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Comment by greenail | Hacker News Reader

In my experience the farther left DEI policy goes the more chaos, distraction, and resentment it creates. There also seems to be some correlation between how far left DEI policy goes and how acceptable vocal political activism is. The final anecdotal observation is that the farther left the DEI policy is the more likely you are to destroy your career by being voicing any dissenting critique of the DEI policy.

Amazon tends to embrace/reward constructive critical thinking but not disruptive/revolutionary critical thinking and so it may not be possible for Amazon to keep it's culture and adopt a left leaning DEI policy. I think the Amazon culture and staying focused on people who will thrive in that culture are the things that have made it so successful in so many areas.

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How is a DEI policy "left" or "right"?

I think one way to measure how far left or right by looking at how far they take "Equity". If equity is an anti-racist version of "racial equity" then it demands "anti-racist" discrimination. To quote Kendi

"The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."

The more extreme ideologies of DEI like critical race theory are closely associated with (in American terms) "the liberal left".

> The more extreme ideologies of DEI like critical race theory are closely associated with (in American terms) "the liberal left".

“Critical race theory” isn’t either extreme or an ideology, its a fairly mainstream historiographic approach (it was a novel, but not particularly extreme, idea in its field nearly half a century ago, but now its not even that) that the American Right has recently adopted public opposition to (especially, oddly enough, in places it isn’t being promoted) as a tribal identity symbol (alongside election conspiracy theories and defiance of COVID precautions.)

EDIT: It’s particularly odd to call “critical race theory” as an “extreme ideology of DEI” since DEI existing at all as a thing is based on a mainstream understanding of reality developed through critical race theory.

They've adopted public opposition to the words "critical race theory" and have essentially just made up a definition of what that is, or rather not defined it at all[1].

The level of discourse they're at doesn't admit discussing actual grad school critical theories, it's just a chance to bring back older school curriculums like that we didn't do anything bad to the Indians, the Civil War wasn't about slavery, MLK had a point but we've done all he asked for, etc.

[1] https://www.rawstory.com/pete-ricketts/

"DEI existing at all as a thing is based on a mainstream understanding of reality developed through critical race theory."

This strikes me as a very postmodern and intersectionalist view. My reply pointing out the ideological progression as:

marxism -> neo marxism -> postmodernism -> critical theory -> critical race theory -> anti-racism

was downvoted. Your post seems to validate it though.

> This strikes me as a very postmodern and intersectionalist view.

There's nothing “postmodern or intersectionalist” about noting the historical factual sequence:

critical race theory (1970s+) -> detailed analysis of post-civil-rights structural/institutional barriers to racial progress -> modern DEI

The idea that you can understand reality through CRT was what struck me postmodern/intersectionalist not the historical sequence. "lived experience" as truth and all that.

CRT, like critical theory more generally, has both modernist and postmodernist branches (contrary to the Right’s typical propaganda, which tends, confusingly, to associate it vert tightly with postmodernism despite also associating it very tightly with Marxism, which is extremely modernist.)

I suppose your comment would make some distant sense if only the postmodernist branch of CRT existed.

It doesn’t have to be, but it has been made “left” in many companies. Start with seminars and zoom calls with progressive politicians as guests, donate company $$ to organizations that support civil rights while espousing Marxist beliefs, enable volunteer time to support certain types of politicians, etc.

And that’s all aside from the instances of forcing CRT training on the workforce - plenty of controversy there as well.

This stuff happens more than you’d think.

I have seen all your examples in a top tech firm. In that same firm any public questioning was quickly shouted down in a way that made it clear that your were putting your career at risk by asking why the company was promoting left leaning politics through DEI.

"Critical race theory" and "Marxism" are literally two different theories that oppose each other.

I believe the ideology went something like this

marxism -> neo marxism -> postmodernism -> critical theory -> critical race theory -> anti-racism

You can see the connections by swapping out class for oppressions/oppressed power dynamics plus intersectionality

The connections between most of these are just that different French people wrote about some of them at the same time. e.g. Marxism and postmodernism are also opposed to each other.

Corporate trainings of course also don't contain hardcore theories, because the point is to be inoffensive and prevent lawsuits. Ibram Kendi or Robin DiAngelo might show up and do a talk (these people also don't exactly agree) but the actual result is that people are going to start saying "allowlist" instead of "whitelist".

What CRT actually says is that since many US laws were written under racism, those laws still do racist things, and it's obviously true: https://twitter.com/AdamHSays/status/1394986418993340425

What CRT/anti-racism actually says is:

capitalism is racist

the US is systemically racist

all white people are racist

color-blindness is racist

all disparate outcomes can be explained by racism

None of the analysis is falsifiable so it is closer to religion than anything else. Based on the above lens these ideologies deconstruct things like laws and structures, or science and this is how you end up with racist math, racist knitting, racist birds... racist everything.

This is wrong. CRT is basically repackaged class war, and Marxism.

I was born and lived under communism, and a lot of the means CRT is peddled, feels eerily similar to communist/socialist propaganda and perpetual class warfare. Because you have to have some kind of eternal enemy in order to prop up the ideology, even if it is a failed/bankrupt one to the core.

> This is wrong. CRT is basically repackaged class war

You didn't disagree with me. By repackaging something it opposes it. That's called the narcissism of small differences - CRT is a liberal thing and nobody hates liberals more than leftists.

Anyway, you don't seem to be talking about critical race theory (something taught in graduate schools) but instead critical race theory (a collection of unrelated or made up things Fox News has decided to complain about this year.)

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