Two things I will never understand: (A) People on the left who seem loath to recognize the ugliness and illogic amongst their ranks. (B) People on the right who seem loath to recognize the ugliness and illogic amongst their ranks.
I guess it's like a game. We gotta treat our teammates special.
I am not saying it's equal. (That depends on the subject matter if we're being honest.) Nor am I suggesting that everybody pull back on their passion/anger. Sometimes it's warranted; sometimes people deserve a clapback.
But the idea that legitimate criticism of one's tribe should be met with a kind of reflexive defense is just plain off. It's a mentality that exacerbates a situation before a conversation can get started, thereby precluding a more fruitful and serious dialogue.
But who's interested in a more fruitful and serious dialogue? Not very many, it seems. It's like a war mentality, which is not a good thing considering we are not actually at war.
Loopy and McWhore together again. Always adopting the most facile of straw man takes to make their white masters feel good and get that coonservative cash. They're regular like bowel movements.
Why don’t we just make HBCUs free everything and get rid of diversity?? So Harvard and Yale should take the initiative to direct people to donate to HBCU endowments that will make them free everything and then diversity won’t be necessary.
The discussion is too rational, when we are living through an irrational moment! Unfortunately, DEI is not about individual development, self-reflection or empowerment, it's about tribal power politics.
Whatever you would say to a white patient you will say to a Chinese patient-“.I’m sorry, we do not make staffing adjustments based on your preferences “
(Cont): his book, " Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Blacks and Latinos and What It Means for America, the author, Nicolas C. Vaca, disdained a rainbow coalition and presumed alliance with Black Americans...they wanted to compete with Blacks for political and economic power...they felt that by the mere fact that they were more socially acceptable than Blacks in American society...they could gain socioeconomic benefits and become the nation's majority-minority population. Their goal, according to Vaca, was to displace Blacks in every way possible."
I don't need white affirmation, and I'm unapologetically Black. Me listening to Jared Taylor's advocacy of a white ethno-state based largely based on pseudo white scientific racism isn't growth.
Europeans created the social contruct of race and its hierarchy throughout the world with whites at the top. The early American anthropology science is racist.
I live in the deep South with whites (Antebellum crackers) at the top still wanting to manage predominantly black communities who democratically elect people that look like them and represent their interests. White Gerrymandering (GOP) is significantly affecting Black representation and empowerment here.
As whites increasingly head toward being the new majority-minority, they'll increase putting up sandbags to protect their wealth and power (racism). Racism is a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of resources. Whites got the headstart in this country with free Indian land and free African labor which mal-distributed massive generational wealth power to Whites.
Social integration isn't measurable; it can't be deposited into the bank to compound interest. Blacks spending 98% of their dollars on non Black owned buisneeses isn't self empowerment. Blacks lost wealth during desegregation.
"Antebellum Crackers..." Don't you think that is a little racist... or do you feel it is ok to summarize and group people with derogatory terms based on their race and socioeconomic standing?
Refer to "Cracker Culture---Celtic Ways in the Old South" by Grady McWhiney and "Blacknecks and White Luberals" by Thomas Sowell.
Insofar as racism, racism is a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of resources for wealth and power---a team sport.
Europeans got the headstart program when the Portuguese started the race to the new world with free African labor followed by other European countries. Blacks weren't part of the race. They were the boot and loot.
Blacks have been mere reactionaries to White racism for the past 400 years. Blacks didn't forcibly transport millions of European Whites across the oceans in order to mal-distribute massive generational wealth and power to themselves.
Racism is prejudice plus power. Blacks only own and control 2% of the wealth in this country which hasn't changed since the eve of the American Civil War, wherein there were 4 hundred thousand freed Blacks and 4 million Black slaves.
100 years of neo-slavery (Jim Crow) followed the end of the Civil War until the passing of major Civil Rights bills in the 1960s.
Blacks have only been American citizens with full rights for less than 55 years. I'm 72 years old.
you believe the Irish were not white and were not slaves? And don’t give me the indentured servants were not slaves argument British viewed Irish as inferior and sought to displace and eradicate them. Irish were used as slave labor. That eventually tuned into the racialized slave trade
Study the 1705 Virginia Slave Codes which were implemented after Bacon's Rebellion---separated black slaves from indentured servants (the start of compensatory whiteness).
BTW, my late paternal grandfather was birracial---Scots-Irish and black. He had lots of [cracker culture] in him. He passed for white, fooling many white folks. 😂🤣😅
“White cargo” argues against some of the differentiation of chattel slavery and indentured servitude that is taught as colonial slavery. Reading the books that I linked in this read, changed my perspective in what I was taught in history classes. Which simply stated indentured servitude was voluntary service in exchange for land and new life in the new world. I will admit that the 2 books are not the best written for an academic point of view. However, the primary sources unearthed in their research and the facts are enough to alter the taught narrative in my opinion
"Recent scholarship traces the roots of southern violence to the Scots-Irish, who brought a relatively violent “cracker culture” with them to the United States in the eighteenth century. The tolerance for violence inherent in cracker culture was believed to be transmitted throughout the south to other whites and was maintained, in part, through evangelical Christian doctrine. Moreover, Thomas Sowell (2005) recently argued that some southern blacks were also influenced by “cracker culture,” leading to the emergence of a “black redneck” phenomenon influencing homicide among blacks. Using county-level data circa 2000, this study empirically evaluates the merit of the cracker culture/black redneck thesis. Negative binomial regression analyses for a full sample of counties suggest that a measure of southern cracker/black redneck culture is an important factor affecting contemporary rates of argument homicide among both whites and blacks. When counties are divided into south and non-south sub-samples, the results are also consistent: a cracker/black redneck culture effect is evident for both racial groups in the south, and is also apparent outside of the southern region. We interpret these latter findings as possible support for the thesis that southern cracker/black redneck culture has been transported through migration to non-southern localities."
The groundbreaking, “provocative” (New York Times Book Review) work that exposed the racially discriminatory precursors of affirmative action, now updated with a new introduction.
With this explosive analysis, Ira Katznelson fundamentally recast our understanding of twentieth-century American history, demonstrating that the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal eras were not, as we are so often told, fundamentally equitable or impartial, but discriminatory in the way they deliberately excluded African Americans from benefits. In fact, Katznelson writes, the gap between black and white Americans actually widened following this period, owing, in no small part, to the segregationist designs of southern Democrats. Now featuring a new introduction that situates this saga within the wider context of twentieth- and twenty-first-century history, When Affirmative Action Was White remains, tragically, as salient as ever, providing both a “painful understanding of how politics and race intersect” (Henry Louis Gates Jr.) and a broad justification for continuing affirmative action programs.
The ku klux klan can be traced back to clans in Scotland that burned crosses and castrated each other. How do the Scots-Irish factor in during the 100 years of Jim Crow (semi-slavery) through the 60s. About 5,000 blacks were lynched by mostly Scots-Irish in the South. How come I see only whites standing around in old photos of Blacks being lynched, castrated, and burned? Your story doesn't add up. Scots-Irish are white,fully assimilated into American society as Whites just like the Italians and Jews. The first Constitution doesn't codify Scots-Irish as 3/5 of a person. Slave Codes beginning in 1705 do not codify whites as slaves. The 1857 Dredd Scott Decision reinforcing that black blacks aren't citizens and have no rights, doesn't put Scots-Irish in this codification. The 13th, ,14th, and 15th Amendments were specifically implemented to reverse the Dredd Scott Decision. The 1877 Plessy vs Ferguson Decision didn't separate Scots-Irish from the white dominant mainstream society like the blacks. The 1960s Civil Rights laws recognized blacks as Americans will full rights.. Scots-Irish and other non Black groups rights come under the first 12 Amendments of the Constitution. Asians, Mexican, Arabs, or Jews weren't codified as 3/5 of a person. Your logic and references are very flawed in supporting your arguments.
Tribalism is indeed competitive, and to your point, every tribe, every religion, every group will erect protective barriers to secure any advantages, earned or inherited. Yet some minorities in America refuse to stay down—Indians (from India), Jews from the world over, and Asians are amongst the best educated and wealthiest in society. Each of these minorities has been put down, carved out, slammed for their noses, slanted eyes, and dark skin, and degraded for the way they speak. So how did they do it? WORK. They outworked their competitors. This is the American lesson.
Whenever I hear “people who look like me” I get irked-why? Because I am a white, female, middle class Minnesota RN who worked in county community health for 16 years-over 70% of the patients I served were not Caucasian , they weren’t college educated, the were not from Minnesota. Aside from the fact that I spoke Spanish, I definitely stuck out. According to the media, I would be unable to make a difference-but I made a huge difference! Patients asked for me, sent me cards and flowers, they thanked me sometimes with tears in their eyes! I felt so appreciated! So yeah, it didn’t matter that I wasn’t Hispanic or I didn’t wear a burka or I wasn’t Black. I was just me. That’s it.
Hospital administrators depend almost entirely on government funding to get their salaries and benefits, sooooooo ... they will cave and deny the request even though the request is not reasonable but likely in the best interest of the patient.
Yes, we constantly hear about this in the Medical profession-patients want a provider that looks like them. Well with all the different insurance plans, good luck with that. And besides, doesn't competence trump diversity?
Richard Bickers describes it best in his comment here so I will simply add that federal legislation and policy has been in place since 1964 that legally and effectively established discrimination against straight white males. This promoted and resulted in millions of positions being filled by less competent candidates (aka Affirmative Action, Diversity, Quotas). This has continued for sixty years and across all institutions and industries. Indirectly it has resulted a lowering of expectations that over a few decades has led millions of blacks to suffer from black on black crime, highest rates of father less homes, children born out of wedlock, failure rates in grade level math and reading proficiency tests. In a sense, Affirmative Action was the Democrat’s Trojan Horse gift to blacks.
No, diversity trumps competence and has ever since the Supreme Court's 1978 Bakke decision (see https://www.britannica.com/event/Bakke-decision ) ruled as permissible clear violations of both constitutional protections and statutory law in pursuit of the nebulous goals of (racial) diversity.
Richard Hanania argues that the seeds of diversity uber alles (and wokeism more generally) were planted by the anti-discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as interpreted, expanded, and eventually turned inside-out (à la Orwell's "Animal House" rules) by regulatory and judicial fiat (see https://www.richardhanania.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights ).
"And so I'm wondering if you can speak to that idea that people need to see people who look like them in order to feel inspired or accepted or motivated or whatever. How do you think about that?"
They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Then again, first impressions are momentary. Relationships are what happen after that. I think I'm normal when I say that there have been times when my first impression of a person was negative, but reversed when I got to know the person. And it certainly goes the other way also.
But why are these discussions on Glenn's page always about skin color? And why is it always specifically about black skin color? And, why does anyone presume that "diversity" is definable as being a group of people with varying colors of skin? What about varying views on life, varying political philosophies, varying religions, varying economic circumstances, etc?
I read a novel by African author, Remy Ngamje, named "The Eternal Audience of One." In it, he coins the term "curated diversity". I think the term is self-explanatory, but I'll explain it anyway: True diversity happens, or not. But if you attempt to force it to happen, then it most certainly is NOT diversity. It is structured diversity, which is a contradiction of terms. Think about it. If there is a director of DEI (and there are thousands of them) then what you have is a form of authoritarianism. You have rules and structure, based on some desire for a predetermined outcome. However desirable that outcome may be in theory, you will never achieve it thru authoritarianism. You will instead achieve an entrenched bureaucracy focused on self-preservation and expansion. There may be an acceptable number of black bodies involved in that, but there will never be real diversity. Nowhere in DEI can you expect diversity of ideas.
I am now a retired schoolteacher. I first heard about diversity in multiples of my grad school classes. There I was taught the idea that black children learned best from a black teacher. I was horrified. As a teacher who happened to be white, I worked incredibly hard to reach and teach all my students. My last teaching assignment was chemistry in a title one school that was traditionally an African-American school. First day of class, what did I see? A room full of black faces. What did my students see? A middle-aged white guy. After one week of classes, what did I see? My students. What did my students see? Their teacher.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak to a large class of first year medical students. I looked and saw a former student. We had a great meeting. During our question-and-answer session, he shared with the entire class that he chose medical school because of me. How honored I was to have made that impact and the color of our different skins made no difference.
The Oppressor class always seeks to defend itself. Statistics indicate that while you had one black student excel enough to get to med school, they are and have been for decades much further behind than Asians and Hispanics on STEM scores. And the reason is obviously because they have not had the benefit of teachers that look like them and can relate to them on a way the Oppressor cannot. The solution is simple; Affinity based classes where the teachers look like the students.
Diversity did not betray anyone; it is a concept, nothing more. The people pushing it, however, are another matter. In a simpler time, the goal was to assemble people with different perspectives and experiences, and some of that would accrue from their differences in race, gender, and the other check blocks. Those differences would be used in the pursuit of a common goal, and therein lies the problem. Diversity stop being a means to an end and was transformed into an end unto itself.
It now serves as affirmative action by a different name. The simple act of having representation from this group or that is all that matters. In short, diversity has made itself no more than multi-hued group think. From academia to corporate world to media, factors such as ideology or political viewpoint are left out of the equation. How ironic - a mechanism that was designed to capture and benefit from the differences among us has resulted in enforcing a stifling conformity.
In a perfect world "the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes". Of course we don't live in that perfect world which is why as the song continued until then "Me Say War". Was Bob Marley racist? Did he require compassionate help?
I have lived in varying degrees of diversity my entire life and consider myself fortunate in that regard. Nevertheless at one point I lived in a building that was predominantly black when I moved there but as time went on became almost exclusively black. And I started to feel more and more uncomfortable. Not for any particular reason but I just felt I didn't belong and eventually I moved. Am I racist? Do I require cognitive behavioral therapy? Some would say so but in my case I had other options that perhaps the black lesbian woman in your thought experiment would not have available to her.
You should've stayed through AT LEAST two muggings, three severe beatings, enough break-ins that you simply left your door unlocked, and a month of Sundays where sirens blared regularly at night along with frequent gunshots and the continuous cacophony of, um, nearby domestic crises. But no, you up and bolted for no reason at all other than you were a snowball in a coal bin—nothing more racist that that. Shame on you!
You are not a racist and you did the correct thing by moving out so that that particular building based Affinity group could be free of you since they very likely as uncomfortable with you as you with them. Indeed you probably unknowingly made them feel unsafe by being in their affinity space. Well done on moving out, albeit a tad late for many.
Hadn’t read your other comments yet. I think we share a certain biting “affinity” that has often gotten me in underserved hot water. Sarcasm and irony are not easily digested by the literally minded, idealistically myopic.
You are not a racist per se, you are only a victim of a race conscious culture. Also, it’s perfectly normal to gravitate towards people of similar cultural backgrounds and interests. You sound perfectly normal to me.
Two things I will never understand: (A) People on the left who seem loath to recognize the ugliness and illogic amongst their ranks. (B) People on the right who seem loath to recognize the ugliness and illogic amongst their ranks.
I guess it's like a game. We gotta treat our teammates special.
I am not saying it's equal. (That depends on the subject matter if we're being honest.) Nor am I suggesting that everybody pull back on their passion/anger. Sometimes it's warranted; sometimes people deserve a clapback.
But the idea that legitimate criticism of one's tribe should be met with a kind of reflexive defense is just plain off. It's a mentality that exacerbates a situation before a conversation can get started, thereby precluding a more fruitful and serious dialogue.
But who's interested in a more fruitful and serious dialogue? Not very many, it seems. It's like a war mentality, which is not a good thing considering we are not actually at war.
I can never get over Glenn’s articulate command of this language. John’s too, but when Glenn rips, it is truly something else. It tickles my soul.
Loopy and McWhore together again. Always adopting the most facile of straw man takes to make their white masters feel good and get that coonservative cash. They're regular like bowel movements.
Why don’t we just make HBCUs free everything and get rid of diversity?? So Harvard and Yale should take the initiative to direct people to donate to HBCU endowments that will make them free everything and then diversity won’t be necessary.
The discussion is too rational, when we are living through an irrational moment! Unfortunately, DEI is not about individual development, self-reflection or empowerment, it's about tribal power politics.
Whatever you would say to a white patient you will say to a Chinese patient-“.I’m sorry, we do not make staffing adjustments based on your preferences “
Look up the Garret Morris, Julian Bond, and Andrew Young skit from Saturday Night Live.
(Cont): his book, " Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Blacks and Latinos and What It Means for America, the author, Nicolas C. Vaca, disdained a rainbow coalition and presumed alliance with Black Americans...they wanted to compete with Blacks for political and economic power...they felt that by the mere fact that they were more socially acceptable than Blacks in American society...they could gain socioeconomic benefits and become the nation's majority-minority population. Their goal, according to Vaca, was to displace Blacks in every way possible."
I don't need white affirmation, and I'm unapologetically Black. Me listening to Jared Taylor's advocacy of a white ethno-state based largely based on pseudo white scientific racism isn't growth.
Europeans created the social contruct of race and its hierarchy throughout the world with whites at the top. The early American anthropology science is racist.
I live in the deep South with whites (Antebellum crackers) at the top still wanting to manage predominantly black communities who democratically elect people that look like them and represent their interests. White Gerrymandering (GOP) is significantly affecting Black representation and empowerment here.
As whites increasingly head toward being the new majority-minority, they'll increase putting up sandbags to protect their wealth and power (racism). Racism is a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of resources. Whites got the headstart in this country with free Indian land and free African labor which mal-distributed massive generational wealth power to Whites.
Social integration isn't measurable; it can't be deposited into the bank to compound interest. Blacks spending 98% of their dollars on non Black owned buisneeses isn't self empowerment. Blacks lost wealth during desegregation.
"Antebellum Crackers..." Don't you think that is a little racist... or do you feel it is ok to summarize and group people with derogatory terms based on their race and socioeconomic standing?
https://youtu.be/FT4NQ9D0M6w
*Black rednecks
Refer to "Cracker Culture---Celtic Ways in the Old South" by Grady McWhiney and "Blacknecks and White Luberals" by Thomas Sowell.
Insofar as racism, racism is a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of resources for wealth and power---a team sport.
Europeans got the headstart program when the Portuguese started the race to the new world with free African labor followed by other European countries. Blacks weren't part of the race. They were the boot and loot.
Blacks have been mere reactionaries to White racism for the past 400 years. Blacks didn't forcibly transport millions of European Whites across the oceans in order to mal-distribute massive generational wealth and power to themselves.
Racism is prejudice plus power. Blacks only own and control 2% of the wealth in this country which hasn't changed since the eve of the American Civil War, wherein there were 4 hundred thousand freed Blacks and 4 million Black slaves.
100 years of neo-slavery (Jim Crow) followed the end of the Civil War until the passing of major Civil Rights bills in the 1960s.
Blacks have only been American citizens with full rights for less than 55 years. I'm 72 years old.
you believe the Irish were not white and were not slaves? And don’t give me the indentured servants were not slaves argument British viewed Irish as inferior and sought to displace and eradicate them. Irish were used as slave labor. That eventually tuned into the racialized slave trade
Study the 1705 Virginia Slave Codes which were implemented after Bacon's Rebellion---separated black slaves from indentured servants (the start of compensatory whiteness).
You are missing a 100 years of colonial slavery
BTW, my late paternal grandfather was birracial---Scots-Irish and black. He had lots of [cracker culture] in him. He passed for white, fooling many white folks. 😂🤣😅
Imagine me knocking on my Scots-Irish neighborhood's doors and telling them they're not white? 😂🤣😅😆
Check out this story from USA TODAY: Fact check: The Irish were not slaves
Social media claims that the Irish people were enslaved in the colonial Americas and treated as brutally as or worse than African slaves are false.
Irish being slaves in America is a myth.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/18/fact-check-irish-were-indentured-servants-not-slaves/3198590001/
“White cargo” argues against some of the differentiation of chattel slavery and indentured servitude that is taught as colonial slavery. Reading the books that I linked in this read, changed my perspective in what I was taught in history classes. Which simply stated indentured servitude was voluntary service in exchange for land and new life in the new world. I will admit that the 2 books are not the best written for an academic point of view. However, the primary sources unearthed in their research and the facts are enough to alter the taught narrative in my opinion
"Recent scholarship traces the roots of southern violence to the Scots-Irish, who brought a relatively violent “cracker culture” with them to the United States in the eighteenth century. The tolerance for violence inherent in cracker culture was believed to be transmitted throughout the south to other whites and was maintained, in part, through evangelical Christian doctrine. Moreover, Thomas Sowell (2005) recently argued that some southern blacks were also influenced by “cracker culture,” leading to the emergence of a “black redneck” phenomenon influencing homicide among blacks. Using county-level data circa 2000, this study empirically evaluates the merit of the cracker culture/black redneck thesis. Negative binomial regression analyses for a full sample of counties suggest that a measure of southern cracker/black redneck culture is an important factor affecting contemporary rates of argument homicide among both whites and blacks. When counties are divided into south and non-south sub-samples, the results are also consistent: a cracker/black redneck culture effect is evident for both racial groups in the south, and is also apparent outside of the southern region. We interpret these latter findings as possible support for the thesis that southern cracker/black redneck culture has been transported through migration to non-southern localities."
The groundbreaking, “provocative” (New York Times Book Review) work that exposed the racially discriminatory precursors of affirmative action, now updated with a new introduction.
With this explosive analysis, Ira Katznelson fundamentally recast our understanding of twentieth-century American history, demonstrating that the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal eras were not, as we are so often told, fundamentally equitable or impartial, but discriminatory in the way they deliberately excluded African Americans from benefits. In fact, Katznelson writes, the gap between black and white Americans actually widened following this period, owing, in no small part, to the segregationist designs of southern Democrats. Now featuring a new introduction that situates this saga within the wider context of twentieth- and twenty-first-century history, When Affirmative Action Was White remains, tragically, as salient as ever, providing both a “painful understanding of how politics and race intersect” (Henry Louis Gates Jr.) and a broad justification for continuing affirmative action programs.
https://www.amazon.com/Proclamation-1625-Americas-Enslavement-Irish/dp/1460285646/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=2CDNTKJ7MIZ4C&keywords=irish+slaves&qid=1682648092&sprefix=irish+slaves%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-3
Is Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf true? 🤔
The children of Scots-Irish were not automatically slaves after birth.
The ku klux klan can be traced back to clans in Scotland that burned crosses and castrated each other. How do the Scots-Irish factor in during the 100 years of Jim Crow (semi-slavery) through the 60s. About 5,000 blacks were lynched by mostly Scots-Irish in the South. How come I see only whites standing around in old photos of Blacks being lynched, castrated, and burned? Your story doesn't add up. Scots-Irish are white,fully assimilated into American society as Whites just like the Italians and Jews. The first Constitution doesn't codify Scots-Irish as 3/5 of a person. Slave Codes beginning in 1705 do not codify whites as slaves. The 1857 Dredd Scott Decision reinforcing that black blacks aren't citizens and have no rights, doesn't put Scots-Irish in this codification. The 13th, ,14th, and 15th Amendments were specifically implemented to reverse the Dredd Scott Decision. The 1877 Plessy vs Ferguson Decision didn't separate Scots-Irish from the white dominant mainstream society like the blacks. The 1960s Civil Rights laws recognized blacks as Americans will full rights.. Scots-Irish and other non Black groups rights come under the first 12 Amendments of the Constitution. Asians, Mexican, Arabs, or Jews weren't codified as 3/5 of a person. Your logic and references are very flawed in supporting your arguments.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2455819
Rationalize the term all you want. I am familiar with some of the writings you mention. The term cracker is used by blacks in a hateful manner… aka mayor Adam’s use in n 2019. I believe you used the term with its hateful intent as a derogatory term for whites. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10478763/amp/NYC-Mayor-Eric-Adams-apologized-2019-comments-called-white-officers-crackers.html
Tribalism is indeed competitive, and to your point, every tribe, every religion, every group will erect protective barriers to secure any advantages, earned or inherited. Yet some minorities in America refuse to stay down—Indians (from India), Jews from the world over, and Asians are amongst the best educated and wealthiest in society. Each of these minorities has been put down, carved out, slammed for their noses, slanted eyes, and dark skin, and degraded for the way they speak. So how did they do it? WORK. They outworked their competitors. This is the American lesson.
Good point.
No. I'm not married at all. But I am curious why you ask?
Whenever I hear “people who look like me” I get irked-why? Because I am a white, female, middle class Minnesota RN who worked in county community health for 16 years-over 70% of the patients I served were not Caucasian , they weren’t college educated, the were not from Minnesota. Aside from the fact that I spoke Spanish, I definitely stuck out. According to the media, I would be unable to make a difference-but I made a huge difference! Patients asked for me, sent me cards and flowers, they thanked me sometimes with tears in their eyes! I felt so appreciated! So yeah, it didn’t matter that I wasn’t Hispanic or I didn’t wear a burka or I wasn’t Black. I was just me. That’s it.
What reaction can we expect from a hospital administrator in the ER when a Chinese patient refuses to be touched by a black doctor?
Hospital administrators depend almost entirely on government funding to get their salaries and benefits, sooooooo ... they will cave and deny the request even though the request is not reasonable but likely in the best interest of the patient.
*not unreasonable
Yes, we constantly hear about this in the Medical profession-patients want a provider that looks like them. Well with all the different insurance plans, good luck with that. And besides, doesn't competence trump diversity?
Richard Bickers describes it best in his comment here so I will simply add that federal legislation and policy has been in place since 1964 that legally and effectively established discrimination against straight white males. This promoted and resulted in millions of positions being filled by less competent candidates (aka Affirmative Action, Diversity, Quotas). This has continued for sixty years and across all institutions and industries. Indirectly it has resulted a lowering of expectations that over a few decades has led millions of blacks to suffer from black on black crime, highest rates of father less homes, children born out of wedlock, failure rates in grade level math and reading proficiency tests. In a sense, Affirmative Action was the Democrat’s Trojan Horse gift to blacks.
No, diversity trumps competence and has ever since the Supreme Court's 1978 Bakke decision (see https://www.britannica.com/event/Bakke-decision ) ruled as permissible clear violations of both constitutional protections and statutory law in pursuit of the nebulous goals of (racial) diversity.
Richard Hanania argues that the seeds of diversity uber alles (and wokeism more generally) were planted by the anti-discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as interpreted, expanded, and eventually turned inside-out (à la Orwell's "Animal House" rules) by regulatory and judicial fiat (see https://www.richardhanania.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights ).
"And so I'm wondering if you can speak to that idea that people need to see people who look like them in order to feel inspired or accepted or motivated or whatever. How do you think about that?"
They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Then again, first impressions are momentary. Relationships are what happen after that. I think I'm normal when I say that there have been times when my first impression of a person was negative, but reversed when I got to know the person. And it certainly goes the other way also.
But why are these discussions on Glenn's page always about skin color? And why is it always specifically about black skin color? And, why does anyone presume that "diversity" is definable as being a group of people with varying colors of skin? What about varying views on life, varying political philosophies, varying religions, varying economic circumstances, etc?
I read a novel by African author, Remy Ngamje, named "The Eternal Audience of One." In it, he coins the term "curated diversity". I think the term is self-explanatory, but I'll explain it anyway: True diversity happens, or not. But if you attempt to force it to happen, then it most certainly is NOT diversity. It is structured diversity, which is a contradiction of terms. Think about it. If there is a director of DEI (and there are thousands of them) then what you have is a form of authoritarianism. You have rules and structure, based on some desire for a predetermined outcome. However desirable that outcome may be in theory, you will never achieve it thru authoritarianism. You will instead achieve an entrenched bureaucracy focused on self-preservation and expansion. There may be an acceptable number of black bodies involved in that, but there will never be real diversity. Nowhere in DEI can you expect diversity of ideas.
I am now a retired schoolteacher. I first heard about diversity in multiples of my grad school classes. There I was taught the idea that black children learned best from a black teacher. I was horrified. As a teacher who happened to be white, I worked incredibly hard to reach and teach all my students. My last teaching assignment was chemistry in a title one school that was traditionally an African-American school. First day of class, what did I see? A room full of black faces. What did my students see? A middle-aged white guy. After one week of classes, what did I see? My students. What did my students see? Their teacher.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak to a large class of first year medical students. I looked and saw a former student. We had a great meeting. During our question-and-answer session, he shared with the entire class that he chose medical school because of me. How honored I was to have made that impact and the color of our different skins made no difference.
The Oppressor class always seeks to defend itself. Statistics indicate that while you had one black student excel enough to get to med school, they are and have been for decades much further behind than Asians and Hispanics on STEM scores. And the reason is obviously because they have not had the benefit of teachers that look like them and can relate to them on a way the Oppressor cannot. The solution is simple; Affinity based classes where the teachers look like the students.
Diversity did not betray anyone; it is a concept, nothing more. The people pushing it, however, are another matter. In a simpler time, the goal was to assemble people with different perspectives and experiences, and some of that would accrue from their differences in race, gender, and the other check blocks. Those differences would be used in the pursuit of a common goal, and therein lies the problem. Diversity stop being a means to an end and was transformed into an end unto itself.
It now serves as affirmative action by a different name. The simple act of having representation from this group or that is all that matters. In short, diversity has made itself no more than multi-hued group think. From academia to corporate world to media, factors such as ideology or political viewpoint are left out of the equation. How ironic - a mechanism that was designed to capture and benefit from the differences among us has resulted in enforcing a stifling conformity.
A distinction should have been drawn between children and adults when considering the need for role models.
In a perfect world "the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes". Of course we don't live in that perfect world which is why as the song continued until then "Me Say War". Was Bob Marley racist? Did he require compassionate help?
I have lived in varying degrees of diversity my entire life and consider myself fortunate in that regard. Nevertheless at one point I lived in a building that was predominantly black when I moved there but as time went on became almost exclusively black. And I started to feel more and more uncomfortable. Not for any particular reason but I just felt I didn't belong and eventually I moved. Am I racist? Do I require cognitive behavioral therapy? Some would say so but in my case I had other options that perhaps the black lesbian woman in your thought experiment would not have available to her.
Yup, absolutely racist, no question about it.
You should've stayed through AT LEAST two muggings, three severe beatings, enough break-ins that you simply left your door unlocked, and a month of Sundays where sirens blared regularly at night along with frequent gunshots and the continuous cacophony of, um, nearby domestic crises. But no, you up and bolted for no reason at all other than you were a snowball in a coal bin—nothing more racist that that. Shame on you!
You are not a racist and you did the correct thing by moving out so that that particular building based Affinity group could be free of you since they very likely as uncomfortable with you as you with them. Indeed you probably unknowingly made them feel unsafe by being in their affinity space. Well done on moving out, albeit a tad late for many.
Sarcasm, I hope.
Never know, do we? :D
Hadn’t read your other comments yet. I think we share a certain biting “affinity” that has often gotten me in underserved hot water. Sarcasm and irony are not easily digested by the literally minded, idealistically myopic.
You are not a racist per se, you are only a victim of a race conscious culture. Also, it’s perfectly normal to gravitate towards people of similar cultural backgrounds and interests. You sound perfectly normal to me.