Ask Lemmy

The facts are that black Americans are worse off than other groups in almost every way we can measure. There are two competing theories to explain this.

1-the systems of our society are biased against black people. That's Systemic-Racism. 2-black people are inferior to everyone else. That's racism, original recipe.

How are these systems biased against black people? That's what the field of CRT seeks to answer.

Poverty and other lack of opportunity are how we target programs that elevate people toward equity.

Diversity is how we can objectively measure outcomes - whether people in positions of power are actually applying the above principles.

Good on OP for seeking challenges to their existing view points and being open to changing them upon compelling enough thoughts. In a genuine way no less.

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.

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.

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.

The only people you mention "abusing" what you call the "well-meaning intentions" of "DEI" are:

a growing population of poor whites

As they are, as implied by your formulation, misinterpreting the policies as favoritism. It this what you meant with abuse?

First off, CRT is a red herring. It's an extremely niche framework for historical analysis and egalitarianism which is irrelevant outside academic contexts and only gained ground due to a racist asshole.

When it comes to DEI I think that your heart is in the right place - this is all about economic justice and if there were better ways to account for that it'd be an excellent thing to correct for (though, imo, the better correction would be to ensure all children had a genuinely equal chance at success). Unfortunately, because America has a long history of racism, race and poverty are strongly correlated.

The other half of DEI is that people tend to hire like. It's a deep social flaw but we need to acknowledge it - white men will tend to hire white men, a company composed entirely of black women will tend to hire black women... we have studies. Most entrenched wealth is held by white men and so white men have an inherent advantage in employment.

The last thing I'd highlight is that a rising tide raises all ships - your assumption that immigration causes an expansion of poverty usually hasn't been born out. In capitalism more people means more labor means more innovation means more wealth - there are some limits around resources but we're not near any hard limits in that regard.

Democracy is not just about voting. Democracy is not just about freedom to debate political topics. Democracy is also about being actualized in a way which allows you to advocate for yourself and your interests. This works both from a idealistic and functional perspective - egalitarian democracy is the "right" thing to do, but it also serves to help identify and remedy issues in specific communities before they become bigger problems.

The core thesis for progressive liberalism is that for a democracy to function properly, we should identify injustice and work to reduce it, so that marginalized communities have better access to these democratic primitives than they would otherwise. The idea is that this creates a proactive framework for dealing with problems, rather than a reactive one. Otherwise the Democratic process seems cursed to leap from big crisis to big crisis without any real strategy for working at smaller scales.

proven multiple times and confirmed by multiple studies: communities that welcome immigrants have higher education rates, better incomes, higher productivity, and lower crime than communities based on exclusion/exclusivity/isolation/separation

conservatives use “CRT” and “DEI” to sow polarization because they know even they’d get blowback if they admitted they were just anti-empathy/pro-hatred/anti-equality

You’re writing as if CRT were a set of policies instead of an academic discipline—that’s why everyone is asking you to clarify what you think it is before they reply. It’s like trying to respond to someone criticizing “quantum theory” whose argument is based on the economic effects of nuclear power plants.

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 (putting the emphasis on poverty is also a type of DEI).

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.