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Daniel Solomon's avatar

In the early 90's I was sent by SSA to attend a diversity program. Had tremendous speakers representing Blacks, Hispanics, women et al. In one of the breakout sessios we were asked to share experiences with diversity. I told them about the Hmong people who I first met in Vietnam and later adjudicated many of their SSA cases after they were relocated by treaty to the US, The didn't have a written language, but we worked out a lexicon....

Although they were completely illiterate, and antisocial, many became wealthy and their grandkids got scholarships to Berkeley, other UC universities.

I was politely told to sit down and shut up.

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EUWDTB's avatar

So sorry to hear that... . Unfortunately, that's exactly my experience too. In one of my groups, we had a few non-Americans who were white but belonging to a historically suppressed minority in their own (Western) countries. Simply because of their color of skin, their experience was violently rejected. When one of them started sharing about the discrimination his people had to undergo in his home country, the teacher replied with a blunt "What are you trying to say?". No empathy AT ALL. Later, another teacher clarified that sharing your OWN experience, as a white person, means suggesting that what you underwent was "as bad" as what certain people of color have to undergo today in the US so... it was once again "violent speech"... .

Today, Elon Musk imagines that Western democracies suffer from "weaponizing empathy". BOTH those "progressive" DEI trainings and the hollowed-out anti-empathy Evangelical and tech billionaire movements show how the exact opposite is going on: America is going through a real empathy crisis (LACK of empathy), not an empathy "surplus"... . And that is precisely what made the installation of neofascism in DC possible, imho.

For more info (aside from the books that I already mentioned) see Susan Neiman's "Left ≠ woke", which shows how DEI is fundamentally going against everything the left has always stood for.

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Daniel Solomon's avatar

I certain't cant agree with that! There a big difference that most people don't understand about DEI. Affirmative actoin, theoretically only appleies as a remedy when an organization has been adjudicated as discriminatory.

Some people get carried away...

But in some agencies like mine, people were tested, experience was evaluated, and a "best qualified" list of candidates was created through a process that includes background checks, and an examination by a committee. In foreign service only a small percentage pass on the basis of the test.

Most of the objection a pretext because our jobs are offered to party hacks through the spoils sysyem. The spoils system was first addressed in the 1870's -- vial civil service.

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Susan Raquel's avatar

You mentioned the Hmong people. I seldom, if ever, see them mentioned. I am worried about them and all the deportations.

Besides a driver's license or DMV identification what papers, if any, should they be carrying around with them just "in case"?

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