Discussion

JavaScript Required

newstacky: DEI is racist and counterproductive. Just look at all the companies that implemented it and are now struggling to avoid bankruptcy. Not only are you taking jobs away from people who sacrificed and dedicated themselves to their work but you are ensuring no one else has those jobs in the future when the company goes bankrupt. It is criminal theft and mob rule and expecting Americans to continue your little scam after you took advantage of our high trust society is ludicrous. You are not a victim, you are not special, you are not virtuous. You are a plain and simple greedy, self centered bully and your time is up!

wnevets: The people who claim to care about "DEI" are very quiet about all of the unqualified people in the current administration.

apical_dendrite: What DOGE was doing here effectively erased any non-white person from history. It goes way beyond rolling back "DEI". Essentially they were saying that a project on an incident in history where the participants were white was OK, but a project on a similar incident in history where the participants were black or female or Jewish is not OK because it's "DEI". So for instance, a grant to study labor history through the lens of white coal miners would be OK, but a grant to study labor history through the lens of female Jewish garment workers would get canceled.

IncandescentGas: How does someone as young as Cavanaugh become so homophobic. I wanted to believe our society was past this.

jalapenoj: Pretty nasty commentary, typical for Bluesky?

jeffbee: "How dare they say mean things about the manner in which I destroyed a nation?"

jalapenoj: “Whites, give us welfare or we’ll punch you in the face” is the vibe of the conversation.

miltonlost: Do a nasty job for a nasty administration for nasty people for nefarious purposes, expect a nasty response.

zobzu: many comments do not seem to target the staffer, but rather, their race - here's one of the top rated comments: https://bsky.app/profile/enuffbs.bsky.social/post/3mguqaeqwi..."The culture of mediocre white men continues. This is a study in the Dunning-Krueger effect. Too bad these clowns have no subject matter expertise is any area. They don’t even have a fully formed pre-frontal cortex. [...]"

miltonlost: Where is that "targeting" their race? "The culture of mediocre white men continues" to me isn't targeting his race. It's targeting his mediocrity and society's allowing up mediocre white men to succeed easily. They're not saying he's mediocre BECAUSE he's white (which would be the racist part).

happytoexplain: Disclaimer: I think the root problem being described by the quote is real, and I think the way DOGE/MAGA/etc interpret "DEI" is absolutely just pure, petty hatred with no semblance of reason, even though there is certainly a rational argument against DEI you can make.That said,I think your take is a little disingenuous. The way they've used the person's race in the sentence is really common, and we understand in those cases that it may or may not come from a racist place in the writer's heart, and we really only have cues/heuristics/history to go on.E.g. if I mention that race X commits more crime, the reason I'm saying it and the context and my tone and wording all inform you of whether I am saying that from a place of honesty (trying to make things better for everybody, including race X), or a place of hatred for race X.Generally when a writer inserts a person's race flippantly like in the parent's quote, it comes from a place of pettiness, at least partially (and yes, you can be racist against your own race). In particular, this is a good example of a common format used when speaking sarcastically or bitterly about, specifically, white people (sounds like "a room full of old white men" or "angry white lady"). It's now particularly obnoxious, since its usage has largely outgrown the legitimate grievances which inspired it.It's important to be extremely careful about this kind of "reverse racism" - yes, the point is that the target race is privileged in some way, so it feels more harmless than "regular" racism. But "reverse racism" becomes "regular racism" very, very fast, and the cute shine drops off of it like a rock. I think we're well into crossing that big fuzzy line at this point (and for the past decade, in fact).