acronym. Or the next one. Or the next one. Ad nauseum.
My problem is with the trend of people just using an acronym with no definition, it means you are not making a coherent argument that can be understood by people not already invested in it. It, in and of itself, is little better than a rant to an audience that's already made up its mind.
So now DEI programs are only for people of colour?
Why not just "disadvantaged people"? That takes race out of the equation entirely, and everyone is satisfied. Unless excluding disadvantaged people of specific races or genders or whatever is actually the point.
Extend to gender, ethnicity, LGBTQ, whatever…the key is the “systematically.” We can’t assess relative (dis)advantage at an individual level, but we can recognize it at a systemic level and develop programs that counter it systemically.
No, that's a false dichotomy, there are other choices. Such as "help disadvantaged people regardless of their genetics." I reject the "but it's too hard" argument. If racial discrimination or gender discrimination or discrimination based on orientation is wrong, then it's wrong. Don't put an asterisk on it with a list of types that it's okay for.
I really miss RES's filters, and the ability to filter out posts linking to irreputable, clickbait sources like nytimes.com. I always wished for an android app that had that capability for Reddit, and now for Lemmy.
