But its absence demonstrably leads to discrimination based on the same things through subconscious bias. At least with it in place you get fairer spread of people being affected.
If you want to discriminate for the greater good, you elevate yourself above others. The only thing you could do is to take a step back yourself instead of forcing others to do so.
If you cannot restrict yourself to that, you are as bad as those that discriminate without further reflection.
If you don't "discriminate for the greater good" (your phrasing, not mine) and you are part of the dominant group who benefits from not doing so then you also elevate yourself above others. That is not a morally superior choice.
Personally I do take that step back. I would consider myself a violent person if I did not. I look around and I see my peers choosing not to work towards dismantling the systems that privelege themselves and I consider their inaction a form of violence against people who are already struggling. I am not American so I can't speak for the culture there but in my society there is a general acceptance of using collective power to limit the violence of individuals, and even more so when there is such an evident power disparity.
No, it would not be morally superior and it is commendable if you do take a step back. But to remove discrimination you have to leave others to make their choice too.
> I consider their inaction a form of violence against people who are already struggling.
To help people in need, you do not have to put them in groups first. This grouping is already discrimination. I would say literally, but the term is a bit overused. But the good thing is that you never need discrimination to alleviate injustices.
Any argument for social security policies and everything that remotely fits under that umbrella does not need discrimination. In fact it would work much better without it or using discrimination as a justification. It even undermines the argument for it.
> To help people in need, you do not have to put them in groups first.
I don't "put" them in groups. I recognise that we are all put into groups by the systemic nature of society. I also recognise the active grouping of others who feel that they are disadvantaged and try to listen to various advocacy groups who again and again ask for me to "use my privilege" to help. The idea of choosing not to do that but rather to respond with "your sense of Otherness is constructed, just let it go and don't worry about this group or that group" would feel both cruel and absurd.
> Any argument for social security policies and everything that remotely fits under that umbrella does not need discrimination.
Again you're the one framing this as discrimination. Something I would advocate for in my workplace is bias training, where people can learn to spot unconscious biases in themselves and can learn about the effects of systemic inequality on the individual and societal levels. I think it would be difficult to argue that such actions are "discriminatory."
I understand that the conversation is about specific DEI legislation and I have to admit that I am not American and am not familiar with the minutia of what was enacted there. But I am specifically responding to the idea that any action taken to combat implicit discrimination will lead to explicit discrimination.
There's the example of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra which I always think back on. They opened up to allow women to join but after some years no woman had managed to get a position on merit. Eventually a blind audition was introduced and the split quickly became reflective of broader societal demographics. To my mind it feels like many people here are jumping to say that blind auditions are discriminatory because they im some way disadvantaged the white men who "looked like" professional musicians. In some way that is true but it feels like such a warped reading of reality to me that I struggle to advocate for my own views in the face of it.
One simple thing we do at my company is to scrub things like names from applications, so that John Smith doesn't get preference to Aphiwe Mvala because of the ease/familiarity of the name. Would I advocate for mandating that practice in public jobs? Most certainly, I don't see why not, especially if I see the outright discrimination scandals such as [0] that can result from overly homogeneous institutions. Is the argument really that John is discriminated against with this policy?
