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#diversity

23 posts21 participants2 posts today

"Arlington National Cemetery has scrubbed information about prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members and topics such as the Civil War from its website, part of a broader effort across the Defense Department to remove all references to diversity, equity and inclusion from its online presence.”

~ Tobi Raji and Michael E. Ruane

#Trump #fascism #purges #diversity #Black #Hispanic #women
/1

washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/20

The Washington Post · Arlington Cemetery website scrubs links about Black and female veteransBy Tobi Raji

As @laffy likes to say, irony is dead.
"The booing incident prompted a retort from Grenell: “It troubles me to see that so many in the audience appear to be white and intolerant of diverse political views. Diversity is our strength.”

You know what troubles me? concentrations camps. & if diversity is our strength, why delete medal of honor recipients who aren't white men? The computer programming instruction says deimedalofhonor.

#Diversity
#Equity
#Inclusion
#Veterans
#USPol

As @laffy likes to say, irony is dead.
"The booing incident prompted a retort from Grenell: “It troubles me to see that so many in the audience appear to be white and intolerant of diverse political views. Diversity is our strength.”

You know what troubles me? concentrations camps. & if diversity is our strength, why delete medal of honor recipients who aren't white men? The computer programming instruction says deimedalofhonor.

#Diversity
#Equity
#Inclusion
#Veterans
#USPol

Replied in thread

@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

Replied in thread
@Em0nM4stodon As a user from well back in the day, pre-1990...this space reminds me a great deal of the original EFNet/NSFNet/ARPANet I used to inhabit when I was in college, prior to The September That Never Ended (if anyone picks up on that reference).

The users came from a mostly academic or research-forward corporate background; the powers that be in the corporate world mostly had no conception of what the Internet was, and once they discovered it, still didn't have a real idea how it worked, as it was antithetical to the ethos of capitalism. Thus, the user base exhibited traits associated with enthusiastic engineers and academics: braininess, neophilia, curiosity, imagination. Being geeky and different was celebrated and encouraged. The same mentality you might find at an SF convention, art gallery, museum, or junior/local theater project. Communities were intentional, and there was a sense of reciprocal rights and recognition...a celebration of our global diversity.

Of course, flamewars there were...but overall, there was a nurturing of positive growth within the space.

Ancient history, of course. I am wondering if there is a self-regulation that's involved. When I describe the Fediverse to others, even friends whom I consider intelligent, there seems to be a lack of exact comprehension about what it is I'm talking about. (And among my age cohort, there's also a fatigue with social media in general, which I think is partly a function of age, and partly an accrual of bad experiences on Facebook and other corporatized media.)

When I started my phpBB forum as a general online space, I found the "culture" of such forums to be *radically* different. I described it as the "what's your favorite donut" mentality - everything was facile and superficial, like the scene in the kitchen at an awkward party. It just never took off and I don't have any idea why. (Several people close to me have encouraged me not to delete the forums; if you wish to go there, see my profile and pinned post for the address and registration code.)

#Fediverse #EFNet #ARPANet #NSFNet #phpBB #Forum #SFCon #diversity

US court allows #Trump to enforce ban on #DEI programs, for now

A US appeals court on Friday temporarily paused a judge's ruling that had blocked the Trump admin from implementing bans on #diversity, #equity & #inclusion programs at #FederalAgencies & #businesses that contract with the federal government.

#law #USpol #whitewashing #WhiteSupremacy #MaleSupremacy #heterosexism
reuters.com/world/us/us-court-

>50 #universities are being investigated for alleged *racial* #discrimination as part of #Trump’s campaign to end #diversity, #equity & #inclusion programs that his ofcls say *exclude* white & Asian American students.

The #Education Dept announced the investigations Fri, 1 month after issuing a memo warning #schools & #colleges that they could lose federal money over “race-based preferences” in admissions, scholarships or any aspect of student life.

#law #idiocracy
apnews.com/article/trump-dei-u

I'm proud to share a research article our research team recently published. It examines health insurance and non-medical challenges Vietnamese Americans faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disaggregating data unmasks disparities within different populations. We wouldn't see this if we included this group within the broader Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander umbrella.

mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/2/189

MDPIExamining Health Insurance and Non-Medical Challenges Among Vietnamese Americans in Texas During the COVID-19 PandemicWhen COVID-19 data on Asian Americans are available, they are frequently aggregated, concealing community-specific concerns. Consequently, there is limited COVID-19 literature on Vietnamese Americans. In this study, we investigated the association between health insurance coverage and non-medical challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, in Vietnamese Americans in Texas. The NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Common Survey 2 was administered electronically in English and Vietnamese and contained 23 questions about non-medical drivers of health, COVID-19 vaccination, and research participation. Vietnamese American adults in Texas were recruited between September 2021 and March 2022 via partnerships with community organizations. Responses were compared and analyzed using logistic regression. Of 217 respondents, 23 (11%) were uninsured. Of the uninsured participants, 43% lost health insurance coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Uninsured individuals had significantly higher odds of experiencing non-medical challenges, including obtaining housing (OR = 6.10, p < 0.001), food (OR = 6.41, p < 0.001), and medications (OR = 3.45, p < 0.05) than insured individuals. Uninsured individuals had a significantly longer time-lapse since seeing a healthcare provider (ordinal OR = 0.20, p < 0.05) than insured individuals. Thus, lack of insurance is strongly associated with non-medical challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic among Vietnamese Americans in Texas. Disaggregating data can address non-medical drivers of health, advancing equity for marginalized communities.

#Auspol #ClivePalmerJumpingOnTheTrumpWagon #Diversity

seriously wtf some people with money seem inordinately proud of their ignorance — especially about things that don’t affect them personally (unless they have internalised some hateful cow-plop from other treacle-beaks)

<<On top of that, since 1984 Australia has had a Sex Discrimination Act, the latest iteration of which makes it an offence to discriminate against a person on the grounds of gender identity or intersex status, making it clear that these are protected attributes under the law.>>

theconversation.com/newspapers

The ConversationNewspapers cannot justify running Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots ads as freedom of speechJournalists have protested their media outlets’ decisions to run the Trumpet of Patriots ads. They were right to do so.
Continued thread

By now you have all read about what is going on w/ #Trump’s #Defense Dept’s anti-#DEI initiative, in which nefarious policies are birthing hilarious results. Namely, as the Associated Press reported last week, somebody at the #Pentagon produced a database flagging images depicting #diversity, #equity & #inclusion. And some dutiful search-&-replace function suggested that #military websites should jettison images of the #EnolaGay. Because, Enola “Gay.”

#idiocracy #hate
apnews.com/article/dei-purge-i

Continued thread

“If anybody needed a clearer sign that this administration gives not a single damn for the people of the #UnitedStates, this is it,” Matthew Tejada, a fmr #EPA ofcl who is now a snr VP for #EnvironmentalHealth at the Natural Resources Defense Fund, a nonprofit.
Molly Vaseliou, an EPA spox, described the moves as *organizational improvements* that align w/ #Trump’s orders to end *wasteful* spending & #diversity, #equity & #inclusion programs.
#law #EnvironmentalJustice #PublicHealth #HealthEquity