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Miguelitro's avatar

Really well reasoned and supported. I think the crux of the matter is distinguishing between "crates" bestowed as a result of privilege versus those earned as a result of effort. I'm fine with penalizing the former, but penalizing the latter is unbelievably corrosive.

The hard part is how to tell the difference. The reason why it's so hard is because there are profound differences in both nature and nurture. On the nature side, there is a Progressive myth that everyone is somehow born with the same set of gifts; that it is only circumstance that puts people at separate starting blocks. The work of geneticists like Kathryn Paige Harden and others has shown that to be a myth, and also that there is much more variability within racial and ethnic groups than there is between them. So that is one confounding factor. The other is circumstance, environment and upbringing. There is no question that some have had it better than others.

So how do you tease out effort from advantage? The Progressives tend to erase effort and attribute everything to advantage. Ibram X Kendi's univariate outcome-based definition of racism is an extreme example. This is utterly destructive of human agency. Not good. The Right, on the other hand, tends to let advantage play out in a laissez faire way without regard to its inherent unfairness. Also, not good.

So how do we as a society set the rules? The worst thing we can do is to blame measuring sticks. Or to let people off the hook for their own selves through glorification of victimhood. I think most people can reliably identify sources of genuine opportunistic disadvantage. And it is just to disproportionately direct resources to address them. And I think it is possible to do so without penalizing the truly gifted whose talents are essential if we are to grow the pie.

But it will require brutal honesty, which sadly is not in fashion right now.

I love your writing, Monica

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Marnie's avatar

There are many examples of where DEI initiatives don't address root causes. Some examples:

Huge unregulated costs of medical care such as hospital "facility charges" that dramatically run up the cost of healthcare. Regulatory efforts could be focused on reducing excessive medical charges such as "facility changes", but no one seems to pay much attention to it.

San Francisco public school teacher's union contract terms that cause teachers lower on the seniority totem pole to be laid off first. Because less experienced teachers in San Francisco work in schools with more socioeconomic challenges, it is these schools that more frequently lose their teachers. This could be fixed by changing the terms of the teacher's union labor contract, but no one talks about that.

Black female minors (girls) in California are more than 5 times more likely than other populations to be trafficked for sex as a minor. As well, California has one of the highest rates of sex trafficking in the nation. This is a brutal crime. For over a year now, California state senator Shannon Grove has been trying to pass legislation to make sex trafficking a serious crime:

https://sr12.senate.ca.gov/sb14

This legislation is still not passed.

San Francisco currently has a very high rate of serious drug addiction. While there are voluntary treatment programs available, care is fragmented. An addict can take many years to break their addiction. Their care needs are not well met by the fragmented voluntary treatment programs available. I've seen drugs destroy middle class families right on my street more than once. No one can say that they care about diversity and equity while turning a blind eye to the impact that drug addiction has on families and children.

I could go on.

It is interesting to me that there seems to be more upward mobility in parts of California where there is a military base, such as in Fairfield, California, and the least upward mobility where there is an "elite" university, such as in Palo Alto, California.

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