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> DEI efforts, and often those leading them, are increasingly the most biased and close minded parts of the organization. That's a feature, not a bug. As Ibram

> DEI efforts, and often those leading them, are increasingly the most biased and close minded parts of the organization. That's a feature, not a bug. As Ibram X Kendi says, "the only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination".

lazide 5y ago
Coarse grained discrimination based on some visible attribute is fundamentally destructive to producing value of any kind, and always ends up with terrible outcomes for anyone that cares about anything but the metric of 'what percent matches this coarse grained attribute'. We call it race when it's based on appearance markers we associate with race, we call it sexism when we base it off gender, we call it ageism when it is off apparent age, we call it nationalism when it is based off national origin. And it's always wrong, and left unchecked, it is always destructive.
buddhistdude 5y ago
That's right, and the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination x)
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> "the only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination" this is probably the dumbest sentence I have ever read in my life. Is present slavery the only remedy to past slavery?
baryphonic 5y ago
> That's a feature, not a bug. As Ibram X Kendi says, "the only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination". Not only is this logically fallacious (has Kendi really considered every possible remedy?), but it is belied by historical fact. Chinese people were heavily discriminated against in America at one time. Today, Chinese people and their descendants are among the most successful ethnic groups in America, but have never received any sort of affirmative action program. In fact, Chinese people are still discriminated against (by e.g. Ivy League admissions offices) for being "too successful." My experiences with DEI acolytes who follow the likes of Kendi, Crenshaw, Coates & DiAngelo is that they respond to these inconvenient facts with mystical assertions about successful non-white groups being "white adjacent" or beneficiaries of "white supremacy."
ellen364 5y ago
That Kendi quote is incredibly polarising, but makes sense when you think about his view of the world. The Kendi quote that helped me understand where he’s coming from was “When I see racial disparities, I see racism.” Some comments on this post mention the irony of diversity initiatives that discriminate. Kendi’s argument, I think, is that there’s no good reason for occupations to be skewed towards one race or gender or age or whatever, so additional / opposite discrimination simply undoes the initial bias. I think that’s a challenging POV for a couple of reasons. First, for those of us in well paid or high status jobs, like software development, it’s a POV that suggests “maybe you don’t deserve it quite as much as you imagine”. That’s a tough thing to consider, doesn’t feel great and probably isn’t going to be popular. Second, it’s really hard (impossible?) to know the extent to which culture has affected distribution into occupations. But some people seem confident that our status quo is natural and fair and some people seem confident that it’s unnatural and unfair. When people with those different POVs talk to each other, they’re starting with a big gap in how they understand the world.

lazide 5y ago

Coarse grained discrimination based on some visible attribute is fundamentally destructive to producing value of any kind, and always ends up with terrible outcomes for anyone that cares about anything but the metric of 'what percent matches this coarse grained attribute'. We call it race when it's based on appearance markers we associate with race, we call it sexism when we base it off gender, we call it ageism when it is off apparent age, we call it nationalism when it is based off national origin. And it's always wrong, and left unchecked, it is always destructive.

buddhistdude 5y ago

That's right, and the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination x)

peoplefromibiza 5y ago

> "the only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination" this is probably the dumbest sentence I have ever read in my life. Is present slavery the only remedy to past slavery?

baryphonic 5y ago

> That's a feature, not a bug. As Ibram X Kendi says, "the only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination". Not only is this logically fallacious (has Kendi really considered every possible remedy?), but it is belied by historical fact. Chinese people were heavily discriminated against in America at one time. Today, Chinese people and their descendants are among the most successful ethnic groups in America, but have never received any sort of affirmative action program. In fact, Chinese people are still discriminated against (by e.g. Ivy League admissions offices) for being "too successful." My experiences with DEI acolytes who follow the likes of Kendi, Crenshaw, Coates & DiAngelo is that they respond to these inconvenient facts with mystical assertions about successful non-white groups being "white adjacent" or beneficiaries of "white supremacy."

ellen364 5y ago

That Kendi quote is incredibly polarising, but makes sense when you think about his view of the world. The Kendi quote that helped me understand where he’s coming from was “When I see racial disparities, I see racism.” Some comments on this post mention the irony of diversity initiatives that discriminate. Kendi’s argument, I think, is that there’s no good reason for occupations to be skewed towards one race or gender or age or whatever, so additional / opposite discrimination simply undoes the initial bias. I think that’s a challenging POV for a couple of reasons. First, for those of us in well paid or high status jobs, like software development, it’s a POV that suggests “maybe you don’t deserve it quite as much as you imagine”. That’s a tough thing to consider, doesn’t feel great and probably isn’t going to be popular. Second, it’s really hard (impossible?) to know the extent to which culture has affected distribution into occupations. But some people seem confident that our status quo is natural and fair and some people seem confident that it’s unnatural and unfair. When people with those different POVs talk to each other, they’re starting with a big gap in how they understand the world.