Comment by tbrownaw
1 day ago
It mocks diversity policies by presenting race as arbitrary and surface-level, rather than some deeply unchangeable thing that pervades every aspect of your being. Since diversity policies are a way to push back against judging people differently based on race (aka racism), mocking them is inherently supportive of racism.
And as the other commenter says, it also mocks trans people. By applying their language to something presented as arbitrary and surface-level.
Maybe this is a generational thing, but that first sentence is nonsensical to me. DEI wants to enshrine race differences, so mocking DEI is… racist?
It's not a generational thing. That sentence is just nonsensical.
Ibram Kendi wrote about how the only way to not be racist is to deliberately treat people differently based on their race. He was quite popular for this for a while.
But also for the DEI thing specifically, what's going on is that objecting to the implementation details is proof that you oppose the stated goal. Even if what you're doing is pointing out that the implementation is counter-productive to the stated goal. I think it might be some sort of tribalism thing.
It’s a hard thing to wrap your head around, but: the idea is that racial differences are already enshrined, by racists. if racists weren’t pushing the idea, it would hardly be an idea at all.
Try explaining to a “go back to where you belong” racists that you’re not from Africa (or from Mexico, or wherever) - you have a different ethnic background, or you’re a natural born citizen - racists don’t care about the nuance, you’re coloured and they’re bigoted, and race differences are enshrined.
So if that’s the case - if you’re just going to be lumped into the same bucket as every other (say) black person anyway - then you’re only going to make yourself weaker by dividing yourselves - you need to organize to push back against racism, and that means your natural allies are going to be all the other people that racists are racist about - and by extension, all the other people bigots are bigoted about. Now it doesn’t matter if you were born in Egypt, or in the Sudan, or in Somalia or Jamaica or Haiti or Illinois- racists all treat you as ‘black’, and it’s on that basis, that shared identity as people oppressed for being black, that you struggle for justice.
And what is justice if not redress?
Anyway the point I’m making here is, it’s not DEI that’s enshrining race - it’s racists. The reason DEI is organized along racial lines is because that’s how racism is applied by the bigots who believe in that crap.
Very much along the same lines of why “all lives matter” in response to “black lives matter” is a very deliberately racist statement - because it’s mocking the struggle of oppressed people to get justice for themselves and to defend themselves from their oppressors.
Thanks for putting in the effort with that comment. I understand what you’re saying, but it seems like a local optima problem to me: enshrining race differences in corporate policy and law may be optimal right here, right now, but it’s antithetical to the long term goal of removing racism. How can you possibly get there from here?
You are quite correct that it is the DEI racists enshrining race in hiring policies. They should all be thrown in prison for violating civil rights law.
We have mocking police now? Police who enforce who can be mocked and who cannot?
How can I get on this list of superior humans who are above mocking, satire, parody and, ultimately, criticism?