"Diversity"

[UserGoogol]

Wel hoss, the problem with that is, it's uncertain who the real "natives" are. Ya see, when the 9000 old remains of Kennewick Man man were discovered in the Northwest during Bubba Clinton's administration, everyone was startled to learn he had caucasian skull features. The injuns, no fools, quickly realized the significance of this: potentially another cherished liberal/left myth would collapse, that the white man stole the indians land.

What?

It's not about race. Europeans came over and took over America, taking it from the people who were there. The people who were there might've had some European ancestry, but that's kind of irrelevant. European colonists took the land of the Native Americans. That's a given. The exact color of each group is irrelevant.

 

[crimresearch]

"...In a libertarian polity, a company that engaged in racial discrimination would soon go out of business, driven there by market forces."

Until said company bribed enough libertarian legislators to get some protectionist laws and regulations passed.

But that is a topic for another thread.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Re: Let's be honest.

Let's be honest. We all know that "diversity" is a code word for preferential treatment for certain groups. I don't care if companies want to do that, but just don't pretend that it is anything other than what it is.

"We all know"?! That is a BS argument. You have no evidence to back up your assertion that diversity equates to preferential treatment. When I see the word "diversity", it tells me that the company is an equal opportunity employer. Then again, I'm not a redneck, so maybe I don't know anything.

 

[DavidJames]

In a libertarian polity, a company that engaged in racial discrimination would soon go out of business, driven there by market forces.

I hear this a lot and thought maybe you could help me understand how it works.

Let's say a manufacturer of bolts, selected for use in GM cars due to their low cost, has been ruthlessly discriminating in their hiring practices. Tell me how market forces will cause the bolts manufacturer to go out of business?

 

[UserGoogol]

I suppose the theory is that people will stop driving GM cars, which will cause GM to stop buying those bolts.

Of course, it's somewhat likely that a great number of people will not care or be aware of how discriminatory "Fuhrer's Choice Bolts and Screws" is, and will just keep buying the cars.

 

[Tony]

Re: Re: Let's be honest.

When I see the word "diversity", it tells me that the company is an equal opportunity employer. Then again, I'm not a redneck, so maybe I don't know anything.

It tells me that the company is full of racists who think a person's skin color has merit. If they were really an equal opportunity employer, race/color would be a non-issue.

 

[jj]

Frankly, I'm all for American companies hiring nothing but American native workers - and kick all them rotten, good fer nothin' European-descended white muthas off our American soil!

Wel hoss, the problem with that is, it's uncertain who the real "natives" are. Ya see, when the 9000 old remains of Kennewick Man man were discovered in the Northwest during Bubba Clinton's administration, everyone was startled to learn he had caucasian skull features. The injuns, no fools, quickly realized the significance of this: potentially another cherished liberal/left myth would collapse, that the white man stole the indians land. And it wasn't just sentimentality about the past that was at issue, it ultimately and logically calls into question such things as the rationale for the multi-billion dollars indian casinos.

Moving into action, Bubba calls his Secretary of the Interior, Bruce "The Torch" Babbit (you remember him - they guy that burned down hundreds of houses and millions of acres of forest due to his ecolooney policies?) and has him order the scientists to turn the remains over to the indians, for a proper indian burial. Actually - snort! hee hee! - more like buryin th' evidence - know what I mean, hoss? Hyuk HYuk!!

I'm busy at the minute, but it would be interesting to dissect this one for rhetorical fallacies. Pyrrho? Merc?

Patrick, are you serious?

 

[crimresearch]

What?

It's not about race. Europeans came over and took over America, taking it from the people who were there. The people who were there might've had some European ancestry, but that's kind of irrelevant. European colonists took the land of the Native Americans. That's a given. The exact color of each group is irrelevant.

Correct, it isn't a race thing. Those who are invested in the argument might tell you it is a PC thing.
The Europeans did steal the land they found here from it's inhabitants...but that leaves the question of where did those inhabitants get their land?
Various theories ranging from Heyerdahl to the more recent Kennewick debate leave open the possibility that someone was here earlier, and that the 'Native Americans' usurped their place, possibly through similar means as the Europeans later employed.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Re: Re: Re: Let's be honest.

It tells me that the company is full of racists who think a person's skin color has merit. If they were really an equal opportunity employer, race/color would be a non-issue.

LOL. But it is an issue. They want it to be clear that they are not a racist company. You know, some companies even say that they will not discriminate based on religion or sexual preference either. Does this mean that they really do?

I'm confused here. If a company says they are equal opportunity employers, this really means that they are racist?

 

[jj]

In a libertarian polity, a company that engaged in racial discrimination would soon go out of business, driven there by market forces.

So, suzi's slavemade sarongs (name chosen purely for alliteration), who makes the most comfortable, cheapest underwear (yes, I know sarongs aren't underwear), using slave labor in a fourth-world country, will go out of business HOW, by market forces operating HOW? (Note, I'm NOT trying to point to any one ethnic here, I know there's no "4th world"...)

 

[Ed]

So the complaint is that the government puts certain hiring restrictions on their lucrative contracts ultimately paid for by we the taxpayers. I guess I'm ok with that. If Boeing were free market driven half of Boeing would be employed in China.

I don't know about the half in China part, but our government itself functions under the constraints of the Constitution, including the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, forbidding the racial discrimination policies imposed on Boeing and many other companies by the government. Of course, as I said, the Olympianist supreme court judges have appallingly wiped away with the stroke of a pen what was left of that all-important protection in the U of M cases.

I think that a private company can do what it likes. The problem is that Boeing does business with the Gvt. and therefore has to subscribe to certain policies for that privlidge.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Re: Re: Re: Let's be honest.

It tells me that the company is full of racists who think a person's skin color has merit. If they were really an equal opportunity employer, race/color would be a non-issue.

But the company worries that if it doesn't have a diversity statement, that people will think it must be racist in the other direction. It's a PR thing--do you want to be the only company in your industry that doesn't have a blurb on diversity? Yes, you might get idealists who reason as you do, that "this company is colorblind and judges people not by the color of their skin etc etc"....but alongside those people you'll a bunch of racist applicants and clients who see the absence of a diversity blurb as evidence for sharing their own views.

There might be more racists than color-blind idealists, unfortunately.

 

[jj]

Various theories ranging from Heyerdahl to the more recent Kennewick debate leave open the possibility that someone was here earlier, and that the 'Native Americans' usurped their place, possibly through similar means as the Europeans later employed.

There are many theories in this world. How many of them are actually supported by evidence.

Now, let's assume that for some reason some other race did live in North America before the last ice age, or whenever. You're asserting what about the fact that the weather drove them off it?

If you're talking about after the last ice age, where's the beef, man, one or two skulls simply do not make a point for you. Where are all the burials, bones, and artifacts?

 

[Tony]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's be honest.

But it is an issue.

It's only an issue to racists and those who make it an issue. Call me silly, but I think MLK's spiel about "..not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.", is fundamentally a good idea.

 

[Tony]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's be honest.

But the company worries that if it doesn't have a diversity statement, that people will think it must be racist in the other direction. It's a PR thing--do you want to be the only company in your industry that doesn't have a blurb on diversity? Yes, you might get idealists who reason as you do, that "this company is colorblind and judges people not by the color of their skin etc etc"....but alongside those people you'll a bunch of racist applicants and clients who see the absence of a diversity blurb as evidence for sharing their own views.

There might be more racists than color-blind idealists, unfortunately.

Good points.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Hmmm.. caucasian people could've lived in North America a long time ago, before the Ice Age. However, WTF does that have to do with the fact the Native Americans were here and driven almost to extinction by European people?!

 

[crimresearch]

Who said it had anything to do with Ice Ages or anything like that?

The Kenniwick case revolved around claims by a specific tribe that those bones *belonged* to them, and were in fact one of *their ancestors*...as it turns out, that claim was disproven by scientific means and the material was returned to the researchers by court order.

I suppose one would have to be a skeptic to see any value in science triumphing over religion and superstition.

 

[Patrick]

Surprise, surpise, Patrick is full of crap.

Well, no. I didn't think this issue was going to be a lightning rod for all the PCers here! I gave a quick response to Fool, (who sees everything that doesn't follow the Sacred Writings of PeeSee as a stormfront conspiracy) of one of the sites I was reading on the issue. The Clinton government actually arranged a rather quick-and-dirty (by scientific standards) analysis of the remains and turned them over to the indians. I read somewhere (will find the link if it's a burning issue for you) that the Forest Service dumped a ton of rocks and rubble on the site where the remains were found, another PC, not scientific, action.

More recently, eight anthropologists sued the government to re-examine the remains and won after a battle taking several years:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1073536/posts?page=93

"the 9th Circuit's ruling explicitly concludes there is no evidence of a genetic or cultural link between Kennewick Man and the modern-day tribes. "

The real issue is still who they ARE linked to, and it is suspected to be the ancient Ainu people of southern japan. As the forest service article says, there is a question whether those people were caucasian or not. Now that the remains have been pryed out of the government's grasp (why did they have to be pryed? Is everyone so afraid of what a new scientific analysis will yield?) expect the academic establishment to go into a full court press to prove the fallback scientifically PC conclusion - they were mongoloid peoples.

But here's a statement on the Ainu from a linguistic archaeology site:

"The Ainu look like Caucasian people, they have white skin, their hair is wavy and thick, their heads are mesocephalic (round) and a few have grey or blue eyes. However, their blood types are more like the Mongolian people, possibly through many millennia of intermixing."

http://www.highspeedplus.com/~edonon/ainu.htm Linguistic archaeology

 

[TragicMonkey]

"The Ainu look like Caucasian people, they have white skin, their hair is wavy and thick, their heads are mesocephalic (round) and a few have grey or blue eyes. However, their blood types are more like the Mongolian people, possibly through many millennia of intermixing."

Hmmm. Would the Ainu then be diverse, or not diverse, when hired by a company that has a diversity statement?

 

[Tony]

Hmmm.. caucasian people could've lived in North America a long time ago, before the Ice Age. However, WTF does that have to do with the fact the Native Americans were here and driven almost to extinction by European people?!

Hmm the fact that there are 250+ million native Americans living today seems to falsify that.

Ohhh yeah, I forgot, by "native" "American" you mean those stone age people who migrated here from Asia.

Drop the PC crap, it's beneath you.