Writes Pamela Paul, in "When Diversity Isn’t the Right Kind of Diversity" by (NYT).
He bemoaned 'the idea that Black people who gain positions of authority or influence are vested with a special responsibility to articulate the presumed views of other people who are Black — in effect, to think and act and speak in a particular way, the Black way — and that there is something peculiar about Black people who insist on doing anything else....
In an earlier era, such sentiments might have been marked down as frankly racist. Now, however, they are almost a gospel for people who want to show their commitment to equality.' It seems odd to have to point out in 2022 that 'diverse' hires can be every bit as diverse on the inside as they are on the outside. For every Ketanji Brown Jackson, you’re liable to get a Clarence Thomas.
I'm going to read "It seems odd" as sarcasm — a way of saying it's exactly what we've come to expect.
And, by the way, if we're really going to treat people as individuals, the concepts "every Ketanji Brown Jackson" and "a Clarence Thomas" would not make sense. There is one Ketanji Brown Jackson and one Clarence Thomas.
Yet we do realize that each of them was selected, in part, because they were "a" something. No one passes through the Supreme Court filter without possessing various general characteristics that the President wants. The person selected also has generic merit — whatever that is — but won after the elimination of a great many competitors who also had merit.
Top-rated comment at the NYT:
Increasingly, diversity of viewpoint (the epistemic foundation of democracy), is being replaced or parasitized by conformity to “identity,” narrowly defined in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or partisan affiliation, as if we are no longer individuals but automatons. Kudos for speaking up. I suspect you’ll be cancelled shortly.
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58 comments:
The hard left and hard right are mirror images of each another: all are blind to complexity and nuance. The right does all it can to preserve the status quo even when it's broken, while the left tries to transform the status quo into a new and equally rigid society. The mentally ill left are never happy with the status quo and move away from hard-won optimal solutions because "change."
Resist them all. Expose them all. Discredit them all. Or suffer under one or another flavor of dogmatic rule.
My comment is this: I'm so tired of this bullshit, tired of thinking about it, discussing it, and bemoaning the fact the every living human, including and especially those who promote diversity know exactly what they are doing, how insane it is, and what it's doing to individuals and our society at large. It will continue until we stop accepting it. It will continue until we simply tell those serving it up: No. I'm not playing along with this bullshit any longer. We're done and youi're done.
I'm done.
Always something to bitch about. And of course the Guardian is all over it.
"For every Ketanji Brown Jackson, you’re liable to get a Clarence Thomas."
NYTese to English translation: "For every obesiant little liberal toady, you're liable to get someone who dares to think for himself."
Are they competent?
Those who have made "Diversity!" their mantra never extended that idea to thought. Lockstep conformity is required in that arena.
This might be the first time I find myself in total agreement with the top rated comment on a NYT article. Nice to see the wisdom of crowds poking through instead of the usual partisan smog that obscures simple truths. I’m mildly surprised the Times allows the silent majority’s opinion to bubble up to the top like this.
As I recall, in the Cornell crisis of 1969, the blacks who took over included in their demands the firing of one of the most successful blacks on campus--Pearl Lucas, an assistant dean. A conservative black professor, Thomas Sowell, came under criticism although he left Cornell before the crisis reached its peak; the life of a conservative black student, Alan Keyes, was threatened. Hard-core progressives assume that such people have sold out to a racist establishment; there is a similar thought among some feminists about women who have abandoned their putative sisters.
I thought blacks were smart (growing up in competitive schools without affirmative action, so you got smart blacks) until there were 70s black leaders on TV and all the blacks seemed to believe them. That's where the monolithic black mindset idea came from.
It's not even that they think alike but that they think something stupid.
People think alike on earth going around the sun without anybody making anything of it.
Just like bitcoin, you know it had reached it's 'top' when attractive bimbos, gays, and people who didn't have two quarters to rub together were forming BTC investment clubs and talking about the crypto portfolios in bars.
This should be a clear sign for most free-thinkers that the UK has reached a 'peak' of its capitalization. It's all downhill from here...
The UK population is only 3% black. They have absurdly too much representation in UK media, entertainment and government.
“Diversity” = “counting by [parameter X]” where “parameter X” is skin color, genitalia, country of origin, self-declared LGBTQRST, etc. But always provided that the parameter has nothing whatever to do with the actual issue, I.e. brains, training, experience, strength of character, proven merit.
The attractions of “diversity” are that it allows, indeed requires, one to abdicate any thought whatsoever (let alone principled analysis to test the quality of one’s ideas) and that it allows, indeed invites, one to blend into the herd (protected by anonymity as the Woke monitors range about the perimeter, nipping and barking at the strays).
It’s much the easier and safer course.
As with all things Prog, however, the issue is not the issue. The bullying is not a means to an end, not an expedient to help us reach a better state of “true diversity.” It’s the other way around: “diversity” is just the cause arbitrarily chosen for today, in order to justify the bullying. We are being trained to accept the unreasoning smash-mouth methods. They —pure power politics— are what matter. See the speech by O’Brien to Winston Smith at the end of “1984.”
LOL - The rigidity of the left when it comes to ideological diversity... They lose their minds if any of the various identity groups do not obey the leftwing line.
There isn't anything more dogmatic and lockstep than the modern Progressive Soviets. They long for the lockstep. They are masters at group-think and loyalist obedience-> Even in the face of corruption on their team.
NYT does it again. NYT and Wapoo(D) must be in competition for this hot garbage.
Pamela Paul is very wrong.
There is nothing inside Ketanji Jackson Five.
'Liz Truss’s cabinet: diverse but dogmatic,' noted The Guardian.
One could say the same thing about the Guardian or the Times staff -- or about Biden's cabinet -- and while it would be pleasant to think a Labour Top Four would include someone from the British working class or the Celtic fringes, it's not likely to have more heterodoxy or ideological diversity.
These people aren’t working class …
The Tories aren’t the party of the working class.
"Indigenous peoples not welcome"
Reading that headline — “When diversity isn’t the right kind of diversity “ — filled me with loathing and not just for the Left who play these vile games with virtue and language. I loathe the Right and people like this Liz Truss who still don’t understand trying to curry favor with the Left is a double losing proposition. Truly stupid people who haven’t figured out that politics is WWE wrestling.
The Right should NEVER respond to the Left’s calls for ANYTHING. So Ron DeSantis human trafficked people to Martha’s Vineyard? The next plane should be boarding passengers. Kari Lake said something mean about questioning the last election? I’ve got lots more questions, punk. Kids in cages? Where do you buy these cages?
Even as I review the previous paragraph I realize I too am still responding to the Left’s vile Alynskite virtue games. They really have perfected a Smear Monster who has terrorized the land like Stalin did in the Soviet Union. But Stalin did die, the Soviet Union finally collapsed, and this is America. Their day is coming. And Ron DeSantis and Kari Lake are on the scene.
Good. So when Truss' government collapses, they won't be able to blame a white guy.
If that's the top rated comment on the NYT website, then a US Supreme Court decision overturning Bakke and abolishing affirmative action would be one of the most popular decisions in America history.
If you are tired of this type bullshit, stop giving it your attention. Personally, I don't care if Affirmation Activity gone wild on Florida spring break is still a thing. A million years of male and a 1000-years of Viking dominance isn't going to be changed overnight. Of course, the deplorables confederacy of dunces with their concomitant book banning and anti-education "heritage" isn't helping but they can't stop history from steamrolling over their jealous ignorance and prideful arrogance.
"The hard left and hard right are mirror images of each another: all are blind to complexity and nuance. The right does all it can to preserve the status quo even when it's broken, while the left tries to transform the status quo into a new and equally rigid society. The mentally ill left are never happy with the status quo and move away from hard-won optimal solutions because "change."
Enigma: "Resist them all. Expose them all. Discredit them all. Or suffer under one or another flavor of dogmatic rule."
Yours is a parody post, isn't it? Because if it isn't, well........it sort of makes you the joke.
Ah, yes, the famous:
"We need more X!"
"Okay. Here's more X."
"Not those!"
The real demand is "more left-wingers" but it is impolite to say it, so we get this coded request. If the leftists could get what they want from old white men, they would not care about women or minorities at all.
Related to the NYT top comment; as we continue to have this parasitic identity politics; we don't choose governments made of the best people but of token representation of extreme differences among individuals.
I'm not going to read the article but, from Althouse's excerpts, and comments herein, it would seem nobody's talking about competency nor how the new Cabinet members political/economic/social philosophies mirror the PM's.
The British Conservatives are even more repulsive than the GOP establishment. UK pols are a whole SD to the left compared to the USA. In the UK, Biden/Pelosi would be Conservatives. As for there only being 1 white male Conservative, when you look at John Major, David Cameron, or Boris Johnson white male cabinet members = they're aren't missing much.
Imagine a USA cabinet full of Mitt Romney's, Larry Hogans, Charlie crists, and Jeb Bushes.
I believe that America would be far better off if there was a ban on the word race and its derivatives in all media, including social media.
That's my thought experiment. Prove me wrong.
The race surgeons and diversity knights are acting like they are doing something official and thereby getting away with doing something wrong in the plain view of others. #UnexpectedCommunism
I got the Oops notice before my last comment… I hope it made it 🫣
"The right does all it can to preserve the status quo even when it's broken"
So David Brooks is the face of the right?
Diversity bullshit
It's the dialectic.
Of course, the deplorables confederacy of dunces with their concomitant book banning and anti-education "heritage" isn't helping but they can't stop history from steamrolling over their jealous ignorance and prideful arrogance.
Howard is in favor of pornography for kids who can't read. The pictures of boys sucking dick stir up Howard's juices. "History" to lefties means they win, we lose. The way Brandon and his "climate" policies are going, we will all lose.
That's because there aren't very many white people left in England.
We watch a lot of British TV (AcornTV).
These days the only white people in the cast are tokens.
The bosses are almost always black women and increasingly lesbians.
The brits are far more woke than we are if that's possible...
Enigma said...The hard left and hard right are mirror images of each another: all are blind to complexity and nuance. The right does all it can to preserve the status quo even when it's broken, while the left tries to transform the status quo into a new and equally rigid society.
I have 2 points of disagreement:
1) The right's fringe actually is fringe, while the left's fringe has the support of the media and the ear of the Democratic leadership.
2) It is not irrational to prefer the devil you know to the devil you don't know. Making sweeping changes is a far graver act than clinging to what you already have, warts and all. I see no evidence that the left has even tried to understand what they are doing.
While from certain points of view, they may be doing the same thing, they do not represent 2 sides of the same coin.
As Chief Justice Roberts said “The way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating by race.” This also applies to other forms of diversity. Don’t say “Jane Doe is the first female Secretary of Whatever”….just say “Jane Doe is the Secretary of Whatever”. When you see her the rest will be obvious.
Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, and normalizes color blocs (e.g. "people of color"), color quotas (e.g. People of Asia, Asian-Americans), and affirmative discrimination (e.g. "too many Jews", "Jew privilege") under the Pro-Choice ethical religion adopted by Progressive Cults, Corporations, Clinics, Classes, Agencies, Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, Temples, etc.
That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion
The conservative centrist. The immoderate middle. The authoritarian left. The libertarian right. The totalitarian hard-left. The anarchist hard-right. The left-right nexus is leftist.
The conservative centrist. The immoderate middle. The progressive [unqualified] monotonic. The liberal divergent. The authoritarian left. The libertarian right. The totalitarian hard-left. The anarchist hard-right. The left-right nexus is leftist. #PrinciplesMatter
The article is gently critical of the idea expressed in the headline and of the people who take that position (mostly British Labor politicians) and is carefully supportive of intellectual diversity and meritocracy.
The top rated comment is seemingly conservative but is actually just another example of Times readers simply following along with what they are told is the right way to think.
Re-posted and added:
There's no way that Blogger is as buggy as it has been lately unless intentionally so.
The American Dream of attaining anything in the United States is dead. For White Males.
I have 3 grandsons ages 10 and 12. They will always be passed over by some member of a hot button identity group. Merit is no longer sought and often works against White Males. They are smart, and developing a work ethic. Personable, respectful, and teachable.
Look at DC today. The incompetence is astounding. The VP, Sec Transportation, Sec Energy, Sec Homeland Security. All together this group could not find the area of circle. In the era of Smart phones, that is some special kind of stupid. The common denominator? Elevated to position of importance because they checked a diversity box
Diverse because they attended both Oxford and Cambridge. But not all attended Eton, which is still just for boys.
Too bad there's no place for Kemi Badenoch--a REAL conservative--in Liz Truss' inner circle.
readering: "Diverse because they attended both Oxford and Cambridge. But not all attended Eton, which is still just for boys."
And just like that, our New Soviet Democraticals toss aside 50 years of their narrrative talking points.
Because they were told to do so.
And remember, as a lefty, you MUST walk in "lockstep" and not deviate "from the majority" (majority of radical democraticals) lest you become a nazi extremist.
There has never been any doubt readering can maintain lefty in good standing status.
Diversity is of great concern to a very small number of people. Out here in the real world, no one thinks it matters. We deal in day to day problems, not in skin color.
the education system is obsessed by race. If Ann were a recent law school grad today, would she even be considered by a law firm, or a law school?
Diversity, as it is now practiced, promotes people simply because they are in a certain class.
The results, thus far, have shown such policies to be complete failures.
There's a whole lotta over-compensation coming out of those Howard posts.
It's pretty clear why.
By focusing on "diversity", the elites are able to shift questions away from the real issues of whether or not those "diverse" parties are competent or effective.
This is the subtle cancer of affirmative action; you substitute irrelevant issues of skin color, ethnicity, and religious preferences for actual substantive ones like "Does this character do his job effectively, and is he actually competent?"
Once you shift over to that mindset, you ain't coming back. It's all downhill, from there.
The really insidious thing is that actual competent "preferentially treated" types are lost in the morass of surrounding incompetence demonstrated by their fellow group members, of whatever type. Even for other members of that group...
I remember, sadly, a young captain I worked around when he was a junior lieutenant. He was black, and presented as an uber-Theo Huxtable type, a black "Frat Bro" if there ever was one. When we first got him in, he came in and introduced himself to all of the senior NCOs, and the remark made by one of my squad leaders was "Wow, I didn't know they came in that color..."
Said remark, as you could imagine, rather set off one of the black NCOs, and he sarcastically replied "Yeah, they've let us be officers for awhile, now..."
The reply he got was "No, no... I've just never run into a black Golden Retriever, before..."
Said remark got stunned silence, and then universal laughter. That young lieutenant came off as that much of a happy friendly type that the comparison to a Golden Retriever was entirely apt. It took a long time to figure out that he was really incredibly smart and effective as an officer, once you got past the "Aw, shucks..." Gomer Pyle impression you first got with him. It also took a bit to figure out it was deliberately adopted protective coloration that worked both sides of the color bar, because the blacks couldn't take offense at him "acting white", and the whites who were prone to racism were entirely disarmed by the innocuous vacancy he perpetrated while actually cutting like a knife.
What pissed me off the most, on his behalf, was that a lot of senior black officers would run into him, assume he was the village idiot he often presented as, and then come to me for actually getting things done. Whereupon I'd forcefully direct them back towards him.
End of the time I worked with him, the was the overall "guy in charge" of demilitarizing all the munitions we found spread across most of Northern Iraq, a job that should have been done by at least a major or lieutenant colonel. He managed it with utter aplomb and confidence, doing an excellent job of it all.
I still had black officers I knew from past assignments come up to me and ask "Hey, who's really in charge? Who do we see to get this done right...?" Even they were taken in by the initial impression they got of him.
Which was wrong, wrong, wrong. And, entirely the fault of the affirmative action culture that causes everyone to question how the various preferential classes got their jobs, often with complete justification.
Which was wrong, wrong, wrong. And, entirely the fault of the affirmative action culture that causes everyone to question how the various preferential classes got their jobs, often with complete justification.
This, of course, is the poison that Clarence Thomas has to live with.
Diversity is an artificial construct that was pretty much invented in the Bakke decision. Now we talk about it as if it were an actual virtue and debate its true content and best application.
Stephen Carter decried many of the assumptions around diversity nascent at that time — including the notion that racial or ethnic minorities are expected to think as a group, not as individuals.
"If you don't vote for me, YOU AIN'T BLACK."
---- Voice of Monolithic Black America, Joe Biden.
If diversity doesn't get the left more power, it is, like all policies with that effect, a bad policy.
Obviously.
Yay. Now we discover if they are any more competent at their posts than white men. Or as more likely they will run the usual gamut of humans when it comes to that.
Michael Eric Dyson says, "That boy Howard is nothing but a pillock".
We have had Black Supreme Court Justices since 1967. We have had female Supreme Court Justices since 1981 (and a total of five before the most recent appointment). But Biden made a commitment that if elected President he would appoint the first Justice who was BOTH BLACK AND FEMALE. What's next? The first BLACK FEMALE LESBIAN Justice? And after that, where do you go?
I'm really tired of it. Yes, breaking down artificial barriers is good. Haven't we done that?
(And if I were ever nominated for the Court I would prefer that it be based on my qualifications, not on the fact that I would be the first WHITE STRAIGHT OCTOGENERIAN appointed as a Justice. Scratch that: the only basis for my nomination would be tokenism.)
What Mr Wibble asked.
Enigma said...
The hard left and hard right are mirror images of each another: all are blind to complexity and nuance. The right does all it can to preserve the status quo even when it's broken
Bullshit.
The hard Left and the lunatic "Right" are mirror images of each other, but the hard left is at least 15% of the population, and runs the Left, whereas the versions of them on the Right are at most 1% of the population, and have no influence at all.
Trans ideology, open borders immigration, never punish the criminals "criminal justice reform", abortion until 5 minutes after the baby is on the table, racism now, racism always, THAT is the hard Left.
And that is what essentially NO Democrat elected official will ever attack. The Born Alive Infant's protect Act failed in the Senate because every single Democrat Senator voted to filibuster it.
So stop the dishonest bullshit "both sides" do it, when only one side, the Left, is actually doing it
M Jordan wrote
I loathe the Right and people like this Liz Truss who still don’t understand trying to curry favor with the Left is a double losing proposition.
The Tories are not picking tokens to curry favour (English spelling), rather on (a) talent, (b) winding up the left, not to be underestimated, (c) signals to minorities that the Tories are for them, and many (South Asians, East Asians, Black Africans,) are pleased not to be taken for granted by Labour.
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