"Affinity Groups"

[marshwiggle]

You guys must each have been a holy terror on your respective playgrounds.

No one ever probably got to use the sandbox,, the teeter-totter, or the swing next to you if you didn't like them, or they didn't resemble you in some key way, I bet.

And heaven help them if 'their' baseball team won, over yours.

Please grow up.

It's long past time.

M.

What are you talking about? The actions that have been criticized are precisely the ones dictating how people should look to fit certain offices. That includes reserving spaces for men and/or white people. Peoples' immutable physical characteristics should not be the basis for hiring, regardless of what specific characteristics are favoured.

[mahagonny]

You guys must each have been a holy terror on your respective playgrounds.

No one ever probably got to use the sandbox,, the teeter-totter, or the swing next to you if you didn't like them, or they didn't resemble you in some key way, I bet.

And heaven help them if 'their' baseball team won, over yours.

Please grow up.

It's long past time.

M.

If you mean me, I went to an all white grade school, so no one looked any different from anyone. I got to use the swing when they let me, because I was so small for my age anyone had the option of bullying me. If our team won, it was never because of my presence, a fact I wasn't allowed to forget. My family moved to the suburbs to avoid an urban school system with rising violence. But we continued attending the church downtown because it had black people in it and my parents wanted us to have diversity in our lives. You're quick to make these hackneyed generalizations.

The tipping point for "woke becoming racist" happened when Biden started specifying the race and gender of his supreme court nominee during the primary debate, which was later reported to have been "traded" to Jim Clyburn for his endorsement in South Carolina before Super Tuesday. This led to the need to announce not only gender for the VP nomination, but during the Floyd riots to 'upgrade' the diversity to not only a woman but one of color.

Once this type of thing happens at the highest level, of course it has to be normalized. Gavin Newsom shortly after said in an interview that he would appoint "a black woman" to Feinstein's California senate seat if she retires or otherwise leaves. This apparently was too much for Pelosi's daughter who had to remind him he could have already done this with Harri's seat which went to a Hispanic male instead (apparently not diverse "enough?") instead of a black woman.

Now it's not a big deal at all to hear a business man or political figure say we need to hire/appoint a member of group x. One valedictorian at USC actually said the quiet part out loud and instead of advocating any group simply indicated the need for opportunities for "non-whites."

This type of thing used to be done in secret, but now it's totally out in the open. A college group seems minor by comparison.

And...woke is racist by supposing that Black Americans are so fragile and ill-equipped to cope with being in public ('hothouse flowers' - John McWhorter) that everyone else needs to tiptoe around them fastidiously guarding our language against any utterance that doesn't bend over backwards to make them feel protected.

[Hegemony]

So you are all connecting affirmative action et al. to affinity groups? Rail against your chosen targets all you want, but it's got nothing to do with affinity groups. I graduated from college in the antediluvian days, in the 1970s, and we had plenty of affinity groups — didn't your place? We had a group for Latino students, a group for Native American students, and so on.

Heck, our local high school, in a very rural area in a red state, has affinity groups — a group for devout Christians, a gay students' alliance, Future Farmers of America, and so on. Affinity groups are not "woke." They are clubs. 

It's amazing how people see bogeymen wherever they look. It's like my friend whose parents are immigrants from Latvia. She sees bigotry against Latvians everywhere. Is there some bigotry against Latvians? No doubt. But when "dynamic small nations" are mentioned in the news, and Latvia is not among them, she jumps on it: more bigotry against Latvians! When a Latvian criminal was convicted of something and made the news: "Ah, everyone is crowing about how Latvians are criminals!" If someone mentioned affinity groups, she'd no doubt say, "And they have them for all kinds of people, but have they created one for Latvians? And why not?"  You all with minds that jump to lefty woke conspiracies when you hear about affinity groups — you're just like my Latvian friend. Not everything is connected to your bugabear. And people forming clubs based on things they have in common goes way, way back — surely even you have heard of the phenomenon.

[mahagonny]

It's not whether I'm for affinity groups or not. It's whether I trust the people who want them.

[mahagonny]

error deleted

[Hegemony]

Yeah, those Future Farmers of America are pretty suspicious.. And we all know what happens when women get together in a group — they even tend disagree with the way things are set up in society! The very idea.

[marshwiggle]

So you are all connecting affirmative action et al. to affinity groups? Rail against your chosen targets all you want, but it's got nothing to do with affinity groups. I graduated from college in the antediluvian days, in the 1970s, and we had plenty of affinity groups — didn't your place? We had a group for Latino students, a group for Native American students, and so on.

The ones I remember from university were around interests and/or disciplines. so there was a physics club, a chemistry club, the student newspaper, *etc. People joined groups with other people who had the same interest, not who looked similar.

And if someplace had a group explicitly for white men, I'd avoid it like the plague. Even though I'd be allowed in. That one identifying factor would be completely irrelevant, and the people who would think it was highly relevant are the people I wouldn't want to associate with.

(*One possible exception would be "language"clubs, like the Spanish club or the French club. However, those were usually made up of people majoring in those subjects, and the point was to be able to converse and have cultural experiences. I'm sure people who spoke those languages but weren't in those disciplines would have been totally welcome.)

[downer]

secundem_artem wasn't saying the groups themselves were bad. The point is that it is the university creating them in the name of diversity, when it clearly isn't diversity that is being aimed at.

For groups that are based on people's identity, one central question is who gets to join them, and how that gets policed. If there is a group for gay males, then who is allowed to join?

Another issue is who is funding the activities of the groups? Do all students have to pay a special fee each semester to support these groups, whether they join any? Or is the money coming from tuition fees? What activities get supported?

At the places I have been in the last couple of decades, it is pretty difficult for student groups to sustain the energy to keep on going. They have to have at least 2 or 3 students willing to commit to going to the regular meetings of the main student group that oversees all the other groups. They have to submit paperwork and have plans for the coming semester. Some places require a faculty member to sponsor a group. It might work well for liberal arts colleges where most people live on campus. It does not work well for places where most students commute and have one or two jobs. If there is not a grassroots enthusiasm for the new affinity groups, then the administration plan will surely fail.

[mahagonny]

And if someplace had a group explicitly for white men, I'd avoid it like the plague. Even though I'd be allowed in. That one identifying factor would be completely irrelevant, and the people who would think it was highly relevant are the people I wouldn't want to associate with.

I might disagree here. White men might benefit from getting together to talk about how to process the rich new experience of being the only group never to be able to experience victimization from white men nor from anyone! Because as we know, white men run everything! And of course they can dust off their Confederacy flags, Nazi memorabilia, hate group membership cards, etc. for an extra session of show-and-tell.
I would go, but I am racially non-binary.
ETA: Seriously, suggesting a group for white men only could be tacit acknowledgement that being a white man today in a college environment is a tense experience that warrants a support group. Posing that thought would be the closest thing to inclusion that I have ever experienced from a diversity team.

[Anselm]

So are there "white only" groups or not? Does lacrosse count?

How about NRA groups?

Anything for the incels?

My school has a trap shooting team.  I will leave it to your imagination as to what they look like.  The same can be said for the disc golf team.

Incels have Magic Cards, D&D, LARPing,  LAN parties, etc.

[secundem_artem]

secundem_artem wasn't saying the groups themselves were bad. The point is that it is the university creating them in the name of diversity, when it clearly isn't diversity that is being aimed at.

Thanks downer.  That's precisely the point I am trying to make.  Diversity cannot be achieved if we want only to spend time talking and socializing with people who look, think, talk, worship etc just like us. Create all the "Black/Asian/Latina faculty affinity groups" you want.  The students already have their various race/culture based clubs.  But don't try and convince me that this will improve race relations on campus.  If you want to improve DEI, create opportunities (and fund them) for diverse groups to get together and discuss areas of mutual interest or concern.  Creating some kind of reverse Apartheid (no whites) is a dead end for the goals you wish to achieve.

[dismalist]

Creating some kind of reverse Apartheid (no whites) is a dead end for the goals you wish to achieve.

But it is not a dead end for purported group leaders who aim to gain political power. The more people are divided by policy, the easier it is for politicos of a certain ilk to gain power. And, of course, the finer the divisions, the more room there is at the top.

Race hustlers.

[mahagonny]

 "Even though it's called the Multicultural Center, it is absolutely open to anyone. We want to make sure everyone is welcome in this space."

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/02/14/university-virginia-clarifies-all-students-allowed-multicultural-center?fbclid=IwAR1TP8Pz0iXtOqpORwYg4frVgMUUZ68ZsiFE1YQRtVp0TjQWP2-Yww7E5F8

Black student claims that they are not welcome anywhere on campus other than the MSC. And is applauded.

ETA: She thinks feeling uncomfortable because there are white people present is supposed to be considered a problem of general concern. Seems to me if you have a problem going out in public, you need to stay home. Or see a psychiatrist.
Of course, she gives the appearance of being quite comfortable.
My God, young people can be so full of shit sometimes. (ETA): That will never change. But we don't have to encourage them to be that way.

SMH

[marshwiggle]

"Even though it's called the Multicultural Center, it is absolutely open to anyone. We want to make sure everyone is welcome in this space."

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/02/14/university-virginia-clarifies-all-students-allowed-multicultural-center?fbclid=IwAR1TP8Pz0iXtOqpORwYg4frVgMUUZ68ZsiFE1YQRtVp0TjQWP2-Yww7E5F8

Black student claims that they are not welcome anywhere on campus other than the MSC. And is applauded.

SMH

From the article:

Shaun Harper, professor and executive director of the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center, said that when resources are available, creating several more specific centers for cultural groups can be preferable to one larger center.

"But even with a multicultural center, institutions have to exercise high degrees of intentionality in the creating of those spaces to ensure that they don't default to an 'All Lives Matter' kind of space," Harper said.

Because we all know what "All Lives Matter" means.....

[dismalist]

I think clearing up the language can help: How about Unicultural Student Centers? That way, we could have lots of them. :-)