RE: has Biden done a good job as president?
May 10, 2021 at 7:24 pm
(This post was last modified: May 10, 2021 at 9:20 pm by Rev. Rye.)
(May 7, 2021 at 5:21 pm)Angrboda Wrote: That MalcolmX's argument may describe a diversity hire doesn't imply that it does describe a diversity hire any more than the fact that I might be a master chef implies that I am one. That's a non sequitur.
And, of course, the fact that X might have been describing the white supremacist power structure and how it can claim "you see, we've fixed your problems, black people. We've got a politician on our team who looks like you" and use that as a substitute for actually creating policies to help the communities, maybe try and bring them on an even keel with the white communities, and that this is a far bigger problem than mere diversity hires.
I suppose it's possible to argue that Malcolm X would have been against such "diversity hires," but, bear in mind, affirmative action programs exist to increase representation in higher positions of power, and, for most of his public career, he advocated for a black ethnostate because he thought the systemic issues I talked about earlier are so entrenched they might not actually be surmountable anymore.
Of course, as for Martin Luther King and affirmative action, well, look no further than this interview between Alex Haley and MLK on a very early affirmative action program [redacted for modern sensibilities, with changes in brackets]:
Quote:Haley: Do you feel it’s fair to request a multibillion-dollar program of preferential treatment for the [black man], or for any other minority group?
King: I do indeed. Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the [black man] has been deprived? Few people reflect that for two centuries the [black man] was enslaved, and robbed of any wages—potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America’s wealth today could not adequately compensate its [black men] for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation. It is an economic fact that a program such as I propose would certainly cost far less than any computation of two centuries of unpaid wages plus accumulated interest. In any case, I do not intend that this program of economic aid should apply only to the [black man]; it should benefit the disadvantaged of all races.
Affirmative Action is a flawed solution, I know, but compared with just hiring "the best man for the job," let's face it, realistically, "the best man for the job" is far more likely to be a white man specifically because we've had all the advantages for the past four centuries, and ignoring that ensures that nothing changes. Perhaps someday, there'll be a time that you can reasonably assume that the identity of "the best man for the job" isn't coloured by our past and present racial inequalities, but this ain't it. I'd love it if we could be colour-blind, but we don't live in a world where that's a viable reality yet. We may be getting there, and we're certainly closer than we were in 1970, but we're nowhere near out of the woods yet.
(May 10, 2021 at 5:50 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Biden has done a good job at not being a self-worshipping, chaos-loving ego maniac and pathological liar; a morally bankrupt fraud of an identity with a god complex and the emotional range of an angry toddler with a hot load in his diaper. Isn’t that all that really matters?
You kidding? These days, acting like a human diaper with no regard for others, truth, or observable reality is probably a huge plus for a conservative candidate.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.


