libera te tutemet ex machina, and shitpost~~

  • 130 Posts
  • 310 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: December 7th, 2023

help-circle

  • Do you think that if leftists completely dropped any support for DEI and CRT that their opponents would suddenly support programs that aggressively attack wealth inequality?

    No, but US wealth inequality is going to worsen now because of the US Dept. of Education being gutted, which is worse than DEI going away. I think education and welfare programs will make easier policies for majority of voters to vote for. More of the US population is poor than a minority of some kind. The danger I was alarmed by (admittedly a knee jerk reaction) is that increasing polarization is going to be used by authoritarians to win and install their own preferred systems. Poverty reducing efforts like in the Nordic model will be popular, but also something some types of politicians cannot favor because of their prior party stance.





  • I am not angry about anything, and I didn’t look them up now, tbh. The issue I find is that well-meaning and useful policies are painted as something they’re not, or used by others to create polarization. So, my pov is that leftists and progressives are better off focusing on poverty alleviation. If minorities face generational wealth issues (they do) then poverty alleviation policies that don’t single them out in particular will be harder to attack by political opponents.


  • Okay, so about immigration I’ll just make this point, from another thread:

    So, let’s say a democratic country favors pro-choice policies, but then has an influx of immigrants who are anti-abortion, and now that population is greater. That’s a change of values because the population shifted to a majority opinion which favors a different view point. If a country has an idealized view of how it wants to be, then I think it’s fair to expect immigrants to integrate and assimilate. I don’t think that has anything to do with xenophobia or not excluding different cultures, as long as the core values of a country are maintained. For example, if a country wants to maintain a democratic socialist society, and a greater population of capitalists immigrate to it, then I think that socialist society would want to restrict immigration as well.

    The above point is to demonstrate how democracies are fragile, and that not all immigration policies are necessarily xenophobic or racist.










  • I think it’s fair to say that when people are facing an existential threat they find it hard to criticize that which protects them. People should just be anti-genocide because leaders cannot be trusted all the time. But what are the chances that the Muslim citizens in Arab countries would protest if a genocide happens to their perceived enemies? Sometimes the best defense people have against authoritarianism is empathy, don’t let something happen to someone else that you don’t want happening to you.

    Edit downvotes explain yourself? I am just being brigaded by extremists on every post.



  • nifty@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldWhich part of DEI do you hate?
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    Either way the reason to attack DEI was always the same, to gain power without reguard to how many people get hurt along the way.

    I think one of the issues which comes up are mandates. If there are underemployed minorities in society, then we have a problem. If that happens, then DEI should be brought back. I agree that some people are racist, and that life creates situations which kill individual potential.

    That’s why it’s important to have these ideas be part of social discourse. I don’t agree with CRT (that legal and social systems help white people only), or that DEI addresses the core issues with bad luck creating uneven conditions for individuals. The core issue is that people of all races and cultures experience bad luck. Most people are not going to be rich enough to afford even an upper middle class lifestyle. So, if there is a policy which seems to favor only a certain type of people, it will only create resentment or jealousy, and divisions. Poor whites consistently vote republican because they don’t get the kind of help they need from democrats either. We need the Nordic model in the US.

    I personally think education is the best option we have to counter the effect of bad luck on people’s lives and their outcomes. So, the ire that people are putting towards USAID or DEI going away should be firmly focused at ensuring that the Dept of Education remains intact for serving the most people.

    Edit the danger, I think, is in thinking that just because someone is X they are moral or ethical. I think the inverse of that is that just because someone is not X, then they are immoral and unethical. The kind of reduction of personhood to arbitrary characteristics which forms the basis of predictive policing algorithms, so I can’t support that.



  • nifty@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldWhich part of DEI do you hate?
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    This is my sad hill to die on, I guess, despite my personal feelings on why anti-discrimination across all aspects is important for society. But after reading some informed perspectives, I think I get where some of the DEI pushback is coming from.

    It’s not about diversity, equity or inclusion individually, but DEI as a concept, ie as an actionable form of some underlying ideology. It doesn’t matter if the practitioners of DEI may not subscribe to any underlying ideology, the fact is that DEI opponents are unconvinced about the allegiances of DEI practitioners in special contexts, like the military.

    I personally don’t care about having DEI in corporate or education contexts, but i think the concern there is that if the public thinks one way, then it will question why the military/govt doesn’t want to. So, I think I get why they removed DEI/CRT from corporate and education as well.

    Per my understanding, the pushback is coming jointly from the military, and the main point of contention was the CRT-derived idea of “inherent racism” or “whites as oppressors”. For example,

    CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people[9][12] at the expense of people of color,[13][14] and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as “neutral” plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order,[15] where formally color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes.[16]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

    Here’s an article which says why DEI was necessarily started (the writer is an academic)

    DEI policies and practices were created to rectify the government-sanctioned discrimination that existed and systemic oppression that persists in the United States.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-the-cubicle/202411/what-we-get-wrong-about-the-dei-backlash-narrative

    You have to appreciate why some part of the American armed forces pushes back on these ideas when your CO may be white, and you a minority. There are practical considerations to having such ideas in the back of your mind when you’re supposed to act without question and as a unit.

    Here’s some context for reading https://starrs.us/dei-how-to-have-the-conversation/

    Here’s another perspective from a Stanford professor, https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/25/will-dei-end-america-or-america-end-dei/

    Edit to clarify, I am not saying that we shouldn’t have anti-discrimination policies across different aspects of being a person. I am saying this is why some people don’t like/want DEI or CRT (which are distinct and separate from the existing anti-discrimination policies). And yes, I know the military has issues regarding race and sex discrimination. But I think people can address those without DEI or CRT.