To be clear, DEI was our societal effort to get the best employees, students, leaders, etc instead of them being bypassed by lesser candidates. The myth of the exclusively meritorious white male had to be busted for the betterment of the nation. #DEI
@USelaine DEI helped me. It has helped so many people.
@USelaine A friend of a friend complained that she didn't like getting her job "because she was a woman". I said "First, do you have any idea how many white men got the job merely because they were white men?"
The way her eyes changed was the closest I have ever seen to a literal light blub appearing over someone's head.
@USelaine 100% true. I would add DEI has opened the mind of many white men - having to work together with capable women and capable people from minorities does eventually open their minds, so they benefit from it as well.
In every single job I have had (or almost) I have observed this process on at least one colleague, even if most of them were quite open minded from before.
Agree 100%
The idea that the density of good people is different among different categories, whether races or genders or degrees of ableness or whatever, seems completely suspect to me. So there's that.
But also, abstract goodness is not always the entirety of what is needed of employees. Regardless of what score anyone might get open whatever test you could throw at them, there is intrinsic value and having people who come from different backgrounds. Diverse groups have a better mix of origin stories, and are not just diverse in nature but in nurture.
Diverse groups have walked more paths, seen more things, experienced more situations. There is a greater breadth of empathy. There are more varied sources of inspiration. Inspiration comes in odd ways from different situations.
When solving mysteries, differences in people's personal histories will lead them to see the same situation differently, sometimes shaking them out of overly narrow, limiting, or even toxic assumptions.
When creating policy, having folks present who can more directly represent those impacted can help to call out and perhaps avoid biases, prejudices, indignities or injustices that might be invisible to or unappreciated by a narrower group that is so used to things going a certain way that they don't realize or find it easy to relate to that full space of potential negatives others might endure.
When creating stories, diversity brings more richness of life experience to draw on.
When innovating, diversity brings more points of view a greater breadth of traditions and techniques to draw on, better thinking outside the box because the boxes people have inhabited are so many and varied.
When entertaining, more sources of music, jokes, artistic tools and media. Even with 5000 TV channels and as many grocery store products, we crave variety, which better comes of diversity than a sea of cultural sameness.
One can allege there is a kind of dogged efficiency in eliminating diversity, but there is no reason to suppose it will do anything other than destroy all that has made the US an interesting place to visit, study, and buy from.
The monocultural sludge we are becoming is the farthest thing from smart, safe, healthy, entertaining, or free. Even a highly efficient from of that toxic sludge will still be sludge and will not thrive economically or socially. The stock market is just an early warning sign but there will soon be other even more visible indicators. Our society is melting down before our eyes and the present experiment in selfish, bigoted authoritarianism is the cause, not the cure.
This cesspool of feigned expertise and mindless leadership being thrust upon us claims to be motivated by a desire to avoid bankruptcy, but in fact is the shortest path not only to economic but also moral, cultural and intellectual bankruptcy that anyone could have devised. If there is an efficiency to be claimed it is in the swift path ruin it has charted. Future generations of locusts will study the raw, ruthless, and ultimately pointless efficiency it has required to dismantle and plunder a thriving society in such short order.
#diversity #DEI #DOGE #efficiency #politics #bigotry #monoculture #inspiration #justice #bias #prejudice #injustice
H/T @salixsericea
@USelaine I keep saying that, too. The reason we need affirmative action (except as applied to white males) is _not_ because of deficiencies in the other groups.
It's because the people hiring or selecting are incapable of seeing merit in anyone except white males.
@quixote @USelaine Appears to be the legacy of inconsequent & undermined Reconstruction after the racist Confederacy had been defeated.
"...
The Reconstruction Amendments affected the constitutional division of power between U.S. state governments and the federal government of the United States, for the Reconstruction Amendments "were specifically designed as an expansion of federal power and an intrusion on state sovereignty."
..."
Now look, what Trump's puppeteers & their puppet are subversively doing to federal government & power, for the sake of who & what?
White supremacy/"meritocracy" & insurrection against the authority of federal government as an institution, not just the Trump regime & RINO-controlled House & Senate, or the RINO majority on SCOTUS bench.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Amendments#Erosion,_litigation,_and_scope
@USelaine And now all the insecure, unqualified white men will be considered rather than more qualified individuals. Ugh!
@USelaine I’ve been on a bunch of hiring committees and this idea that there is usually a clear most highly skilled or most meritorious candidate is absurd. There almost NEVER is. It’s always a range of varying strengths and weaknesses in all candidates.