That's a piece in Salon by Amanda Marcotte.
I didn't read the column. The headline made me feel as though I'd already read it 100 times. But I did prompt Grok:"Make the argument that the dismantling of DEI is racist" and "Make the argument that the real racists are those who make the argument that the dismantling of DEI is racist."
There's an authenticity to getting robotic things from a real robot. If it's going to be automatic, I'd like a crisp 7- or 8-point list.
Maybe it's not automatic. Maybe I'm being unfair to Amanda Marcotte. But how many chances to surprise do you get in this world?
ADDED: I don't like the way "DEI" seems to refer to the abstract ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's used as shorthand to refer to the work of promoting these ideals, which one might deem wasteful or counterproductive without rejecting the ideals. A tremendous amount of money is spent on this activity: "One 2020 estimate placed the size of the global diversity and inclusion market at $7.5 billion, of which $3.4 billion was in the United States, projecting it to reach $17.2 billion by 2027."
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65 comments:
DEI & Nepotism have corroded society.
DEI creates the opposite.
Women and people of color who were hired on merit - are cruelly thrown into a mix where suddenly they are looked upon in a negative light.
DEI is anti-meritocracy. It's not necessary, and it creates nonsense like fire-trucks covered in pride flags. (as one of many examples)
Ask your little buddy Grok, "what's wrong with being racist?".
Raise your hand if you want an unqualified chip-on-shoulder angry over-weight lesbian - to show up as your home is burning to the ground.
Amanda Marcotte is an idiot.
I actually read the essay.
You need to apologize. Calling her an idiot is an insult to idiots the world over.
Merit is all that matters.
The left are obsessed with race, gender and sexuality - to the point of mass insanity.
Sorry idiots. didn't mean to throw super duper maxi-idiot in with the regular idiots.
how much is chase spending on this tax dodge that is salon
Lefties routinely overthink themselves into a corner, conundrum, riddle, and enigma. Hoisted on their own petards, as utopia is just over the next hilltop and salvation is a day away.
See "far left deep blue" California's decades of fighting about anti-discrimination laws vs. DEI. Spoiler: They consistently vote against DEI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_California_Proposition_209
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16
See lefty FDR on federal employee unions, versus one of those unions today:
https://nationalcenter.org/ncppr/2011/02/19/blog-text-of-fdr-letter-opposing-public-employee-government-unions/
https://www.afge.org/
I remember Amanda Marcotte! Still think Iowahawks' parody of her email exchange with the Edwards campaign is one of the best things from the 2000s. https://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2007/02/the_pandagon_pa.html
I'm open to the claim that the assault on DEI is not principally about making merit the exclusive basis for institutional decision-making in hiring, etc. I think it's really more about (a) pushing back against the normalization of discrimination against heterosexual white males; and (b) trying to prevent government or private employers from dictating what kind of political and/or social beliefs are acceptable for people within those organizations to hold. If you don't have DEI enshrined as part of your organization's stated mission or purpose, or in job descriptions and the like, then it's hard to compel applicants for employment or promotion to spell out what they'll do to advance or apply DEI in their work, which in reality in compelled speech that serves to screen out people who aren't deemed sufficiently woke.
The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
A large chunk of America wants to move beyond race and racism. Go ahead, tell them how evil they are. Keep this issue alive as long as you can so its still an issue in the midterms.
The country and Los Angeles is in shock over the realization of the dangers of DEI when it takes priority over competence. Especially when it comes to firefighting, ground combat. There is nothing wrong with Equal Opportunity Employment. And there is nothing wrong with outlawing discriminatory practices based on race and gender. But, as usual, liberals took it to a place nobody expected to go.
If Colleges were forced truly implement DEI practices, the would have to set a quota for hiring conservative straight white men with penises who like to sleep with real women. Look how DEI has watered down our education system.
I feel like I am getting old in that i find it difficult to separate in my memory Amanda Marcotte from Jessica Valenti (I had to search bill clinton Althouse and chest to remember which was which).
DEI in education has rightly come under attack. But it seems to work fine in the profit-making world, where merit is still paramount, but prejudices can still linger. Dunno about government where I had summer jobs in school, and said no thanks.
DEI is institutional, systemic Diversity (i.e. color judgments, class bigotry).
Thet said, diversity of individuals, minority of one.
Taken altogether - kids not being able to read or write, people being enticed to shoplift, people stuffing ballot boxes, people transfixed by 10 s social media posts, etc., this DEI schtick was just a ploy for people who can’t or won’t compete for a job, to get a job. Our system has set up many of our young people to fail in the job marketplace, not being able compete against illegal immigrants, even. DEI serves to try to correct the obvious problem the PTB created, using racial and gender animus as a cudgel. Getting rid of DEI is critical if we want our educational system in particular to undergo a few correction cycles.
"Maybe I'm being unfair to Amanda Marcotte."
That's like saying you've been discourteous to the Ebola virus.
The people that got their jobs in the profit-making world through diversity, equity, and inclusion make no profits, depend upon it.
Consider the source.
The war on DEI is not about merit, but that's okay because DEI is not about merit either.
"Complex systems will not survive the competency crisis" is a phrase heard in many economics circles these past 10 years. By the measurement these people themselves have established, Karen Bass is America's best mayor and Hunter Biden is father of the year and the next Van Gogh.
"where merit is still paramount,"
Lol. I guess you never had to carry any deadweight on your team, people who seemed to care a lot more about politics and issues of "social justice" than meeting team deadlines for deliverables. You didn't give these people critical tasks within the project plan, not if you cared about hitting your targets. Fortunately there always seemed to be enough money to avoid having to fire them because everybody knew where that would lead.
The argument that ending DEI is racist is based on the notion that there are no legitimate arguments against ending DEI and that's all their small brains can come up with. Leftists rarely, if ever, are forced to argue using logic, reason, facts, and evidence so they resort to name-calling. That works in their small woke circles, but in the real world where having the best argument supported by facts matters, the pro-DEI arguments are eventually shown to be pretty hollow and people laugh instead of cower at being called racist.
Sorry, but it’s real robots either way.
Ooooh, lingering prejudices!!
I managed to get through it also. All you need to know is that she recycles once again the utterly stupid lie that Trump said to inject bleach. She dismisses a decorated combat veteran as "an understudy Fox New host." And the rhetoric only goes downhill from there.
How these leftist idiots that happen to be able to string a few words together coherently (see: MoDO) believe they are in any way qualified to look down on people of accomplishment is the ultimate example of Dunning-Krueger.
From the article (in the loosest sense, it's more of a rant than anything else):
"As a 2023 McKinsey report shows, companies that embrace race and gender diversity in higher have 39% better financial performance than other companies."
If this were true, caused by their 'diverse' employees, wouldn't companies naturally employ a diverse population. There is nothing Trump has done which requires companies to hire or not hire from any given pool of candidates.
But that's racist, of course...
Since you now have apparently taken to commenting on articles you haven't read (because reading the headline is enough to know that the article sucks), which you used to excoriate commenters for, yes you are being unfair.
Anyone who cites McKinsey regarding DEI...ugg...blind follower and a tainted brand name...
McKinsey has been attacked/debunked for its DEI work. See this a few right-wing responses below. Also note that McKinsey was fined $650M for its role in the Purdue opiod mess. McKinsey was involved with Enron. McKinsey worked with Saudi Arabia (Khashoggi murder context). Etc.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mckinseys-work-for-saudi-arabia-highlights-its-history-of-unsavory-entanglements
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/07/03/bogus-study-heart-corporate-dei/
https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/03/new-study-shows-mckinseys-studies-promoting-dei-profitability-were-garbage/
seems to work fine in the profit-making world
Check with Boeing on that.
Marcotte: "Donald Trump's war on DEI is not about 'merit.'"
Strictly speaking, that is correct. It is about eliminating invidious discrimination that is clearly antithetical to American ideals.
DIE must, by definition, be antagonistic to meritocracy. In the absence of meritless discrimination, the only remaining sorting mechanism is merit. That alone is reason enough to rubbish DEI, but it isn't the primary reason.
That dollar figure is just the hard measure. Try accounting for lost productivity and opportunity cost. Immeasurable but an extrapolation suggests the number is much higher than the reported billions...
Ask your little buddy Grok, "what's wrong with being racist?".
There is no convincing utilitarian argument to be made against it, only moralism that is not distinguishable from religious faith.
I like the fact they are recycling the old talking points that were insufficient last time- makes me a bit more optimistic today...
I think people underestimate how difficult it is to select people purely on merit. What are you trying to measure? For instance, should colleges be judging applicants based on demonstrated achievement to date or potential? Getting high grades in high school depends a lot on your ability to test well and to work hard. Does either of those skills indicate intelligence? What do you do about applicants who go to dysfunctional inner city high schools? Not only does it seem to be unfair to judge them using the same criteria used for applicants from expensive private schools, but doing that likely will result in the colleges' missing out on some truly exceptional applicants.
...to tell you that 'you're in the wrong place'.
Well I never gave all that much credence to anything that Amanda Marcotte had to say---bless her heart. DEI is great in theory--it's an aspirational goal. But in practice it has proved to be pernicious. Hubert at 12:43 makes an interesting point--there may be hidden intellectual gems hamstrung by going to dysfunctional inner city high schools. But in the name of DEI colleges have discarded the SAT--which was a place where a kid could show his actual ability.
All you need to know is that she recycles once again the utterly stupid lie that Trump said to inject bleach
At almost the exact same time as the COVID crisis was coming to a head in March or April 2020, a company called Aytu and the Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles were engaged in research on a device to apply endobronchial ultraviolet light to patients with viral infections.
The company and its research physicians got death threats from outraged leftists after Trump clumsily referred to their studies, and social media censored all mention of it.
I got a one week suspension from Facebook for posting this link:
https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/cedars-sinai-statement-on-uv-a--technology/
Weak solutions of bleach have been used intraoperatively to decontaminate the pleural spaces, and there were some experiments in Russia on using it endobronchially.
It was not proven effective for COVID, as far as I know, but it's yet another example of how Trump is far, far, far smarter and better informed that the loudmouth liberals who hate him and anything that makes him look good.
What foolishness it is to pay more attention to a blowhard high-school dropout like Robert DeNiro than to a man with a Wharton MBA and briefings on current research from the most prominent scientific advisors.
I don't like the way "DEI" seems to refer to the abstract ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's used as shorthand to refer to the work of promoting these ideals
I don't like the way proponents of DEI policies appear (notably accusations and allegations of racism, and actions based on those accusations and allegations, against opponents of these policies) to use the "abstract ideals" definition when defending DEI, but act (via things like requiring "diversity statements") as if they intend what Dogma and Pony Show says at 11:44 -
to compel applicants for employment or promotion to spell out what they'll do to advance or apply DEI in their work, which in reality i[s] compelled speech that serves to screen out people who aren't deemed sufficiently woke.
As is pointed out every time the "women are only paid $0.87 for every $1 a man makes" canard, if a racially or ethnically diverse workforce really did constitute a business strength, private companies in today's world would be all over that (see also H-1B visas). It's in heavily regulated and/or unionized organizations that the workforce has to be browbeaten into "diversity," it seems to me - where union membership is a family affair or, as in government, where the job is seen as a super-safe haven, not generally very demanding or high-paying, but the last remaining area of virtually guaranteed lifelong employment with a generous retirement plan.
@ readering: whachoo smokin'?
Perplexity offers some counters to your unsupported claim:
"Here are some notable corporations that have scaled back or eliminated DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives in recent years:
Meta (Facebook): Significantly reduced DEI teams and programs
Amazon: Disbanded its diversity, equity, and inclusion team
Disney: Scaled back DEI training and initiatives
Google: Reduced DEI-focused hiring and programs
Zoom: Eliminated its entire DEI team
X (formerly Twitter): Dismantled DEI departments
BlackRock: Reduced DEI-focused hiring and programs"
Why would they do that, if DEI "works fine"? Simple answer: merit, experience and competence work best when a business seeks to maximize profits.
And to add to Howard's comment: Ideology doesn't build safe airplanes.
>Maybe I'm being unfair to Amanda Marcotte.<
Promulgating that nasty loon's crazed ideas is being unfair to her.
The "work of promoting" DEI? Then don't think of it that way. Think of the fruits of that labor, which in effect is ends up promoting only those who pledge fealty to DEI. So when a qualified person applies but will not bend the knee (so to speak) to DEI as the ultimate goal of the job, say a job fighting fires or managing IRS agents, the person who pledges to push DEI will get the job over the other qualified applicant. Too often the "DEI hire" turns out to be totally incompetent at the job. If that were not so, such public opprobrium towards the practice would not have sprung up.
Certainly one component of anti-DEI is to spread the Gospel of Roberts: "The way to stop discriminating by race is to stop discriminating by race." The virtue of this approach is that it is legal and consistent with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, whereas DEI is neither.
Maybe they should have called DEI "DIE" or "The final solution". Honestly, i hate these fucking titles and labels designed to hide what they actually are. "Affirmative Action" is "discriminate against white people, especially white men". DEI is the same thing on steroids.
The civil rights act says "no discriminiation based on race", but our SCOTUS says it actually doesn't mean that. Again, all this word play just disguises who has the power and who is getting hurt.
Conservatives, of course, just play into the hands of the Left, by using their fake titles and acronymns and getting into the weeds and writing detailed "Gosh, i think this is unreasonable" memos and columns. But then they don't really want to win or change things, they just want to "own the libs".
Hubert, corporations seek to hire people based on demonstrated experience and evidence of competence, such as results they have achieved on previous jobs. THAT's WHY college students with worthless degrees are passed over.
As for those with only a high school educaiton or less, they have always had to somehow get their foot in the door, by getting entry-level jobs and working their way up.
More young people--mostly men---are forgoing college educations in favor of "the trades", which offer high-paying jobs to those who demonstrate their skills. Apprenticeships offer them a place to start.
You couldn't be more wrong. It's yet one more straw on the HR camel's back that causes millions of wasted man hours for corporate America, more regulation without benefit that raises costs, lowers morale and degrades America's competitiveness globally.
Through dogmatic embrace of Diversity (i.e. class-disordered ideologies), liberals made the same mistake as progressives when they caste (sic) the transgender spectrum as politically congruent ("=") in order to normalize individuals, couplets, grooming, womb farms, etc.
America is now and has been since incorporation a very diverse place. Using Federal law to artificially impose a bureaucrat's notion of "diversity" helps no one. "Equity" is a bullshit word meant to substitute for the far superior notion of equal opportunity embraced by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Inclusion is what naturally happens when an individual has skill sets useful to the organization and is not a concept that can be applied to groups: Companies don't hire groups they hire individual people.
Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class bigotry), Equivocation, and Incompetence (DEI) a.k.a. DIE a.k.a. IED... selfie-aborts with a boom in a tragicomedy.
Preachy lesbians and trans-women are their own worst advocates.
Ha! Just got an e-mail explaining that the OPM (the federal Office of Personnel Management) is testing a new capability allowing it to send important communications to ALL Federal employees from a single e-mail address, HR@opm.gov.
I wonder why they would want to do that.
What do you do about applicants who go to dysfunctional inner city high schools? Not only does it seem to be unfair to judge them using the same criteria used for applicants from expensive private schools, but doing that likely will result in the colleges' missing out on some truly exceptional applicants.
Merit and fairness aren't the same. Indeed, they aren't even related.
It isn't fair that some kids are victimized by rubbish schools, or by being raised in a single parent household, or being prone to panic attacks, ad infinitum.
Various criteria, lumped under merit, are predictive of the likelihood of success. Inadequate preparation adversely affects those criteria. The inadequate preparation may be unfair, but will very much affect the likelihood of success.
From 1996-2000 I was in command of AF and Navy pilot training squadrons. There was a definite push to increase the diversity of student pilots, who were 96% male.
In order to get into required, among other things, getting past a reasonably high bar on various aptitude tests. Those tests, and the min scores, were there because they were very predictive of success. Among the tests were spatial visualization and mechanical reasoning. Both have distinct differences in the male and female means (mechanical reasoning, the mean for women is a standard deviation below that for men).
It isn't fair that, statistically speaking, far fewer women than men score well enough in these areas to predict success within pilot training's budget and time constraints.
There would be no attaining the kind of gender representation DEI would require without lowering standards. Otherwise, there would be no need for DEI.
High grades in challenging courses, and testing well are both highly predictive of success at elite colleges.
However, if one accepts the argument that those are artificial barriers to equally talented — because preparation isn't material — people from unfortunate backgrounds, then the entire case for selective admissions is holed below the water line.
Oddly, admissions boards at elite schools never sussed that.
Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
DEI in hiring is a disincentive for those whom it favors to strive for excellence. Why bother?
Nobody needs to take a bite of a shit sandwich to know it doesn't taste good Fredo. A whiff is plenty sufficient.
Affirmative Inaction (AI): DEI
Affirmative action: study, train, work... no color judgments, no Diversity blocs. #HateLovesAbortion
marcotte is 3 years younger than mebut looks but looks 30 years older
The absolute hatred dripping from that article is amazing.
Amanda Marcotte.
'Nuff said Fredo.
If the Left hadn't had a cow over the Bell Curve, maybe they could have worked on maximizing the abilities of those not so brainy instead of throwing them in water over their heads and watching them drown. But as with crime and energy, making life better isn't their priority.
You read it Fredo - and soak in the tasty idiot juices of Amanda Marionette.
The rest of us will skip yet another tired and lame lecture from a dumb white leftist spouting off ..."you're a racist!"
Hubert -
The left hate School choice - and the left and the corrupt and dangerous teachers union do not care at all about failing schools. Whenever we try to fix it - the Teacher's Union stops it all.
Obama himself - ended popular school choice programs in DC when he first took office. The left and the Teacher's union are one hand washes the other - but with dollar bills instead of soap.
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