I (white male) used to try and be active as an ally in regards to DEI. I work for a large public agency. I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole these days.
This vein of 'antiracism' is poison because it really is absurd. I've personally seen people call 'agendas' and 'goals' white supremacy. Hell, I had to listen to someone talk about how 'clock time' is a tool invented by white supremacists. I've had friends fall down the rabbit whole into this nonsense, where any shortcoming in themselves is just white supremacist culture trying to force things on them. It's really sad.
The most insidious thing is how well it has a built-in defense mechanism. By co-opting terms like 'anti-racist' and defining them under a narrow socio-political view point, it creates a complication for people to talk about their world view. I consider myself 'anti-racist' because I hate racists, but am I 'Anti-racist' in Kemba's viewpoint? No
And stop trying to make Latinx a thing, its not going to happen and is super cringy.
I don't get Latinx term at all. And hardly ever see it used by native speakers. It's like they're telling Spanish speakers their language is inherently bad because it's gendered. It almost comes off as a "white savior" thing where someone felt like they had to fix it. For context, I grew up bilingual.
DEI is a grift, supported only by people who are ok with the idea of racial discrimination.
The term "antiracist" is laughable too, since by definition it's an ideology that requires you to actively judge people based on the color of their skin. Don't take it from me either, you can see it in the words of Ibram X. Kendi who is perhaps the most well known antiracist grifter:
“The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” ~Ibram X. Kendi
That just about sums up DEI and antiracist grifting in general.
>DEI is a grift, supported only by people who are ok with the idea of racial discrimination.
Let me guess, you 'don't see race'?
Racism and sexism exist. They exist in the workplace. DEI is a remedy towards that.
I'm not sure why you are quoting Kendi? Are you under the impression that Kendi invented DEI or owns it?
Like this whole article was written by someone who is a leader in DEI and doesn't agree with Kendi.
If you want to continue this conversation, thats fine, but if you can't understand the difference between the concept of DEI and an individuals views,there really is no point.
> Let me guess, you 'don't see race'?
> Racism and sexism exist. They exist in the workplace. DEI is a remedy towards that.
Sure I see race, I just don't see a good reason to judge people differently based on their race. Policies that treat people differently based on the color of their skin (something that is foundational to the entire framework of DEI initiatives) is a bad idea.
It's also completely illogical. White neoliberals control most levers of power in society. I'm not just referring to the Executive branch and the Senate, but the majority of the Boards in the Fortune 500 who are so eager to implement DEI policies, the media (minus the tabloid trash at FOX News) and almost every institute of higher learning (save the rare exceptions like a Hillsdale College which only proves the rule). These people see themselves as saviors of the poor oppressed minority and if you ask them how they feel about poor whites (who happen to make up the majority of poor people in the US), they cringe. They hate nothing more than those dirty hillbillies, and their generational poverty...matters not.
Judging people by the color of their skin is racism, and DEI seeks to institutionalize those racist policies. I do not support institutionalized racism regardless of the target, and I would hope more people begin to see the idiocy in doing so. All it does is breed resentment, divisiveness and racial animosity.
The solution is simple. Help those who need help, do not base any policies on skin color or ethnicity, as it is immutable and will only cause problems. If these people didn't despise the "Trump-country poor white trash" so much, this would be a no-brainer. But alas, here we are.
>Sure I see race, I just don't see a good reason to judge people differently based on their race.
I don't believe you. I don't know if you're lying to me or yourself, but you have racial bias (we all do).
> Policies that treat people differently based on the color of their skin (something that is foundational to the entire framework of DEI initiatives) is a bad idea.
Sure! We already have a socioeconomic system that treats people differently based on the color of the their skin. That's reality. It's not DEI thats the problem, its racists.
>White neoliberals control most levers of power in society.
This true, but I'm guessing you don't really understand that neoliberalism is just another word for conservative. Neoliberals hate DEI.
>Judging people by the color of their skin is racism, and DEI seeks to institutionalize those racist policies. I do not support institutionalized racism regardless of the target, and I would hope more people begin to see the idiocy in doing so. All it does is breed resentment, divisiveness and racial animosity.
LMAO bruh, judging people by the color of their skin was institutionalized 150 before DEI was ever thought of. The United States had FUCKING SLAVES based on the color the skin. Stop being a racist shit. Its been less than 50 years since the federal government *had to outlaw racial segregation because racist ass racists wanted racial segregation*. Quit your horseshit bud. There is still time for you to heal.
> We already have a socioeconomic system that treats people differently based on the color of the their skin.
No we don't. We have a socioeconomic system that treats people differently based on their class. There are many thousands of black millionaires in the country and a few black billionaires as well. Meanwhile, show me how some poor schlep in a trailer park or in the backwoods of Appalachia with no running water or electricity is being benefited by the color of his skin. No education, generational poverty, no opportunities but he's got that magical lack of melanin so it's all good? lolwut
The math doesn't back you up. The majority of poor people in the country are white. And if you want to look at the per capita rates of poverty, then you have to deal with that fact that asians outperform whites in every category per capita. So the whole idea that whites are outperforming everyone due to some inherent white supremacy built into the system is demonstrably false.
> This true, but I'm guessing you don't really understand that neoliberalism is just another word for conservative. Neoliberals hate DEI.
Not quite, the majority of Democrats and Republicans have a neoliberal worldview. The people on the left and right in the US who don't have a neoliberal worldview are a tiny minority. Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both neoliberals. So was Obama and Bush. To find US politicians that aren't neoliberals you have to look to Bernie (who isn't even a member of the Democratic Party) and maybe a few others on the left. On the right, probably the closest you can get now is Rand Paul who is Libertarian-Lite. Maybe Justin Amash is a better example when he was in office, but he got chased out of the Republican Party. You also had Tulsi Gabbard who espoused non-neo-liberal views from the Democratic Party but she was chased out of the party for it too. There are maybe a few others I'm forgetting but there are very few non-neolibs in office in the US.
This is why you have Wall Street which is a Republican stronghold, fully embracing DEI. DEI fits nicely within the racially divisive neoliberal worldview.
> LMAO bruh, judging people by the color of their skin was institutionalized 150 before DEI was ever thought of. The United States had FUCKING SLAVES based on the color the skin. Stop being a racist shit. Its been less than 50 years since the federal government *had to outlaw racial segregation because racist ass racists wanted racial segregation*.
So you're trying to convince me that racially discriminatory policies like most DEI initiatives are a good thing by giving me all of the historical examples of why racial discrimination is a bad thing?
They are asinine. They've become a shibboleth for detecting DEI-types who are unengaged with theory and have hopped on the fad --- the Robin DiAngelists, if you will. You don't have to like, appreciate, or respect DEI in any way to acknowledge that unironically showing slides suggesting that literacy is a white virtue is disqualifying, and that most social justice thinkers, including Okun herself, agree with that.
Okun's website attempts to clarify all of this; for instance, the page expanding on "worship of the written word" explains that it's a reaction to the idea that anything not written down according to formal standards is worthless. That's not a crazy DEI idea, so much so that it's part of the plot of the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil.
But people just want fortune cookies to memorize and repeat, and it is somewhat on people like Okun for providing those fortunes and only 20 years later clarifying them. And, of course, De Anza wasn't at all engaged with Okun's actual thoughts; it was using them to prevent managers from setting agendas for meetings.
Again: everybody involved in this story is a crank.
This is a surpassingly stupid story in which literally everyone involved looks like a crank: an existing DEI practice at a community college that was unironically still using Tema Okun's "White Supremacy Culture" slides, the ones that ascribe literacy and punctuality to whiteness, and an incoming DEI dean who decided to operate as an anti-woke crusader, up to and including repping FAIR, a conservative anti-CRT activist organization with a prominent side hustle in making sure that middle schools don't allow any students to prefer pronouns.
Right, and for whatever it's worth, most sane DEI-type people have disavowed the interpretation used by slides like the one in this story. Everybody involved in this story looks bad. There's a sort of fascinating sociological phenomenon here where stories like this have so much valence for so many ideologies, confirm so many different priors, that people glom onto them without realizing the side they're taking in it is also terrible.
Not sure how the author looks like a crank here. If treating people with patience and encouraging discourse in the face of a barrage of sabotage and false accusations is anti-woke, well, you might as well call sanity “insane”.
As for FAIR, I’m not sure what evidence you have that it’s conservative. The board members consists of liberals like Jonathan Haidt, John McWhorter, and Steven Pinker. I don’t see anything wrong with operating from a premise that doesn’t rely on CRT either, since it’s really pure rhetoric and scant on evidence, and clearly the cause of the illiberalism and nasty behaviour that the author is calling out in her essay. Consequently, I doubt you’re presenting their “prominent side hustle” in good faith as well.
Your summary is so disingenuous, it’s a great pity that it’s the top most comment. You miss the crux of the essay, which is sounding the alarm that the people who you described as “unironically still using Tema Okun’s…”, are the ones running the show in academic institutions. For anyone reading this comment, I’d urge you to read the source directly, the quality of HN comments for such topic isn’t that great.
That's a conclusion you might come to if the only digging on FAIR that you've done is to glance at the Wikipedia page (and look past the involvement of Rufo and Weiss listed on that page!). Do some Google searches and look what FAIR is up to. It began as an anti-CRT organization, and is now an anti-trans organization as well.
You can take a side here. Lots of people do. But this whole incident is just a culture war episode. The sides are at opposite, equally off-putting poles.
I'm aware of Weiss' involvement, but I'm not sure why her involvement would discount anything. As far as I know, her views "doesn't fully match" what a left-leaning person should supposedly hold. I'm not sure how that's a problem, or what scandal she has been involved in that's so bad that it warrants dismissing anything associated with her.
As for Rufo, I've heard of him in passing, but never engaged with his content. Regardless, I think it shouldn't be a problem since FAIR is supposed to be non-partisan. Given the membership of the other liberals I've mentioned, Rufo's presence shouldn't be a problem, since everyone mentioned has a stake in the organization.
As for the "anti-trans" aspect, I just googled and can't see how FAIR is "anti-trans". The current mainstream trans activists are rather dogmatic, asserting that gender-affirming care is medically credible and well-established, and any discussion otherwise is "harmful" and transphobic. As far as I best know, the evidence base for gender-affirming care is incredibly dubious, and UK and other European countries have responded accordingly by pausing such treatments. It does make sense then for FAIR to have an interest in this, since said activists have exhibited intolerance, silencing their opponents under the guise of social justice in spite of the fact that the facts aren't in their favour. This is as best as I know about accusations of "transphobia" that are levied against FAIR, and honestly calling them "anti-trans" on that basis strikes me as nonsensical.
I can't comment on FAIR's supposed origin as an "anti-CRT" organization, since I don't precisely understand what that means (e.g. are they against CRT because of some unsubstantiated moral panic, or are they simply against CRT-centric approaches towards activism for equality, or something else). As you can see, some interpretations for "anti-CRT" ain't great, some interpretations of it sounds reasonable. It would be great if you can provide some sources for me to follow up on and better understand this.
For the record, I'm not asserting that FAIR is a fantastic and faultless organization as I do not follow or keep up with them. Hence, my views are not an endorsement of their work. I'm simply disputing the claims you've made about FAIR (supposedly conservative, anti-trans, anti-CRT), which doesn't seem justified by the information and news I can find about them online.
Nobody's reading this at this point, but I feel like it's a fair cop to acknowledge that I was flippant in that last post. My most succinct response to all of this is:
If you're an incoming DEI dean at a community college where leadership at the school has told you there's a problem with overwrought wokeism and performative displays displacing actual inclusion, then it's absolutely part of your job to undo all that woke stuff. But your role as the "DEI dean" is, principally, to persuade faculty and registered student organizations to adopt a more productive "DEI" frame. You can't be persuasive introducing propaganda from FAIR, because: regardless of what De Anza's status is in the ranking of US higher learning institutions, everybody there can Google and find out what FAIR is about, and the moment you cite them you've nailed yourself to a pole in the culture war.
This isn't the only disqualifying action Tabia Lee took at De Anza (I sheepishly admit: I burned an hour or two looking random stuff up here, for no valid reason I can retrospectively discern), but it's the easiest illustration to give of how not to productively push back on wokeism. Don't do things that are trivially caricatured, and especially don't do those things when there's real substance to the accusation.
A hard-won lesson: being right is worth nothing if you can't persuade people. Congratulations, you can tell people you told them so, and they'll just be even more irritated with you.
Looking forward to seeing where Lee ends up on the conservative speaking circuit. Nobody's going to make the mistake of hiring her in an institutional role again.
It is high time for the traditional - working class - left to distance itself from identity politics in all of its forms if it wants to remain a viable political ideology. While I do not consider myself to be on the "left" or "right" I see the value in having both "left-wing" as well as "right-wing" thought sparring it out in the public discourse in a search for something we can more or less agree on. If done right this ends up with something resembling the Dutch or Swedish system in the 80's en 90's, both of which I'm familiar with. Not that these systems were in any way perfect but they have shown resilience through many decades of change while offering a high standard of living for the vast majority of inhabitants. The Dutch "right" - representing employers, farmers and some of the more conservative regions in the country could interact with the "left" - representing labour unions, non-unionised workers and a ragtag assembly of activist organisations - and come to compromises which were workable. While the debates were often intense and allegations of this and that were thrown by "both" sides they managed to come to agreements which were acceptable by most of the involved.
This is not possible with the identitarian left. There is no compromising with those who declaim that anything but their own shining path is some form of -ism or -phobia leading to harm and genocide. They do not want to compromise, instead they insist on dictating the terms, placing themselves above all other interests because they consider themselves to be morally superior.
So, lefties, please... clean up in your own ranks for the good of all. Excise those who put themselves over others with claims of moral superiority, show them a mirror and tell them they to clean up their act - shape up or ship out. If you don't they will destroy your chances of ever achieving any of your goals, subjecting you to a continuous struggle for dominance over imagined oppressors both inside as well as outside of your own movements.
This vein of 'antiracism' is poison because it really is absurd. I've personally seen people call 'agendas' and 'goals' white supremacy. Hell, I had to listen to someone talk about how 'clock time' is a tool invented by white supremacists. I've had friends fall down the rabbit whole into this nonsense, where any shortcoming in themselves is just white supremacist culture trying to force things on them. It's really sad.
The most insidious thing is how well it has a built-in defense mechanism. By co-opting terms like 'anti-racist' and defining them under a narrow socio-political view point, it creates a complication for people to talk about their world view. I consider myself 'anti-racist' because I hate racists, but am I 'Anti-racist' in Kemba's viewpoint? No
And stop trying to make Latinx a thing, its not going to happen and is super cringy.