I dont like the DEI industry, but affirmative action is good. Slavery ended 150 years ago and its disgraceful that so many African-Americans still live zero wealth, poor jobs, with second rate schools and healthcare. Many/most corporate jobs really dont require a lot of unique skills, its good that employers have a preference to hire under represented minorities, hopefully it'll help improve society for all of us.
Tons of people had it shitty much more recently who aren’t black.
Means testing already covers all of the “zero wealth, poor jobs, and second rate schools and healthcare”. Being a minority has jack shit to do with that.
Any of the disadvantages the minorities have should be tested for directly and those should be targeted. That way all disadvantaged populations benefit and we’re not giving unfair advantages to the minority who grew up wealthy.
The issue is that there are many who suffer from generational poverty and are not “diverse”. The DEI benefits should go to all of disadvantaged people regardless of skin color. And there are many wealthy African Americans. Why are they getting the benefits of DEI vs the generationally low income white kid?
Not in America, but I was talking to some managers for a childcare service here and they were explaining why they try to favor brown people. One put it as "for want of a better measure". It's kind of strange since that's sort of what all racism is, isn't it? An easy shortcut for evaluating people without having to go to the trouble of investigating each individual.
I'll preface this with I'm not american, and I'm from a country that historically doesn't have a problem with racism against the minorities these policies affect.
These policies always seem a bit ridiculous to me. I've done nothing to discriminate against these people, so why am I being treated worse because of the actions of people I had nothing to do with? Affirmative action policies are discriminative, just not to the group they're targeted at helping. Why can't there just be equality and leave it at that?
My personal opinion is you can't discriminate based on information you don't have, so universities/employers etc shouldn't get information on a candidates race/gender/whatever that's not relevant, because that way they can't have discriminated using it
Ah, the old argument that to end racism we must embrace noble bigotry.
How about ignoring immutable characteristics, period, and picking solely on merit? I love other commenters mentioning removing personal characteristics such as name, gender and race from resumes - spot on.
