@USelaine
Agree 100%
The idea that the density of good people is different among different categories, whether races or genders or degrees of ableness or whatever, seems completely suspect to me. So there's that.
But also, abstract goodness is not always the entirety of what is needed of employees. Regardless of what score anyone might get open whatever test you could throw at them, there is intrinsic value and having people who come from different backgrounds. Diverse groups have a better mix of origin stories, and are not just diverse in nature but in nurture.
Diverse groups have walked more paths, seen more things, experienced more situations. There is a greater breadth of empathy. There are more varied sources of inspiration. Inspiration comes in odd ways from different situations.
When solving mysteries, differences in people's personal histories will lead them to see the same situation differently, sometimes shaking them out of overly narrow, limiting, or even toxic assumptions.
When creating policy, having folks present who can more directly represent those impacted can help to call out and perhaps avoid biases, prejudices, indignities or injustices that might be invisible to or unappreciated by a narrower group that is so used to things going a certain way that they don't realize or find it easy to relate to that full space of potential negatives others might endure.
When creating stories, diversity brings more richness of life experience to draw on.
When innovating, diversity brings more points of view a greater breadth of traditions and techniques to draw on, better thinking outside the box because the boxes people have inhabited are so many and varied.
When entertaining, more sources of music, jokes, artistic tools and media. Even with 5000 TV channels and as many grocery store products, we crave variety, which better comes of diversity than a sea of cultural sameness.
One can allege there is a kind of dogged efficiency in eliminating diversity, but there is no reason to suppose it will do anything other than destroy all that has made the US an interesting place to visit, study, and buy from.
The monocultural sludge we are becoming is the farthest thing from smart, safe, healthy, entertaining, or free. Even a highly efficient from of that toxic sludge will still be sludge and will not thrive economically or socially. The stock market is just an early warning sign but there will soon be other even more visible indicators. Our society is melting down before our eyes and the present experiment in selfish, bigoted authoritarianism is the cause, not the cure.
This cesspool of feigned expertise and mindless leadership being thrust upon us claims to be motivated by a desire to avoid bankruptcy, but in fact is the shortest path not only to economic but also moral, cultural and intellectual bankruptcy that anyone could have devised. If there is an efficiency to be claimed it is in the swift path ruin it has charted. Future generations of locusts will study the raw, ruthless, and ultimately pointless efficiency it has required to dismantle and plunder a thriving society in such short order.
#diversity #DEI #DOGE #efficiency #politics #bigotry #monoculture #inspiration #justice #bias #prejudice #injustice
H/T @salixsericea