Comment by Bearstrike
6 days ago
Things will play out differently in the public and private sectors. But if you take Trump's cabinet selections as a bellwether then there are people of a variety of races, sexes, and backgrounds.
I find it hard to take seriously the notion that anybody serious is arguing for "let's go back to all white dudes" as a response to DEI. Sure...it's going to happen because nepotism and cliques aren't going away. But on the whole, it seems people want to move towards competence/merit being the only factors in play.
Will it get there? Time will tell, but there will invariably be issues. Your execution can be wrong, even if your philosophy is right. But if your philosophy is wrong (we need x% minority engineers, x% trans engineers, x% female engineers), you'd be hard pressed to avoid bad implementation.
"We are having a hard time hiring all the people we want. It doesn't matter what they look like" John Carmack
It doesn't matter what the people want in this case, but rather what the public relations look like.
OP posits that any non-white person in a position of responsibility is going to be blamed as a "DEI hire" if something happens under their watch regardless of their actual competence, because that's the kind of headlines that drive engagement with a certain audience. And I think that's a justified fear - just look at the current brouhaha over California fires.