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Fwiw, my company said similar. We’re not public or that big so I’m not naming it, but they have sent several broadcasts and discussed during a company meeting, that these are core values they are sticking with

You have to understand something about fascism's base: its the mediocre. It really speaks to the sort of people who feel like they're owed more (including personal achievements) but think that as a them specifically trait. It's the sort of person who see a black woman being an engineer and think that they deserve that position not her, despite her having gone to engineering school and them having been a D student in high school who didn't go to college or someone who failed out of an engineering program. They look at any success from historically marginalized groups as unearned because clearly they deserve that success more. And so DEI which seeks to encourage more diversity in successful positions out of an acknowledgement that diverse groups are more successful infuriates these people

I think the main issue is if you have two candidates for one job, one is white and one is black, even if the best candidate for the job is the white candidate the company might be forced to hire the black candidate to meet the DEI policies.

I have no idea if that actually happens or not, but I think that's what the entitled white people think and get upset about. They feel is discrimination against white people now.

It's mostly elites that think they're losing elite status--which to them feels like persecution. Additionally, I do think a lot of DEI initiatives at companies are poorly designed.

It depends on the implementation and the PR …. I’ve had several conversations with my conservative brother.

I describe how it’s a strength of my company to have a “melting pot” of different perspectives, getting the best skills from all people, we work better together when everyone is safe and comfortable being who they are …. I’m specifically happy that they plucked my coworker, as a woman in a male dominated field, out of the trenches because she’s an excellent manager

My brother sees unskilled workers forced on him by management fiat. He sees having to do more to make up for their lack of ability, motivation or work ethic. He sees a double standard where they can get away with stuff that would get him fired.

I dont know how much of this is the implementation and how much is the person reacting but we have very opposite perspectives

I'm going to use TERFs as an analogy to explain what I think it is (and I do mean TERFs, not your garden variety transphones). There used to be a subreddit called /r/GenderCritical, before it got (rightfully) banned for hate speech. I had a look around there a few times, trying to understand their incomprehensible ideology.

At first, I only became more baffled. I saw so many stories that had the rough shape of "I am a women who was abused, victimised or otherwise oppressed by a cis man and/or men and that's why I now hate trans women". I just didn't understand how those two things connected. I get that radical feminists tend to take a biologically essentialist view that undermines trans identities. However, I couldn't understand why they put such effort into distilled down their bitterness and resentment into the vitriol to throw at trans women, as opposed to the men who hurt them (and the patriarchal systems that hurt them).

Over the years, I've come to understand that many TERFs have experienced trauma such that they feel powerless and small when looking at the actual cause of their systemic oppression (i.e. the patriarchy), so through a trick of transference, they direct their rage and grief onto transness instead. Fighting an already marginalised foe means that they get both the feeling of fighting something ideological that's larger than them, but also they don't have to confront how small they actually are when fighting against oppression (because each of us is small and helpless against systemic oppression; we can't do shit without solidarity with other people). To be clear, I don't consider this absolutely isn't a legitimate excuse for someone to be an awful person; however, it does help me to understand why someone who calls themself a feminist would take such a stance (as much as I'd like to consider them "no true feminist", I feel like I need to acknowledge the complex baggage of the term "feminist" if I'm to identify as one).

I think people who crusade against DEI initiatives are doing a similar sort of transference, where their real enemy is in fact Capitalism, but that feels like so impossible of a foe that they feel hopeless; it reminds me of that widely shared Mark Fisher quote about how it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. And so they tell themselves that there must be some big, bad, insidious force at work, making organisations opt into DEI initiatives, and it must be the same force that's responsible for the deep unease they feel when they look at the world, or contemplate the future their grandchildren have to look forward to.

In a sense, they're right in that there are nefarious forces at play and the game is indeed rigged. The problem is that they've picked the wrong target and would be better served going after the oil barons and billionairess. In terms of my background, I probably have far more in common with the average Trump voter than I do the average Democrat, so I relate to the hopelessness that their misplaced rage protects them from feeling. The tragedy is that their ignorance hurts everyone, including themselves; None of us are free until all of us are free.

It's all about manufacturing consent to do away with the Civil Rights Act

If you read hard right tweets, you'll see they use DEI in place of slurs for any minority. Just like critical race theory, they've twisted the meaning to whip up a frenzy and have something for the masses to hate.

I worked at a company that made electronic devices and the diversity of the teams made it so we caught so many glitches white people would have missed before shipping. Sensors that didn’t work right because skin color or makeup. Things that even TurboHitler would have been annoyed at.

It’s illogical and short-sightedly dumb to forfeit knowledge and skill from any shape, size, color, or orientation of a human.

Haters won’t learn, I fear, until they’re truly marginalized as well.

I also work for a large corpo org here, but instead of “DEI” we have “Belonging.” Under that label we have a council that informs and recommends things to our senior leadership, groups which offer support and community (LGBTQ+, Latinx, women, etc.), and provides learning resources. Overall I’m proud of the work we do. (I’m also proud of the two of people I’ve hired internally who were chairs in Belonging groups at some point!)

A couple months ago at a large event, someone asked if we’d be getting rid of DEI. Our Chief People Officer was able to say something to the effect of, “We’ve never had a DEI program but we are committed to continuing our Belonging practices.”

So basically we’re not backtracking on anything, and we have pretty good DEI, but because we never used the term “DEI” she was able to deflect the challenge to it. I never thought about it before that happened, but it made me wonder if it was an intentional choice to avoid the buzzword and so some of the criticism that comes of it.

Anyway, cheers to you also having a safe place of work!

It genuinely gladdens my heart to hear you say this, because it suggests that there is at least some length of genuinely caring about inclusion by the people in charge at your workplace; I have seen too many instances of corporations paying lip-service towards DEI whilst fostering a truly toxic workplace culture. It's nice to hear a story from somewhere that's different and that it makes a difference to how safe your workplace feels

They think it's discrimination against straight white males now and think they are going to get sued by someone with a rejected job offer because the decision may have been made due to skin colour, gender, or sexual orientation.

A gay man can sue if he was not hired because he was gay, these people think eventually a straight man can sue if he wasn't hired because he wasn't gay.

Which may happen with Trump in power now, I wouldn't be surprised if he started working on laws that will allow people to do that