Good! If it is wicked to choose reason over self-interested folly, humanity over inhumanity, science over invention, inclusion over exclusion, I am wicked through and through and will continue to be so.
But you don't choose those things. Inventing the baseless strawmen you impute to your opponents is choosing folly over reason and invention over science. When you argue for racially discriminating against Asian Americans in order to make more positions available for African Americans, that's not choosing inclusion over exclusion. It's choosing inclusion of an African American over inclusion of an Asian American; and it's choosing exclusion of an Asian American over exclusion of an African American. In order to choose inclusion over exclusion you'd need to instead argue for increasing the number of available positions. Your implication that excluding an Asian American from a position doesn't count as exclusion because he's the same race as a bunch of completely different people who weren't denied positions, and including them somehow magically includes him by proxy, is folly, not reason, and it's invention, not science. And your claim that what you are trying to do to that Asian American qualifies as choosing "humanity over inhumanity"
dehumanizes him.
Here is the critical thing. Terms like "racism" and "discrimination" in general carry a certain weight. In the US they refer to very specific Government endorsed policies meant to
segregate minorities from the white population/society. So when the terms "racism" and "discrimination" are tossed around, it feels cheap as heck. DEI is not looking to restrict Asians or Whites from general society, working professions, or schools. DEI at most is thumbing the scale at times.
One can argue for or against the morality of DEI policies, pros/cons, costs/benefits, but to consider it "dehumanization" is <expletive deleted> ignorant.
Two things. First, grow a reading comprehension. My post was a structured argument, consisting of sentences, with actual subjects and predicates. "An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition." The definite proposition to be established is right there in the very first sentence: "But you don't choose those things." Poli does not do what he describes himself as doing. That's all. But you appear to have decided what I must have meant by throwing the entire paragraph into a blender and setting it on max. I did not in any way, shape or form suggest that DEI is dehumanization. I accused
Poli of dehumanizing those Asian Americans that DEI practices exclude from employment opportunities, no one else; and I accused him not because of his support for DEI but because of the
dehumanizing rhetoric he wrote -- his characterization of that support as choosing "humanity over inhumanity". It is perfectly feasible to argue for racial preferences honestly and forthrightly -- by offering some explanation for why the benefit to the favored applicant and/or to society as a whole outweighs the harm to the disfavored applicant -- without implying the latter doesn't count as part of humanity.
Second: your overall discussion is bollocks. In English the terms "racism" and "discrimination" do not mean what you propose -- you're relying on Humpty Dumpty definitions from a narrow echo chamber of political extremists, constructed to make them something non-white people by definition can't do in order to justify endless double standards and special-pleading fallacies. "Racism" is prejudice against people because of their ethnicity or perceived ethnicity, or hostility toward them, or viewing them as inferiors. "Discrimination" is treating an individual differently from how you would treat another individual; "racially discriminating" is doing it because of his ethnicity or perceived ethnicity.
FindLaw provides a summary and the complete text of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.
www.findlaw.com
"Sec. 703 Discrimination Because of Race, Color, Religion, Sex, or National Origin
This section covers unlawful employment practices in hiring and firing. Section 703 excludes merit-based practices that may appear discriminatory if such was not the intent.
(a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer–
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."
"Thumbing the scale" because of race is discrimination because of race -- in plain English, and in the way the term was generally understood in 1964, and in U.S. civil rights law. And when the scale being thumbed is a hiring decision, it's illegal in the U.S. So if you intended to suggest the 1964 Civil Rights Act was only meant to protect minorities from racial preferences and not the majority too, that's Trumpian in the violence it does to the clear text of the law -- it's on a level with claiming the 14th Amendment was only supposed to make ex-slaves citizens so the US-born children of illegal immigrants don't qualify.
So no, I was not cheaply tossing around "discrimination"; I was using it correctly, exactly the way normal English speakers understand it, for exactly what it means in the law.
As for cheaply tossing around "racism", quote where I did that. If you have a problem with the careless use of that word, feel free to take it up with DrZ. But if you want to be fair-minded about that, first take it up with Poli and Toni and some others among your allies. There's a parable about eyes, motes and beams that comes to mind.
The dehumanization comes in looking at some African American candidate for whatever getting in over a white or Asian simply because he is black, and ignoring their qualifications. The med school applicant that busted their butt, got very good grades, did community service, impressive recommendation letters, played on the volleyball team, and interned each summer. All you people see is the "blackness" of their application.
"You people". Quote one of "us people" doing that. For extra credit (not that you'll get the basic credit), quote
me.
