My pov is that CRT (critical race theory) and related policies, like DEI, put an undue emphasis on race instead of on poverty, and the resulting effect is that policies which are aimed at helping minorities seem like “favoritism” (and called as such by political opponents), which makes a growing population of poor whites (due to the adverse effects of wealth inequality) polarized against minorities.
Separately, the polarization is used by others who want to weaken a democratic nation. For democracies, a growing immigrant population of more poor people will cause further polarization because the growing poor white population believes that “they’re taking our jobs”. This happened during Brexit, this happened with Trump, and this is happening now in Germany and other western democracies.
I know that there are racist groups who have an agenda of their own, and what I am saying is that instead of focusing on what are painted as culture war issues, leftists are better off focusing on alleviating systemic poverty. Like, bringing the Nordic model to the U.S. should be their agenda.
So, maybe I am wrong about CRT and DEI and how it’s well-meaning intentions are being abused by people who have other goals, but I want to hear from others about why they think CRT and DEI help. I want to listen, so I am not going to respond at all.
— Added definitions —
CRT: an academic field used to understand how systems and processes favor white people despite anti-discrimination policies. Analysis coming out of CRT is often used to make public policy.
DEI: a framework for increasing diversity, equity and inclusion; DEI isn’t focused on race or gender only, but also includes disability and other factors (pregnancy for example) which affect a person.
— —
Okay , so end note: I appreciate the people who commented. I questioned the relevancy of CRT/DEI previously out of an alarmed perspective of how aspects that highlight group differences can be used by others to create divisions and increase polarization. But I get the point everyone is making about the historical significance of these tools.
I’m not USAian enough to understand all this, but let me just say, the problem is the rich. Them stealing all the money leaves little for the rest, and due to the lack of education, the rest fights each other over what’s left instead of uniting against rich fucks. Painting CRT, DEI, feminism, trans-rights, anti-immigration, etc. as the issue are just ways to divide the have-nots.
Divide and conquer.
Actually, you understand it TOO WELL to be USAian.
Class solidarity my friend. Fuck the rich.
CRT and DEI are misrepresented by both the left and right. They make more sense when you look at them without the point of view of 14 year old Redditors or 400 year old dinosaurs.
What is your current view?
It’s shared in the OP.
Oh, the body was blocked by my word filter.
You are wrong because it is far easier for people to discriminate based on what they can see as opposed to a bank account.
I’m not sure what Cathode Ray Tubes have to do with any of this.
I suppose they’re both highly charged and make specific points with the goal of providing illuminated information
Damn, nice.
Cathode Ray Tubes were just the best solution for the time. We got more efficient later.
Politically, focusing on class might be more expedient at getting results. Doesn’t mean that correcting past wrongs isn’t the morally correct thing to do.
Personally I find the meta-question more interesting than the question here. Your take is pretty much the majority one in any Western society today (albeit particularly thoughtfully expressed here). Personally I share your analysis right down the line. But you’re asking to be talked out of it. Is it because you feel that it’s not presentable here? Or maybe among your friends? Who perhaps might belong to the small minority (7%) of the US population that pollsters categorize as “progressive activists”? Just a thought.
In any case, steelmanning is a great technique to practice. Well done for having a go.
Your take is pretty much the majority one in any Western society today
False.
Imagine a hundred runners entering an insanely long footrace. Before the race starts, the official says that due to his complexion, one runner will start running at the second gunshot, and the other runners will begin at the first gunshot. The darker skinned runner contests, but those are the rules and if he wants to race, he must follow them.
BLAM
The palest runners are off and running while the other one anticipates the second gunshot. He patiently waits, but it doesn’t come. After ten minutes, the runner complains to the official, but he repeats that these are the rules, and if you just wait patiently, it’ll be your turn. After an hour the crowd is outraged by the injustice and begin to protest.
BLAM
The official fires the second shot in order to deescalate the situation and prevent the stadium from being torn apart. The runner is off and he is determined to gain as much ground as possible as the other runners.
At the end of the day, the runners meet up at a checkpoint to rest before the next section of the race. When they announce the official times, the darker skinned man is 50 minutes behind the other runners. He mentions to the officials that he had to wait an hour to start, and that he would have had a better time than many of them if they had started at the same time.
Fine, they say, not wanting another scene like they had at the starting line, “from now on, all runners start at the same time.” That’s great! So, can I deduct an hour from my time?
WHAT!? WE ALREADY CHANGED THE RULES TO MAKE IT EQUAL. EVERYBODY STARTS AT THE SAME TIME! AND NOW YOU WANT MORE? THE OTHER RUNNERS DIDN’T NEED ANY TIME DEDUCTIONS!
I now see I went too heavy on the caps, but I’m not typing it again.
Anyway, DEI is the one hour time deduction. It’s making up for holding them back for so long while everyone else was sprinting ahead. But, those other runners, they were so busy running that they don’t know how long it took for that second gunshot to go off. All they see is a runner with a mediocre time getting a 1 hour deduction which moves him to the top 3. The guy getting bumped to fourth is REALLY going to feel cheated, and resent the system that gave that guy an hour just because of his skin color.
Tell me if I’m wrong but I would like to clarify something based on what Rhynoplaz said above that I feel they meant,
to clarify: I believe the CRT and DEI ideally have nothing to do with historical events.
(P.S. I don’t know how the DEI and CRT work currently, this is my own opinion on a hypothetical best solution. (Open to ideas if I’m wrong))
The DEI and CRT have nothing to do with past events. It is not about putting everything in reverse, giving the darker skinned man a time cut for every future race because of all the 100s of past races he had to wait.
it is simply about the situation now, the current race, the current job application.
the DEI and CRT should ideally only be about removing the bias of the judge for that specific event, so that the final scores represent each person’s actual time, there is not retribution, there is no repayment for past wrongs, it is only about making the current event, the current job market, fair for everyone.
So that when the scores for that specific day are finalized everyones time is what they actually ran.
The CRT finds what makes the specific event unfair, and the DEI fixes it so everyones time is what they actually ran.
It is only removing the current bias in the Official.
Poverty is a completely different (though somewhat related) issue.
Dealing with poverty isnt about removing the bias, it is about rebuilding the very constructs of our society into a place that does not rely on some working 24h to put food on there plate while others sit around ruling those below.
Capitalism does not exist without poverty, if everyone’s rich, nobody is.
The only solution to this while keeping capitalism is to ensure every person has access to their human rights free of charge, but then our rulers would complain that these people living free of charge are lazy and sapping up your precious tax payer dollars that you worked your but off for.
no government organization can fix poverty, the entire current system for every current country is flawed, in order to get rid of poverty we must rebuild these systems from the ground up.
We’ve done it before and made the lives of millions better. and we can do it again.
We’ve done it before and made the lives of millions better. and we can do it again.
What are you referring to? No arguing, just curios.
Don’t worry I wouldn’t have thought you were arguing, I’m glad you asked.
Woman’s rights required huge societal reform, from being a mans property to being one’s own self. I know we aren’t all the way there in terms of woman’s rights, but we have come a long way. (let’s not go backwards now)
I was also thinking that the current capitalistic system is also much better than a system where power is based on bloodline like in many old Monarchy’s but then I realised that if money is power, and money is inherited its not much different.
However one of our main societal reforms is using reason, logic and ethics over the supposed word of god. I have nothing against the notion of god (other than that it is objective truth), what I do take issue with is using God to manipulate people, people who think they must have faith in the word of god for them to be good people.
This puppetering of god by those in power and the blind trust of those below caused thousands of atrocities; the burning of witches, the rape of people, hundreds of conquests in the name of spreading gods word, and so, so many wars.
This again is not fully resolved in many countries. Such as Israel, were blind faith in the twisted words of god, twisted by a corrupt pollitition, has caused tens-of-thousands of innocent deaths.
But for the most part, developed countries have left gods word as secondary advice, and have not tried to manipulate the people by puppeteering their creator.
This is (imo) a crucial step for a more transperant society. Were you don’t feel you are challenging your creators ideals, but just the ideals of a snob in a suit.
You’ve got a point. Thanks for the encouraging take!
The analogy would be more accurate if everyone started at a random time, but darker-skinned runners started later on average. Then, the event organizers decide to deduct an hour from every dark-skinned runner’s time regardless of when they actually started.
The analogy would be more accurate if everyone started at a random time, but darker-skinned runners started later on average.
Yes, they started an average hour later meaning when an hour is deducted from the darker skinned People’s times, the results are more fair overall.
And even though for some indivules it is unfair, the starting situation is allready unfair and this alteration is a net positive for fairness.
It is not just skin colour that has effects on the starting time of course.
Or instead of focusing on skin color, you could just try to balance out the times so that the next leg of the race is more even for everyone who had a disadvantage.
Ideally yes, but in the real world this would be infeasible. Things can’t be tailored to one person specifically. there are so many countless factors that could lead to a headstart and it would be impossible to account for all of them.
Instead we find the ones that are the biggest factors and focus on them. Race is a big factor. But race is not the only big factor, and ideally all the biggest factors should be accounted for.
I don’t think this is wrong, but it doesn’t force the perspective of “That guy got screwed.” The point of it all is to get people who are unconsciously doing/supporting racist things, say, “I never thought about it like that”
Those same people reading your version will immediately turn it into, “Some of those minorities are getting an unfair advantage!” Or “I was one of the white men who didn’t get an advantage”, (those don’t exist)
So you disagree with my more accurate analogy because it leads to a conclusion that doesn’t fit your agenda? Rich black people and poor white people exist. Not sure why you’re trying to say they don’t. I don’t know why people are so obsessed with dividing things up by race. The us vs them split is not about race or any other demographic except wealth and ownership. It’s the ruling class vs the rest of us and only propping up some poor people depending on the color of their skin is racist and vile.
This will be my last response to you, as you’re not listening to my responses and pretty much just trying to talk over me to make your point that is tangentially related to mine.
I didn’t say I disagree. And on the bigger scale it IS rich vs poor, but one group of people got a head start on getting rich and the others didn’t.
If you can convince all the rich people to give up their money to the poor, by all means, go for it! I fully support that! But, until then, let’s not shit on minorities who are more likely to be poor in a system designed to keep them that way.
In this theoretical, we already know the dark skinned runners were forced into a later start. That’s easily documented and confirmed.
So we enact policies that correct for late start times. That’s equitable.
But we measure the diversity of skin tone of when people cross the finish line. If we don’t see diversity there matching the race entrants, we can take that as evidence that the race officials are still corrupt.
Corrupt race officials hate this approach.
Having racial diversity at all levels of performance doesn’t mean that you’ve made it fair, just that the unlucky late-start white racers got absolutely screwed and the lucky early-start black racers got an even bigger advantage. The whole event should just be declared unfair and breaking the analogy, economically struggling people of any race should receive equal support, while wealthy people of any race don’t need to be further propped up based on the color of their skin.
Having racial diversity at all levels of performance doesn’t mean that you’ve made it fair,
Agreed. Having diversity in winners is not proof that the game is fair.
I’m asserting that lacking diversity in winners is absolutely proof that the game is rigged.
And more importantly, I’m asserting that the people being loudly angry at measuring diversity are usually the same people rigging the game - and that they are specifically rigging the game against all of the rest of us, not just against any one minority.
The people rigging the game love to make a big loud vocal deal about our differences, because they know that united we can and will systemically dispose of them. They’re terrified of our power if we stand together.
Thank you
This is such a big non-answer lol
It’s alright that you weren’t looking back, just take his word when he says he’s not as far ahead as he should be.
There’s a video I watched that explains the concept very similarly here: https://youtu.be/4K5fbQ1-zps?si=JO_5eqDxB5NfwAUY
What’s interesting is that in the video, none of the questions even mention race, but you can see how the racial minorities are affected more than the rest.
A better analogy would be that they do an entirely new race, forgetting about the results of the previous one. Would it now be fair to give the guy a 50-minute headstart?
But it isn’t. That’s just changing the scenario to fit your own expectations.
The race began before any of us were born. WE DIDN’T SEE THE STARTING LINE. There has been no global reset. Nobody zeroed out the scores between then and now.
Tell me when black people were given enough money to make up for 200 years of making white men richer, or when racism was erased from the world, and I’ll consider that you might be even a little bit right.
None of the black people alive today lived during slavery. That’s the reset.
That’s a very common misconception.
Wealth is generational. What our parents have, influences what we have, and what our grandparents had influenced what our parents had.
Let’s jump back 150 years.
Plantation owner has Millions in cotton money. One of his slaves does not.
Plantation owner’s son is able to buy his own plantation and a few slaves. The slaves son, is a slave.
The white grandson uses his father’s cotton money and connections to attend an ivy league school, and become something besides a plantation owner. The black grandson, is no longer enslaved, but he’s still working the fields for pennies.
White great-grandson has a trust fund and blows most of it on drugs and women, but his last name gets him an executive position at a local business he doesn’t understand. Black great grandson is the first in his family to learn to read. He studies hard and gets a scholarship to a law school you never heard of. He does well enough, but nobody really wants a black lawyer.
I know that not all white people are spoiled billionaires. Hell, I know I’m currently worse off than a lot of black people, but that’s not their fault. There’s still 200+ years of racism that kept a lot of them down, even though many were able to rise above many white people. And Trump’s crusade to crush DEI is causing otherwise well meaning white people to look at those successful black people and question whether or not they are qualified. Maybe some aren’t. I know plenty of white people who got into jobs they weren’t qualified for, I’m sure that’s happened to every group. But, the secret racism that we are perpetuating is that we see a successful black person and think, are they only there because of DEI? BUT when we see a successful white person, we don’t question their qualifications until they start making mistakes.
When people aren’t racist anymore, we won’t need a law that says DON’T BE RACIST. But we aren’t there yet, and we are getting further from that point every time Trump says DEI.
I am confused how your analogy is different to the original one? the original one was also not affected by prior races.
A headstart would never be fair if gone untreated.
that’s why the final results are calculated to eliminate the affect of anyone’s headstart.
I think I must have misunderstood something with your comment. If you dont mind could you explain what I missed?
I like how you made all about a race. Nice touch.
I’m thinking of starting a whole philosophy based around this analogy. We can call it race-ism. 🤔 Or… maybe not.
You’re definitely my favourite race-ist.
Thanks. I hope I never hear anyone say that to me again. 😂
I understand and sympathize with where your coming from. I don’t have all the counter arguments, but one that stuck with me while I was devils advocating it with two of my friends stuck with me. (Mind you, I’m drunk on a Friday night at 3 AM, so just posting this before I forget to do it tomorrow).
One of your arguments (not all!) is built on an opposing side abusing the cultural impact of CRT/DEI. However, that can be applied as a premise to a slew of other political efforts with the same mechanics where the singling out of a group can be twisted into discrimination of an adjacent group:
- Americans with Disabilities Act
- Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) for Alaskans
- Shelters and Services Program for Immigrants
- Any policies surrounding Native Americans
In all the above programs, one could make the case that there are adjacent groups that do not, but maybe should, receive those benefits. CRT/DEI just is an easier target to gather people around. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s just the most prominent and easily targetable policy.
All that doesn’t invalidate CRT/DEI or any of the other policies, and even with political opposition one could still argue for their benefit. So, my point is this: Bad actors abusing and misrepresenting a program that focuses on specific groups is not an argument against that policy. If it didn’t exist, they’d latch on to something else. So you’re letting a policy be ruined, not based on its merits, but on how others can twist a narrative around it.
Again, you have made other points that I’m not addressing at all in this argument. I’ll let others argue against those.
No.
Go find surface area to attack on DEI and CRT with your own brainwave.
Look, if I am wrong I want to know. I said I won’t respond to those posts because it’s not meant to be an argument.
I think it’s the equity vs equality thing that is most problematic. Giving people a bigger slice of the pie for being themselves undermines typical economic incentives and breeds resentment. In my opinion everyone should be given the same opportunities but they need to demonstrate themselves as the most capable candidate to get a job/promotion or whatever for the system to work.
If you want us to talk you out of your position we need you to describe what exactly you think CRT and DEI actually are in your own words.
If you can invest your time in explaining those things as you understand them then I am willing to discuss it with you.
If you copy paste from the net I will call you out and take that as a hostile response.
It’s in the OP.
No it is not. You have complaints against DEI and CRT, but you don’t have a definition. Write your own definition as if you were trying to write a dictionary entry.
I added it.
Wow, you actually did.
There are two major problems with focusing only on wealth or income inequality. First, you need to have a degree of racial consciousness in addition to class consciousness if you want any hope of addressing wealth and income inequality. If you don’t, it’s far, far too easy for those opposed to economic inequality to use racial divisions to tank efforts at economic reform. That’s ultimately what killed the New Deal and the Great Society. We had enough class consciousness to get major economic reforms passed. But then the opponents of economic reform used racial divisions to grind these reforms to a halt. See “welfare queen.” If you can convince the poorest white man he is being held down by a black man, it is trivial for the rich to rob him blind.
Second, often times wealth and race are inseparable. Wealth and income are correlated with race. Imagine tomorrow you waived a magic wand and completely reset the national wealth. You literally take every single asset in the country and divide ownership equally among all citizens. Come back 20 years later, and you would still observe massive disparities in wealth and income due to systematic racism.
The real point of DEI is to make it so meritocracy is more than just a slogan. You design hiring and promotion procedures so as to remove bias of as many forms as possible. The problem is that even if people aren’t overtly or intentionally racist, they will inevitably hire and promote people with subconscious biases. A company full of white men will inevitably just end up hiring and promoting people most like themselves, unless active measures are made to remove bias from the hiring process.
Economic justice is impossible without racial justice.
No, that is not what you think those things are. That’s your position on them. In order to tell if you actually understand what they are, I need you to explain them. If you can’t explain something then you don’t actually understand it.
That’s the only way I can get a real baseline for where you are coming from and where you potentially went wrong.
Okay, I’ll add those.
Ok, now that you’ve added those very basic descriptions. Be honest, could you have done that without looking it up?
Now that you presumably know that both of these things are primarily educational, and not actual favoritism. What is it about them that you think makes poor white people so angry? I’m also curious why you think it’s just poor people that take issue with this? The biggest public detractors are all quite wealthy.
Edit: I’m sorry but this process is going to involve a lot of questions. That’s just how this works if we’re both trying to be constructive.
Reading this as a third party… Someone came to learn and you’re being unnecessarily hostile.
This isn’t “why is it my responsibility to tell you, the offender, how to be decent” - it’s strangers opting in to inform strangers. Just prefix with your assumptions about definitions, and answer.
You familiar w flies, honey, vinegar, etc?
Fun fact: flies actually prefer vinegar.
Feel free to take time out of your day to enact your preferred approach.
- Lol you’re suggesting “being the one who makes the effort entitles one to be a dick”
- “It’s not my job to educate people on” what being a dick is
- I believe that’s technically whataboutism since none of my words were responded to directly
I am not angry about anything, and I didn’t look them up now, tbh. The issue I find is that well-meaning and useful policies are painted as something they’re not, or used by others to create polarization. So, my pov is that leftists and progressives are better off focusing on poverty alleviation. If minorities face generational wealth issues (they do) then poverty alleviation policies that don’t single them out in particular will be harder to attack by political opponents.
The problem is that systemic racism is a large part of why minority groups are in poverty in the first place.
You can’t address poverty in minority groups without addressing the racism.
You’re also falling for the fallacy that this is an either or situation. You can fight systemic racism and other underlying causes of poverty at the same.
There’s nothing wrong with educating people on specific issues related to specific demographics. That’s why BLM existing isn’t saying that other races don’t matter.
Would you say that the New Deal policies are the types of policies that you are talking about. The ones enacted by the US government during the recovery from the depression?
I didn’t say you were angry, I was asking why you think it makes poor white people angry.
I think policies in the Nordic model are more along those lines, tbh.
I’ve no idea what CRT is but I’d like to simply answer why DEI kinda things are needed separate from poverty alleviation.
Axiomatically, I want best person for a given job and a level playing field for all. This is the kind of society I want to build.
Say there is universal basic income or universal basic services. Yay, now anyone can get free education or wait until they get job they aspire too, etc.
Do we progress towards the kind of society mentioned previously? Likely not because there are other factors like network, culture and habits that shape how we/others view us and our capabilities. Hence, mentors, counseling, special training, etc are needed.
DEI is racist AF! Everyone should get the same opportunities and we should not reward people for the color of their skin etc.
To the 9 people who disliked my comment (and many more who will in the future) - just think about how fucking weird it is to not want to higher certain races in favor of other races just cause you want to create artificial equity. There are literally instances where white person who is more qualified for a position will get denied in favor of let’s say black person who might be less qualified just because companies wanna fill some DEI quotas. That’s super racist. Companies should hire he best candidates (be it black, asian, white or whatever) and not some (often) mediocre candidates just cause they a certain race.
DEI is RACIST!
I won’t try to change your mind because I agree with you. Well I agree that’s how many policies are implemented, not that DEI necessarily has to be implemented in such a way.
I attribute it to these ideas coming from the US. Americans have internalized racism so much that they are unable to think about people without categorizing them into a race. In a way it’s a final manifestation of the “equal but separate” ideology. Races must remain separate no matter what, but we can talk about mechanisms balance the discrimination by applying discrimination in the other direction.
