Microblog Memes

This is my sad hill to die on, I guess, despite my personal feelings on why anti-discrimination across all aspects is important for society. But after reading some informed perspectives, I think I get where some of the DEI pushback is coming from.

It’s not about diversity, equity or inclusion individually, but DEI as a concept, ie as an actionable form of some underlying ideology. It doesn’t matter if the practitioners of DEI may not subscribe to any underlying ideology, the fact is that DEI opponents are unconvinced about the allegiances of DEI practitioners in special contexts, like the military.

I personally don’t care about having DEI in corporate or education contexts, but i think the concern there is that if the public thinks one way, then it will question why the military/govt doesn’t want to. So, I think I get why they removed DEI/CRT from corporate and education as well.

Per my understanding, the pushback is coming jointly from the military, and the main point of contention was the CRT-derived idea of “inherent racism” or “whites as oppressors”. For example,

CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people[9][12] at the expense of people of color,[13][14] and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as "neutral" plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order,[15] where formally color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes.[16]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

Here’s an article which says why DEI was necessarily started (the writer is an academic)

DEI policies and practices were created to rectify the government-sanctioned discrimination that existed and systemic oppression that persists in the United States.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-the-cubicle/202411/what-we-get-wrong-about-the-dei-backlash-narrative

You have to appreciate why some part of the American armed forces pushes back on these ideas when your CO may be white, and you a minority. There are practical considerations to having such ideas in the back of your mind when you’re supposed to act without question and as a unit.

Here’s some context for reading https://starrs.us/dei-how-to-have-the-conversation/

Here’s another perspective from a Stanford professor, https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/25/will-dei-end-america-or-america-end-dei/

Edit to clarify, I am not saying that we shouldn’t have anti-discrimination policies across different aspects of being a person. I am saying this is why some people don’t like/want DEI or CRT (which are distinct and separate from the existing anti-discrimination policies). And yes, I know the military has issues regarding race and sex discrimination. But I think people can address those without DEI or CRT.