DEI and racism. | Imamother

amother

Slateblue

Fri, Aug 02 2024, 7:28 pm

amother Melon wrote:

Calling someone a DEI hire is suggesting that they were hired solely on the basis of the diversity they bring to the table rather than any other skills or qualifications they may have.

It's like the question: what do you call a female scientist? A scientist. Not because being a woman is a negative thing, but a respected professional doesn't need to be identified by her gender when her coworkers are simply identified by their role.

So what do you call a minority new hire? A new hire.

If they pass a law that 90% of scientists need to be female we can then point out that suddenly all the new hires are female. How is this different? It’s pointing out facts. They were hired because of DEI that makes them a DEI hire.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Sat, Aug 03 2024, 4:08 pm

These are two different things.

DEI = structuring organizational practices with the intent of increasing the number of female/non-white/etc who are employees/managers/CEOs/etc. May or may not be racist (post on that later).

"DEI hire" = a slur suggesting that a specific individual was hired only because of their race/gender/s-xual orientation.

The bolded is key here. Like, if school says "we want more black students, so we're going to lower the SAT requirement specifically for black students" it wouldn't be racist to say that some of the black students probably got in due to DEI. But it would be very racist to point to a random black student whose SAT score you don't know and say "he's a DEI admission." For all you know his SAT score was perfect.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Sat, Aug 03 2024, 4:38 pm

About DEI itself, it comes in multiple flavors. Mostly a combination of two, the names for which I'm inventing off the top of my head:

Barrier-removal DEI: The underlying assumption is that if the workforce is skewed toward white and male, there are probably barriers to entry for people who aren't white and male. The goal is to find those barriers and eliminate them. For example, by rewording job advertisements, or by setting clear criteria in advance of hiring/assessment.

Equal-outcomes DEI: This is the more 'aggressive' type which sets a specific target (eg '30% of new hires should be non-white') and hires accordingly.

Generally speaking the logic is that (1) the only possible reason for unequal outcomes is that the system is biased, (2) we can speed up the process of creating a truly equal society through, essentially, a soft reboot - hire a 'diverse' team as quickly as possible, and this will naturally make society both diverse AND fair. After all the only possible reason for unequal outcomes is inequality, so once we create equal outcomes, we'll have equality, and outcomes will remain equal.

I don't really agree with this logic, and I think equal-outcomes DEI can be very problematic. Just explaining what I perceive the logic to be.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sat, Aug 03 2024, 10:00 pm

ora_43 wrote:

Is giving tzedaka bad? If you say "no" then you must think it's perfectly fine to call someone a "tzedaka case," right? After all, if it's not bad, there's no reason not to point it out.

Would you say that there's a difference between calling someone ugly (very rude) and calling someone selfish (often appropriate)?

If someone very unattractive walked past you, would you point out to your friends that the person was ugly? I'm assuming you wouldn't.

If you were driving and a speeding driver recklessly cuts you off would you tell the other passengers with you the other driver is selfish and an idiot? I'm assuming you would.

Why is it wrong to call the unattractive person ugly but not wrong to call the reckless dangerous driver a selfish idiot?

And I think the difference is clear. The unattractive person, poor person, and handicapped person, can't do anything about their situation. They didn't ask to be poor, handicapped or unattractive. So to announce that someone is a tzedakah case would be very rude.

A company that hires a less qualified DEI person is choosing on their own volition to do this. The hire knows he/she is being pushed passed more qualified candidates. This is all a choice and not something that was forced on anyone involved.

If I can use Karine Jean Pierre as an example. What is she doing there? Why is she inserting herself in a position that she is unqualified for based on her skills? Why was she hired? She is an intelligent person. There are 50 other jobs that she can do.

Since she is voluntarily choosing use the fact that she's black and gay to push herself into a job that she is weak at, then there's nothing wrong with pointing out that she got the job because she's black and gay, or DEI. This is very different than pointing out flaw in another person that they can't help.

amother

Amethyst ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 6:43 am

amother OP wrote:

A company that hires a less qualified DEI person is choosing on their own volition to do this. The hire knows he/she is being pushed passed more qualified candidates. This is all a choice and not something that was forced on anyone involved.

This is stuff that you made up not what DEI is supposed to be doing. The idea of DEI is supposed to be that when interviewers meet candidates, if all other things are equal and people from a certain community have been discriminated against , then they'll pick the person from that community.

Your OP started out seeming almost genuine but now it seems like you have an agenda you're pushing and this should probably go under politics.

If someone says they want more people from a minority community in their business, it's flawed logic to assume that anyone they hire from that community is not perfectly qualified for that role. Unless, of course, you're assuming that people from that community can't possibly qualify for that role. There's a word for that.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 6:47 am

amother OP wrote:

Here's the main point where I disagree with you.

The person being hired has no way of knowing if they're getting a boost because of their race.

First, how would they even know the company's DEI goals? Have you ever interviewed at a company and had them openly say "we're looking to hire more (women/ people of color/ gay people)"? These are things managers say between themselves, not public information that any person off the street would know.

Second, how would they know how they stack up against the other candidates? The people getting hired still have the qualifications. If it's a programming job, they have a programming degree, or experience. If it's a nursing job, they are a qualified nurse. Etc. How could they possibly know that Candidate X has 3 more years of experience than them, or Candidate Y speaks another language? And even if they did know that, they still wouldn't be able to do a full comparison - maybe Candidate X was fired from her last job, and Candidate Y is super socially awkward, and that's why they were chosen over both. Or maybe Candidate X's experience is less directly relevant and Candidate Y's third language is Icelandic which isn't likely to come up. etc.

Third, how would they know who got a job offer. I've been hired several times. I have no idea if I was the top candidate for any of them. For all I know, my boss offered my current position to two other people before I got it, but they had better offers elsewhere. Even if someone knew that other candidates were stronger candidates, they would have no idea if they were passed over for the job vs dropped out of their own accord.

And fourth, people don't know their own shortcomings. You use Karine Jean Pierre as an example. I promise you that she thinks she's qualified for her job. I would bet serious sums of money on it. Very few people, no matter how incompetent, know and recognize that they are bad at their jobs.

The odds that someone knows the companies DEI goals, recognizes their own shortcomings, knows that there are other candidates who are objectively more qualified than them, and knows those people weren't offered the job, is miniscule.

AND EVEN IF THAT HAPPENED

How would it be the fault of the person being hired? What do you expect them to do? Is it now the moral responsibility of every black, latino, asian, gay, etc, person to avoid 50% of companies just in case maybe their identity gives them a boost in hiring? But doing that would give white people an unfair advantage, which wouldn't be any more fair.

If there's a moral problem here it's entirely on the side of management. No individual person can realistically be expected to fight the system by deliberately destroying their own career.

amother

↑ Amethyst

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 6:48 am

OP's very first sentence in an inflammatory thread, trying to justify posting this not in the politics forum:

amother OP wrote:

I'd appreciate if this thread not delve into politics whatsoever.

OP unable to help herself a few pages later....

amother OP wrote:

If I can use Karine Jean Pierre as an example. What is she doing there? Why is she inserting herself in a position that she is unqualified for based on her skills? Why was she hired? She is an intelligent person. There are 50 other jobs that she can do.

Since she is voluntarily choosing use the fact that she's black and gay to push herself into a job that she is weak at, then there's nothing wrong with pointing out that she got the job because she's black and gay, or DEI. This is very different than pointing out flaw in another person that they can't help.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 6:55 am

And again, we can't assume that a person who happens to help re: DEI quotas, wouldn't have been a competitive candidate otherwise. Just like a random black guy on a college campus might have a perfect SAT score, a random gay latino muslim woman in the workplace might have been more qualified than whatever white men applied.

The final part of my above answer would apply in a hypothetical situation where it was known to all sides.

But in real life, we don't know. Which is why what your coworker said was racist. And, frankly, indicative of poor thinking skills. "All X are Y, but not all Y are X" is the kind of logic I'd expect a middle school student to grasp, let alone a grown adult.

(although continuing to argue after his coworkers were like 'dude, that's racist' is a much stronger sign of poor thinking skills. I wouldn't be surprised if he's soon your ex-coworker.)

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 7:17 am

amother Amethyst wrote:

OP's very first sentence in an inflammatory thread, trying to justify posting this not in the politics forum:

I'm not delving into politics. JKP incompetence has absolutely nothing to do with her politics. It's irrelevant what side of the aisle she's on.

She's a spokesperson whose job it is to articulate and be the go between for the president and his office and the public.

I did not mention a single thing about policy and whether I agree with her politics or not. She is a terrible spokesperson. This is true even if I 100% agree with her on politics.

Like I mentioned earlier she openly looks at her notes for answers to questions. She stumbles around and is bad at her job which is to give a clear message.

I don't believe that you feel she was hired based on merit and that if she wouldn't be black and gay would have been given the job.

I can use the secret service as another example. I guess you'll accuse me of being political. Their director Kimberly Cheatly said in an interview a few years ago that the secret service intends to hire 30% women. This is DEI that will no doubt lead to prioritizumg gender over quality.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 7:41 am

amother OP wrote:

Like I mentioned earlier she openly looks at her notes for answers to questions. She stumbles around and is bad at her job which is to give a clear message.

Her job is to handle the media.

OK, you can find 50 videos of her fumbling her notes, or saying something dumb. Tell me, can you find 50 stories in the mainstream media, outside of Fox news, that are critical of Biden or Harris? (Outside of those two weeks post-debate where democrats all turned on Biden like a pack of rabid wolves, that is.)

It's almost like someone is doing a decent job managing the media.

Quote:

I don't believe that you feel she was hired based on merit and that if she wouldn't be black and gay would have been given the job.

You're still mixing up some of the key concepts here.

1. is she competent
2. was she knowingly hired despite being incompetent
3. if so, was that due only to her race/s-xuality

A straight white guy can be incompetent. Do you think Biden is competent? How about Gavin Newsom? Anthony Weiner?

People can hire incompetent people unintentionally. A lot of people are not great at hiring, and even if you are, there's always luck involved. There are also factors like nepotism, friendship, past working relationships, sheer likeability, etc, that can cloud people's judgment.

And on the other end, you can have people who got a leg up because of 'diversity' and do an amazing job.

"Incompetent person who isn't white" and "diversity hire" are not the same thing.

(the fact that you use them interchangeably in this thread makes me wonder how on earth you see 'dei hire' as potentially not insulting)

↑ #BestBubby ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 8:34 am

ora_43 wrote:

The people getting hired still have the qualifications. If it's a programming job, they have a programming degree, or experience. If it's a nursing job, they are a qualified nurse.

No, often the minority hired is not qualified

It is documented that minorities are being accepted into colleges where they score significantly lower on the SATs than other students. I.e. the minority students are not qualified to be in a challenging university and cannot do the work.

Then professors are pressured to pass the minority student even if they are failing!

Then you have minority programmers and nurses who have the "qualifications " I.e. diploma,
But are not qualified and can kill people!

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 9:18 am

ora_43 wrote:

And again, we can't assume that a person who happens to help re: DEI quotas, wouldn't have been a competitive candidate otherwise. Just like a random black guy on a college campus might have a perfect SAT score, a random gay latino muslim woman in the workplace might have been more qualified than whatever white men applied.

The final part of my above answer would apply in a hypothetical situation where it was known to all sides.

But in real life, [b]we don't know.[/b] Which is why what your coworker said was racist. And, frankly, indicative of poor thinking skills. "All X are Y, but not all Y are X" is the kind of logic I'd expect a middle school student to grasp, let alone a grown adult.

(although continuing to argue after his coworkers were like 'dude, that's racist' is a much stronger sign of poor thinking skills. I wouldn't be surprised if he's soon your ex-coworker.)

I think this comes down to you and I having different views on what DEI means. Unfortunately I think your idealistic view is mistaken as you are trying to see good and fairness that doesn't exist.

Can we take the word of the democrat nominee Kamala Harris as to what DEI means?

Here's a video narrated by her that shows black and white mountain climbers struggling up a mountain until the ground under the black climber magically rises higher.

https://x.com/i/status/1322963321994289154

How does that demonstrate in any way equal competence and equal qualifications? On the contrary it show equal outcome at any and all means.

She ends the video by saying, "equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place". Could it be any clearer?

This video is under a minute. Harris explains what DEI is and how the goal is to push minorities forward regardless of qualifications, way better than I can. Listen to her message please and tell if you still think that DEI means what you've been saying on this page.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 9:30 am

amother OP wrote:

... No?

Why would Harris be the deciding vote here? OK, she's famous, but she's not famous for being the single arbitrator of DEI for now and forevermore.

I also think you're wrong about where we disagree. My point in the post you quoted wasn't about what DEI is, it was about what we can assume about individuals vis-a-vis DEI.

All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All ducks are birds, but not all birds are ducks. And all "DEI hires" are either non-white or non-straight, but not all people who are non-white or non-straight are DEI hires.

Someone who looks at a non-white person and assumes "DEI hire" has the logical reasoning skills of someone who looks at a hawk and assumes "duck."

Your company's goals may be wrong-minded and even racist (I'm not going to say for sure without knowing what exactly the policy is and how it's implemented). But your coworker is definitely wrong.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Sun, Aug 04 2024, 9:35 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Maybe this happens at some colleges but no school I'm familiar with - and I know several, from all different tiers - operates like this. If you meet a "minority student" who graduated from Cornell, Harvard, Holyoke, Berkeley, etc, they were definitely qualified to be in the university. Did they maybe have a very slightly lower SAT score? Only if there was a good reason for it, eg they went to a school with significantly worse funding. Guess what, doing almost as well under significantly harder circumstances is a sign of intelligence just as much as is a perfect SAT score if you went to a prep school.

Are some of the graduates of Cornell, Harvard, etc, morons? Sadly, yes. But that's true for the white ones, too. There are always going to be people who are "smart" in the sense that they're very good at reading books and taking tests and telling professors what they want to hear, but not actually very good at thinking.