Tag: Diversity

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I am finding all of this antagonism towards DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) irritating. First, let me preface this with no system organized by human beings is perfect. The system needs to be improved as you see how the system is working. DEI is no different from any other system. Let’s look at it and improve it. Make it better.

But tossing it out wholesale though is wrong. The United States has a long history of racial prejudice and this prejudice has had a deleterious effect on people of color. Racial prejudice is still with us and is still a problem.

I am White middle class man. Historically, this means I have had an advantage in my job search. Not necessarily because I am white but because people told me about jobs where they worked. When I went into apply I had a name that gives me a leg up. The hiring manager knew someone who knew me. I have been remarkably successful at getting jobs this way. I never have been out of work for long and generally have had allies already in the company showing me the ropes.

But it isn’t in the least bit fair and it works against people who don’t know someone working for the company.

The counter argument to this is that, of course, people are going to hire friends and family because someone they know is recommending them. It gives the hiring manager an additional element of confidence in this person they don’t know who is looking to work for them. But how is this getting the best person for the job? Why do recommendations from people you do know carry more weight than people you don’t know?

We all know why and we all accept it without question. The hiring manager knows the person recommending the applicant. He is a good guy and he is saying that Tom, this stranger to me, is also a good guy. Now, this other person I am looking at, is just as qualified for the job but I don’t know him and I don’t know the person recommending them. Who gets the job?

Without DEI, this type of unfairness goes unchecked. Friends and family get the jobs while qualified strangers are passed over because they are unfamiliar. The connected get hired while the unconnected don’t. Family and friends get the jobs. Now if they happen to be all White that is just a coincidence. Not all hiring managers who work this way are prejudiced but it does allow for hiring managers who are prejudiced to stack the odds against people of color. DEI allows for imperfect measurement of what your work force should look like and it forces businesses to consider this when making their hiring decisions.

Is it perfect? No, but neither was the system before. There is this notion that in the good old days, businesses only hired the best. Since, in the good old days, people legally could discriminate against people of color and women, it lead to a workforce dominated by White me until DEI added an element of fairness for people who did not have connections. If you remove DEI, it makes it easier for hiring managers to hire people they know over trying to be fair to those without connections. Attempting to create a more diverse work force that includes more people historically discriminated is still important and should not be abandoned because it is imperfect process.

Lastly, please stop harkening back to the good old days when people only hired the best because they didn’t. The game was rigged and the process was unfair. DEI was one way to right that particular wrong. Can it be improved? By all means, every process can be improved. DEI is no different. Eliminating it, however, will only call into question how people of color and women are being treated in a market that historically discriminated against them.

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DEI is responsible for the Los Angeles fires now on going or so many conservatives believe.

I’m not sure why they believe this. There hasn’t been any evidence that women or people of color firefighters have failed during this fire. The critics keep coming back to an insanely stupid reply from a lesbian firefighter about carrying a big man out of burning building.

I mention that she is a lesbian because I think it added to the animus of the linked article. Hank Berrien, the author, made this ever so innocent statement about the firefighter’s involvement with Girl’s Fire Camps. Right. Important information. I don’t want to besmirch Berrien’s good name here but it was a gratuitous fact that had little to do with the rest of the article. What did her work with girls have to do with his point regarding DEI? Nothing, right. Lesbians. Working with children. Female children. I am not saying anything is wrong with that. Just noting this because it might interest our readers. With his little nudge he effectively lets everyone know she is both a terrible fire fighter and might possibly be a terrible person to boot.

On the other hand, the firefighter was asked a valid question and she botched her response. This hardly condemns DEI as a consideration in hiring as the LAFD is still primarily male, particularly in the fire houses. Males make up 97% of the department. How has DEI made Los Angeles less safe when the numbers reflect a mostly male fire department? All apparently strong enough to carry out a heavier man? Have there been complaints about women failing in their responsibilities? There is remarkably little evidence that there is a problem in this mostly male half white fire department.

No matter what, they focus on DEI as responsible for the catastrophe happening in Los Angeles now. Not 100 winds. Not lack of rainfall. Not unusually large amount of dried vegetation due to a really wet winter. Not that the fire ignited outside of the normal fire season. And, of course, the never mentioned climate change problem which isn’t a problem and no amount of evidence can change their minds. None of the these merit mentioning as causes.

Yet one female firefighter’s inability to give a good answer to a hypothetical question is the problem.

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The right wing media is spreading pernicious lies about DEI being a factor in the Los Angeles fires now burning. Forbes magazine, hardly a left wing source, found that there is absolutely no evidence that this is true. Some of this is based on speculation offered by Adam Carolla who when trying to apply to be a fire fighter many years agos was told that he wouldn’t be considered for 7 years because he was white man. Carolla also admits to having a 1.7 GPA which, and I am just speculating on this now, might have something to do with his long wait and the discouraging words he received at the fire house when asking for a job.

Anyway, a quick glance at the graduating class of 2024 proves Carolla wrong. There are a good number of white men in the group. In fact, if you look at the racial breakdown of Los Angeles Fire Department in 2018, Whites are a much larger portion of the fire department than their percentage in Los Angeles population — 49% Whites in Fire Department, 29% whites in Los Angeles and women make up barely 3% of the department with minority women making up less than 1%. So a department made up of 97% men which is important because one of the chief problems conservative critics have is the physical strength needed to fight fire. Men have more than women. There seems to be more than enough men out there working on the fire.

The unspoken subtext here is that somehow non-whites and women aren’t up to the job. Based on what evidence? Is there data that minorities and women are not performing their job? And if so, what are the problems and how do white men doing the same job compare? If someone graduates from the Fire Academy, doesn’t it mean they past the tests required by the LAFD to adequately perform their job? The critics keep returning to the lesbian women who lead the department. Where exactly have these women failed? Somehow the implication is that since DEI has been considered as a part of the hiring process that standards have somehow diminished. It isn’t like the good old days when only white men were running the LAFD.

But, of course, the good old days were not getting the best people available. They were limiting their search to white men and discriminated against people of color and women. How is this better? It is only when discrimination became an issue that women and people of color got a chance to become a fireman. The good old days. You know when Blacks need not apply for jobs they wanted. You didn’t have to consider women at all because they were the weaker sex. You know those good old days when discrimination was OK.

No one wants to hear about past discrimination when DEI is making it impossible for white men to advance now. Right. The thing is if Blacks and Latinos were given a chance 50 or so years ago to join the force DEI wouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. The problem is they were discriminated against and, because of that past discrimination, women and people of color are rightfully suspicious of their ability to be treated fairly. So ultimately DEI is the direct result of bad faith hiring from white men in the first place.

By all means, blame the Los Angeles Fires on DEI putting incompetents on the front line. I am sure it will encourage those brave people fighting the fires to give their all to put them out. Really, it is shitty way, particularly in the absence of evidence, to treat people who are putting their lives on the line.

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Laura Perrins is complaining about the end of our meritocracy. A common worry among Conservative thinkers everywhere. Diversity is ruining our institutions which now disregard talent and ability for skin color and gender. She remembers a day when only the best got their positions through their efforts, talents and intelligence. 

Wait. Perrins believes that we had a meritocracy. Really. Think about it. There was a time when people didn’t consider race and gender and only made decisions based on who was the best person for the job. The trouble is, as I cast my mind back in history in order to understand her point, I couldn’t find much evidence to support her contention. When exactly did the Western World have a meritocracy?

Never is the answer if you are having trouble coming up with a response despite what conservative thinkers are saying. It pains me to have to point this out but in the good old days, both gender and race were a very important consideration on who got the job. People of color and women were eliminated from consideration from the start. How this can be considered a meritocracy is beyond me.

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Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone, just gave a master class on why diversity is important. He is hawking his book on the Masters of Rock and Roll — all who happen to be white men. Wenner, also, happens to be a white man and claims that Blacks and women don’t “articulate” at the same level. What this means, I haven’t the foggiest. But I am betting it is that he feels comfortable talking to them, they speak a common vernacular which he easily understands and thus is able to flesh out these ideas better when he writes. He also admits that perhaps he shouldn’t have used the word master because it sounds like he is limiting the illustrious designation of master to white men which wasn’t his intention. But he did, after all, choose the title and he now rightfully is defending the absence of a more diverse group of master musicians.

This is why diversity matters. People’s opinions about the world are influenced by where they live and who surrounds them. Since Blacks and women might articulate in a different way, people, like Jann Wenner, may not be as comfortable with their experience and what they are saying. In order to understand their experience and their influence on music, it might be helpful to sit down and have a chat with them in order to understand the music world. Wenner clearly has no interest in doing this and that is a big problem.

What is more alarming is that nobody tried to persuade him that excluding women and Blacks might be a bad idea. I am wondering who he worked with on this book and am surprised that nobody brought this omission to his attention. How could this book gone all the way to production and distribution without someone bringing this up is shocking to me. Maybe if someone would have brought this to his attention sooner, he might have had a better explanation ready when questioned about it. He is welcome to his opinion, but then so am I. As it is, he sounds like a racist sexist idiot. I hope I articulated that in a way that could be understood.

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Right now, Conservatives generally run into two types — the raving lunatics who clearly state that the world is going to Hell in a hand basket and it is all due to Transexuals or Diversity Training or both. And then there are the intellectuals who hide their lunacy and try to show a reasonable face but who, when all is said and done, are essentially saying the world is going to Hell in a hand basket and it is all due to Transexuals and DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) Training. The first group is easy to spot because they make no bones about what they are talking about. The second group is a little more difficult because they couch their lunacy with a lot of multi-syllable words, foreign phrases and references to 19th century philosophical debates that have nothing to do with the subject at hand but diverts readers from the madness of the author’s point. Peter Thiel’s recent speech/article regarding diversity falls into this later type of rant.

Thiel’s erudition is indeed impressive. He went to Stanford where he engaged in great philosophical debates. In the process of his education, he co-authored a book called the Diversity Myth. He says he made some important points there but I am not sure what they are because he fails to review them and assumes that everyone knows what he is talking about. I didn’t. But, if you were to ask me, I think that he is against diversity training of any kind. Most importantly, Thiel made a billion or so making some smart moves in Tech.

Since Thiel is a billionaire, people take him seriously. He tries to be serious in this article and his initial point is worth looking at. He thinks that people are being distracted from the real problems in Academia by focusing on DEI. There is something to be said for that position. Budgets need to be allocated based on highest priorities. The university’s core mission is Education and Research. If DEI is draining limited resources from Education and Research, then, perhaps, the universities should reexamine their priorities. But then Thiel reveals his real worries which is that proponents of DEI are crazy and are destroying university education. He brings up silly classes that have taken root in Academia and the unreasonable rules these administrators are foisting on the schools.

From there, he pivots to how unreasonably expensive the Real Estate market has become in such a short time. Which, yeah, he is right about but how is this relevant to DEI is unclear. How is DEI is affecting the price of real estate? Thiel is not the kind of guy who will let a lack of connection stop him from spreading a good conspiracy theory. He hints that there might be some conspiracy involving bankers and university DEI administrators. At least, I think that it is what he is saying. I’m not sure. It’s all very Washington dark government with enough caution that he could deny any meaning someone has ascribed to him and also be absolutely correct if he likes their interpretation. Are you still with me?

Thiel continues to roll forward with his worries and concerns and even more conspiracy theories. He pivots back to the university. He points to the division of the university — the Humanities and the Sciences. The Humanities, in Thiel’s eyes, is full of crazy people with crazy ideas who have made the Humanities so ridiculous that they are an easy target for conservative critics. But that is not the problem. It is the Sciences that is the better target because the Sciences continue to have some respect within the general public. Conservative critics pretty much leave the Sciences alone because of their strength which is precisely why conservatives should spend some time harping about the Sciences. If conservatives can take down the Sciences, then Humanities and, thus, the university will fall with them. And all will be good with the world.

Where would Thiel attack the Sciences? Thiel believes that scientists within Academia are just scamming for government grants to fund their worthless projects. The science is useless and the scientists are in a massive coverup to hide the uselessness. Again, little evidence is given to back this point. He does point out that a Nobel prize winning scientist believes that in the 50,000 papers on his area of expertise that only about 25 are good. Which sounds about right to me. How many groundbreaking discoveries can there be? I would imagine that most papers would be discussing mundane research topics. Like with most things. There are only so many geniuses around. Someone with an ego like Thiel should already know that. He is just wrong about it. I know this to be a fact because every day I read about new discoveries in science — better cancer treatments, space ships traveling to the far reaches of the solar system and giving the world glimpses of other planets, and a greater understanding of how the body operates and how the earth’s environment works. How could this be if nothing at all is happening in the Sciences?

But let’s get back to DEI. I promise I would like to but I am afraid I am at the mercy of Thiel. He tosses lot of dots into the air, keeps them flying about but he never makes much of an effort to connect them. So, DEI, yeah, well, honestly I don’t have a clue what he is driving at and I read the damn thing twice. I was about to try a third time but I thought Jesus I tried this twice. I am not that dim, he is incoherent. He isn’t going to get any more coherent on a third reading.

Let me end with Thiel’s concluding statement where he completely goes off the rails. Well, not completely, he doesn’t want to shed his seemingly rational front he is working on so, instead, he comes off as confusing. He writes:

“So in conclusion—and this is a simplification, perhaps a distortion, but I think you know what I mean—it would be healthier that, whenever someone mentions DEI, you just think CCP.”

He undermines his own point by saying it is a simplification and perhaps a distortion. So how does this additional information help me help understand what he is saying? If it is a simplification and a distortion maybe Thiel should find a better way of saying it so that it isn’t a simplification and a distortion. Next he assuming I know what DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) and CCP (Chinese Communist Party) mean. I didn’t. Then, I discovered what they did mean and I was even more confused. DEI departments are actually Chinese Communists. WTF. Is he saying that CCP has infiltrated DEI departments in universities to such a degree that the DEI, being an arm of the CCP, is plotting to overthrow of the American government? Or is he saying that the DEI act like the CCP? Either reading seems unsubstantiated from the information Thiel provides.

This seems to be nothing more than a rant with some conspiracy theories gently tossed in so as not to scare away reasonable readers. Yet Thiel ruins it all at the last minute. He couldn’t resist talking crazy It is all good and fine to be critical of universities. Go for it but I thought a tenet of conservative thinking is that reform is better than revolution. Thiel isn’t after reform. No matter how he tries to mute his rant, it is rant – devoid of facts or even a coherent argument, and chockablock full of wild conspiracy theories. It is worrisome that a seemingly rational tech billionaire believes this utter bull shit.

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Wall Street Journal believes that trying to attain diversity sidetracked the management of the Silicon Valley Bank to focus on diversity as opposed to managing the assets of the bank. What really happened is that WSJ didn’t want to place the blame on bad management working in a banking system that is lightly regulated. And what better villain in this little disaster drama than diversity. Not bad investments. Not bad management decisions. Not that nobody is really looking at them despite the fact that they will be backed up by the Federal Government. No bad business practices couldn’t possibly be the problem here. It makes much more sense to say that management was too focused on diversity goals to do their real jobs.

It also gives them a chance to take a dig at one of their favorite bugaboo — diversity. If only the company wasn’t so woke, this would have never happened. Being woke caused the management to worry more about diversity than making money. It is also a subtle dig at minorities and women who, of course, make up a portion of the management team. Women and minorities are, as you all know, more concerned about diversity than making money. If only the bank had been run by old white men, who only care about making money, this wouldn’t be a problem.

There is no way to prove them wrong. It is impossible to measure. And nobody would ever admit to it, at least, no one who wants to continue in banking. And, don’t cry for these managers because I bet these managers will find future employment in banking. Which is a shame. Nobody with real power will get punished because banks will always be rescued. The people who run banks know that. So taking risks won’t be punished because the government will bail out the banks because, well, if they didn’t, the whole economy would go down the tubes. So why not bet the house on number 7? What’s there to lose?

The irony is that WSJ reported the real reasons the bank collapsed in their article which is actually quite easy to understand. The bank invested too much money in Federal Bonds. This means they could be affected badly if interest rates rose. The Fed has been signaling for months that they were going to raise interest rates. The bank management didn’t make any changes in their investments that might have protected their assets. The Fed raised the rates. Somebody publicly pointed out their weak position and a bank run ensued.

But, no, upon reflection, diversity goals are so distracting to management teams. How could they focus on their investments when they needed to hire a diverse work force? That is far better explanation. It’s in the Wall Street Journal after all.