7 ms·

Having grew up in an environment that was very troubled (to put it lightly) and also be a CIS white straight male; I find diversity discussions quite difficult.

Having grew up in an environment that was very troubled (to put it lightly) and also be a CIS white straight male; I find diversity discussions quite difficult. Lots of assumptions about myself due to the colour of my skin and my gender and lots of guilty by association "history is full of white males in X industry" to justify positive discrimination etc. I don't have a particular point to this post through in part being chastised in the past for having an opinion on the subject but I roughly follow the authors train of thought. When people talk of diversity their range seems to be quite shallow and skin deep.

nsxwolf 10y ago
I learned to stop having such conversations long ago. You either agree completely with the zeitgeist and get domesticated as an "ally", which is like being a little mindless pet. Or you disagree with a point or two and get savaged, and marginalized. When I just avoid the topic, everything stays OK and everyone remains friendly.
- douche 10y ago
  The only winning move is not to play.
  - raymondh 10y ago
    Strange game, Dr. Falken.
  - home_boi 10y ago
    you still lose if you're an asian/indian/white male. I care about this topic because I don't want to be discriminated based on my race or gender. It is a zero sum game. Companies will require the same head count regardless of its racial/gender composition. At best, companies right now are lowering the bar on who they give interviews to when an under represented minority is involved (who ends up being upper middle class and privileged anyway, just like how AA works). Organizations are also providing resources and networking that I do not have access to. On average, I suspect that some companies actually discriminate based on race/gender against white/asian/indian males when comparing interview performance with minorities. At worst, the equal opportunity act is abolished and corporate affirmative action is allowed. This sound crazy but colleges are still able to discriminate based on race/gender so it's not that far fetched.
    - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
      Personally speaking I'm a white dude and I'm not at all afraid of extra competition from women, minorities, and minorities who are also women, because worst case scenario I'll just step up my game.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - fuqted 10y ago
        I'm against affirmative action but I find it amusing that I can use it to my advantage. I identify with (white) American, though I'm a quarter Hawaiian and a quarter Hispanic.
- fnovd 10y ago
  >You either agree completely with the zeitgeist and get domesticated as an "ally", which is like being a little mindless pet. Talk about coded language. zeitgeist: Focusing on diversity is just a temporary fad, I'm thinking ahead by sitting this one out domesticated: Changing my opinion is akin to renouncing my freedom and autonomy "ally": People like me don't really agree with those crazy diversity people, we just need reasonable cover mindless pet: Those who don't agree with me have freed themselves from the perils of rational, enlightened thought. Like dogs! Or pigs, being fattened for the slaughter I do agree with your premise (talking about diversity as a cis-straight-white-male can be a minefield), but there has to be some recognition that one's race (among other factors, even!) can color your experience on the job or in an interview. You may argue that social class or cultural upbringing have more of an impact, but those variables have an undeniable connection to race/ethnicity as well.
  - nsxwolf 10y ago
    "Ally" isn't my word. We actually get called that. It's a pat on the head that doesn't buy you anything. You get asked to not have an opinion about certain things, to not enter certain spaces ala "White media to the back, black media to the front"
    - fnovd 10y ago
      Waiting for your turn to speak isn't the same as being silenced. Being asked to listen to the opinions of others isn't the same as being asked not to have an opinion. 'Entitlement' is the relevant buzzword here.
      - AvenueIngres 10y ago
        Stop allysplaining
      - jstx 10y ago
        You assume too much. There is frequently no asking. There has been (in my personal experience) a lot of demanding, and (yes) entitlement to expect that an opinion from one is more salient than a fact from another, owing only to the heritage or physical characteristics of those that voiced it.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  I have lost a few friends for daring to indicate that I don't feel constantly guilty for the actions of people who I likely have no relevant relation to who share my skin pigmentation. It's unsurprising white male suicide is up, when society is telling everyone white male opinions don't matter and that it's okay to discriminate against them. (Oh, and the same people who discriminate against white males are usually the people ignoring the fact that most of the gun violence they're complaining about is mostly white male suicide. I agree with a lot of liberal views, but liberals can be funny sometimes too. Maybe instead of trying to ban guns we should just stop telling white males their voices aren't important because they're white males.)
  - edblarney 10y ago
    "I have lost a few friends for daring to indicate that I don't feel constantly guilty for the actions of people" A) They weren't friends, obviously B) They are crazy on the margins. This kind of stuff is why I stopped identifying with progressive causes. Sure - I might support a lot of it, but it's off the deep end. And the 'group think' and oppressive and stifling situations were just too much. To think that you could possibly 'lose friends' over such an issue is the insanity that is 2016.
    - ebfe 10y ago
      They aren't on the margins, at all. Sanders said that white men don't know what it's like to be poor, the Colombia mattress girl was invited to the State of the Union, the president of Harvard was fired for saying that men may have greater variance in genetic traits than women. Hundreds of millions in federal funding is awarded for professors to talk about how we need to "abolish whiteness"; it's the dominant belief system in academics.
      - douche 10y ago
        And people are aghast at the idea that there might be a reaction opposed to such insansity...
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  It's not enough to just avoid the topic - I've had someone go off on a two minute talking-over-me rant about how I really ought to have an opinion on that sort of thing.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    After Ferguson, a young, white guy at a store... extremely nice & harmless guy... in our locale was all shook up. Barely speaking to people under his breath. I asked him why. He said he was delivering a speech in a college class on something peripherally related. Some black student shouted a Ferguson connection. He tried to dismiss it in what came off to me as neutral just moving on with his assignment. Argument ensued with the entire class (mostly black) screaming at him until he sat down. Then they treated him like shit afterwards for the next few days. He figured he might have said or done something wrong. I tried to calm him down explaining that they simply don't allow whites to have opinions on topics like this. They become a mob that can gets louder, angrier, and more dangerous as you resist. Mob-behavior is irrational and dangerous in all races. Best just to avoid talking to them until they calm down. They got along better a while after since they just wrote it off as white ignorance that they put in its place far as I can tell. That's how they describe those moments to me in the past. I told him the real problem was that they ganged up on his ass to intimidate him into silence. We can't get any consensus or improvements if either side uses tactics like that. They all need to knock it off.
    - jrnichols 10y ago
      This sounds a lot like trying to discuss things with modern feminists.
    - eschaton 10y ago
      Interesting that you don't say what exactly it was that he said to which someone made a "Ferguson connection."
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        It was so mundane I dont even remember it. He just disagreed with a blind, talking point they got from social media. All it took. He's white so not allowed to disagree. They slammed his ass. I saw same pattern on many online discussions at the time. Heabily polarized with info on each side from biased sources. Any opposing comment, small or large, got same effect of dismissal and/or attacks by large number of people. In this case, there were many of them and one of him. And he probably looked really nervous after initial exchange. Often creates a Pirhana-like effect where whole group jumps in.
- fapjacks 10y ago
  Personally, I think the reason for this is because a lot of it doesn't actually have anything to do with diversity, but is just the same old bullshit about control, power, and domination. I encourage everyone to give this theory a chance, because I want an egalitarian world as much as any die-hard Star Trek nerd possibly can. It just appears that much of the discourse is being steamrolled in order to create local centers of power and control. Like many things throughout human history.
totalZero 10y ago
Pardon me asking, but what is CIS? I'm assuming that's where you work.
- mlvljr 10y ago
  Hopefully not Commonwealth of Independent States :)
- grmarcil 10y ago
  "Cis" is short for "cisgender", ie the opposite of "transgender"
- EpicEng 10y ago
  99.999% of earth's population
- Anthony-G 10y ago
  When I first came across the term, I figured out what it meant based on the context and my interest in history: Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina, now in modern day Italy) was the part of Gaul on the same side of the Alps as classical Rome, while Transapline Gaul (Gallia Transalpina, in modern day France) was on the opposite side of the Alps.

nsxwolf 10y ago

I learned to stop having such conversations long ago. You either agree completely with the zeitgeist and get domesticated as an "ally", which is like being a little mindless pet. Or you disagree with a point or two and get savaged, and marginalized. When I just avoid the topic, everything stays OK and everyone remains friendly.

douche 10y ago
The only winning move is not to play.
- raymondh 10y ago
  Strange game, Dr. Falken.
- home_boi 10y ago
  you still lose if you're an asian/indian/white male. I care about this topic because I don't want to be discriminated based on my race or gender. It is a zero sum game. Companies will require the same head count regardless of its racial/gender composition. At best, companies right now are lowering the bar on who they give interviews to when an under represented minority is involved (who ends up being upper middle class and privileged anyway, just like how AA works). Organizations are also providing resources and networking that I do not have access to. On average, I suspect that some companies actually discriminate based on race/gender against white/asian/indian males when comparing interview performance with minorities. At worst, the equal opportunity act is abolished and corporate affirmative action is allowed. This sound crazy but colleges are still able to discriminate based on race/gender so it's not that far fetched.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    Personally speaking I'm a white dude and I'm not at all afraid of extra competition from women, minorities, and minorities who are also women, because worst case scenario I'll just step up my game.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - fuqted 10y ago
      I'm against affirmative action but I find it amusing that I can use it to my advantage. I identify with (white) American, though I'm a quarter Hawaiian and a quarter Hispanic.
fnovd 10y ago
>You either agree completely with the zeitgeist and get domesticated as an "ally", which is like being a little mindless pet. Talk about coded language. zeitgeist: Focusing on diversity is just a temporary fad, I'm thinking ahead by sitting this one out domesticated: Changing my opinion is akin to renouncing my freedom and autonomy "ally": People like me don't really agree with those crazy diversity people, we just need reasonable cover mindless pet: Those who don't agree with me have freed themselves from the perils of rational, enlightened thought. Like dogs! Or pigs, being fattened for the slaughter I do agree with your premise (talking about diversity as a cis-straight-white-male can be a minefield), but there has to be some recognition that one's race (among other factors, even!) can color your experience on the job or in an interview. You may argue that social class or cultural upbringing have more of an impact, but those variables have an undeniable connection to race/ethnicity as well.
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  "Ally" isn't my word. We actually get called that. It's a pat on the head that doesn't buy you anything. You get asked to not have an opinion about certain things, to not enter certain spaces ala "White media to the back, black media to the front"
  - fnovd 10y ago
    Waiting for your turn to speak isn't the same as being silenced. Being asked to listen to the opinions of others isn't the same as being asked not to have an opinion. 'Entitlement' is the relevant buzzword here.
    - AvenueIngres 10y ago
      Stop allysplaining
    - jstx 10y ago
      You assume too much. There is frequently no asking. There has been (in my personal experience) a lot of demanding, and (yes) entitlement to expect that an opinion from one is more salient than a fact from another, owing only to the heritage or physical characteristics of those that voiced it.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
I have lost a few friends for daring to indicate that I don't feel constantly guilty for the actions of people who I likely have no relevant relation to who share my skin pigmentation. It's unsurprising white male suicide is up, when society is telling everyone white male opinions don't matter and that it's okay to discriminate against them. (Oh, and the same people who discriminate against white males are usually the people ignoring the fact that most of the gun violence they're complaining about is mostly white male suicide. I agree with a lot of liberal views, but liberals can be funny sometimes too. Maybe instead of trying to ban guns we should just stop telling white males their voices aren't important because they're white males.)
- edblarney 10y ago
  "I have lost a few friends for daring to indicate that I don't feel constantly guilty for the actions of people" A) They weren't friends, obviously B) They are crazy on the margins. This kind of stuff is why I stopped identifying with progressive causes. Sure - I might support a lot of it, but it's off the deep end. And the 'group think' and oppressive and stifling situations were just too much. To think that you could possibly 'lose friends' over such an issue is the insanity that is 2016.
  - ebfe 10y ago
    They aren't on the margins, at all. Sanders said that white men don't know what it's like to be poor, the Colombia mattress girl was invited to the State of the Union, the president of Harvard was fired for saying that men may have greater variance in genetic traits than women. Hundreds of millions in federal funding is awarded for professors to talk about how we need to "abolish whiteness"; it's the dominant belief system in academics.
    - douche 10y ago
      And people are aghast at the idea that there might be a reaction opposed to such insansity...
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
It's not enough to just avoid the topic - I've had someone go off on a two minute talking-over-me rant about how I really ought to have an opinion on that sort of thing.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  After Ferguson, a young, white guy at a store... extremely nice & harmless guy... in our locale was all shook up. Barely speaking to people under his breath. I asked him why. He said he was delivering a speech in a college class on something peripherally related. Some black student shouted a Ferguson connection. He tried to dismiss it in what came off to me as neutral just moving on with his assignment. Argument ensued with the entire class (mostly black) screaming at him until he sat down. Then they treated him like shit afterwards for the next few days. He figured he might have said or done something wrong. I tried to calm him down explaining that they simply don't allow whites to have opinions on topics like this. They become a mob that can gets louder, angrier, and more dangerous as you resist. Mob-behavior is irrational and dangerous in all races. Best just to avoid talking to them until they calm down. They got along better a while after since they just wrote it off as white ignorance that they put in its place far as I can tell. That's how they describe those moments to me in the past. I told him the real problem was that they ganged up on his ass to intimidate him into silence. We can't get any consensus or improvements if either side uses tactics like that. They all need to knock it off.
  - jrnichols 10y ago
    This sounds a lot like trying to discuss things with modern feminists.
  - eschaton 10y ago
    Interesting that you don't say what exactly it was that he said to which someone made a "Ferguson connection."
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      It was so mundane I dont even remember it. He just disagreed with a blind, talking point they got from social media. All it took. He's white so not allowed to disagree. They slammed his ass. I saw same pattern on many online discussions at the time. Heabily polarized with info on each side from biased sources. Any opposing comment, small or large, got same effect of dismissal and/or attacks by large number of people. In this case, there were many of them and one of him. And he probably looked really nervous after initial exchange. Often creates a Pirhana-like effect where whole group jumps in.
fapjacks 10y ago
Personally, I think the reason for this is because a lot of it doesn't actually have anything to do with diversity, but is just the same old bullshit about control, power, and domination. I encourage everyone to give this theory a chance, because I want an egalitarian world as much as any die-hard Star Trek nerd possibly can. It just appears that much of the discourse is being steamrolled in order to create local centers of power and control. Like many things throughout human history.

totalZero 10y ago

Pardon me asking, but what is CIS? I'm assuming that's where you work.

mlvljr 10y ago
Hopefully not Commonwealth of Independent States :)
grmarcil 10y ago
"Cis" is short for "cisgender", ie the opposite of "transgender"
EpicEng 10y ago
99.999% of earth's population
Anthony-G 10y ago
When I first came across the term, I figured out what it meant based on the context and my interest in history: Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina, now in modern day Italy) was the part of Gaul on the same side of the Alps as classical Rome, while Transapline Gaul (Gallia Transalpina, in modern day France) was on the opposite side of the Alps.