this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
122 points (92.4% liked)
Stolen from Facebook
236 readers
1 users here now
founded 11 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The explanation you were given is a pretty big oversimplification that ignores some very legitimate complaints that some people have. Of course there are those simple racists who don't even understand the philosophy behind DEI and are just generally opposed to any system like this, but there are also many instances of corporations, universities, and even governments taking it to the extreme, which results in kind of a "fighting racism with racism" situation. One example is Google being sued by an ex-employee over their policy to purge all applicants that were either Asian or white males. That's blatant racism in the literal definition of the word, and is illegal. Another example is California's failed Prop 16, which would have repealed the law that makes it illegal to discriminate based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. The stated goal was that they wanted to discriminate against Caucasians and men for job applications and school admissions. Again, quite literally racism, and in this case sexism too.
While the situations like the ones I gave examples of are often made with the idea that they are helping, they're engaging in the very behavior they claim that they want to eliminate. Doctor Martin Luther King Junior famously said "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.", and likewise racism cannot drive out racism.
The crazy right wingers aren't the only people objecting to some of the implementations of DEI. Many Democrat and left-wing professors and activists have spoken out against what they feel is a misguided attempt to enforce complicated principles from DEI, but the detractors are often shouted down, ostracized, and accused of bigotry themselves. And that too has received condemnation from left-wing academics and activists, but their voices aren't loud, and they're not the majority.
Nope. Your explanation is the oversimplified one. In the public eye, DEI is being blamed for the results of corporate corruption, including incidents like the Boeing crashes and the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse.
There are valid criticisms of DEI from actual researchers, but that is not what conservatives are doing here. They are blaming people of color and women for major corporate oversights. I cannot speak to your two examples of corporate racism and whether they are valid examples of DEI, but it's important to note that the vast majority of DEI initiatives comply with the law.
Also quoting MLK as a rebuttal when your only two examples are illegal ones that I don’t see anyone defending is pretty nasty. Again, the vast majority of DEI initiatives comply with the law.