Johns Hopkins’ diversity chief labels whites, males and Christians as ‘privilege

[marshwiggle]

My concern is that the backlash is not coming from "Hey, are we really accomplishing anything or is this just fluff?"

It's coming from "White Heterosexual Christian Males are suffering reverse discrimination and made to feel guilty and oppressed! Woke!"

For anyone not familiar with the legend of William Tell, it's instructive:

It is Tschudi's version that became influential in early modern Switzerland and entered public consciousness as the "William Tell" legend. According to Tschudi's account, William Tell was known as a strong man and an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the House of Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking to dominate Uri, and Tell became one of the conspirators of Werner Stauffacher who vowed to resist Habsburg rule. Albrecht Gessler was the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, Switzerland. He raised a pole under the village lindentree, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before it.

It's the "bowing before the hat" of DEI that's what upsets most people. Actually trying to recognize individuals for their accomplishments and abilities, rather than identity characteristics, is not a big problem for most people, including "White Heterosexual Christian Males".

[Wahoo Redux]

Well, what did Golden hope to accomplish with this?

Under a section titled "Diversity is the word of the Month," Golden defined privilege as "a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group" that operates on "personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels."

What is the hoped-for outcome here?  How would this 'definition' help anyone or resolve anything?

I think both Stockman and Marshy go too far, and dismalist's comment is right out the window, but they've all pointed out a dynamic that some good folks on the left are stubbornly refusing to see. 

That, and the fact that if we look in the past we will simply see a racist, sexist, xenophobic, and violent culture.  We just will. Do we need to constantly keep revisiting it? I keep hearing about a "reckoning" with these forces from the past, and I never know what that means.  Responsible, mature, educated people acknowledge the evils in American history and the need to do something about it.  The rest are actually ignorant or part and parcel of the Trump cult which stubbornly refuses to acknowledge facts, past and present. 

But what are we supposed to do?  Insult each other to make the world a better place?

Civil Rights were born on the premises of protest and taking-it-to-the-man, but these topos have become simply self-flagellation at this point and are backfiring.  It is time for something new.

[Kron3007]

This is simply an example of things going to far and that the best solution (and what most people support) is usually somewhere closer to the middle.

I for one support the DEI intentions, but feel that it has simply gone too far and a lot of it is just window dressing anyway.  I suspect I am not unusual in this.  Most people support equity in the work place, but what we are seeing from the hardcore DEI people isn't really accomplishing this  effectively and is introducing new problems.

For me, I now find myself writing extensive DEI sections for every grant proposal.  Most of this is just fluff and has absolutely no substance or impact.  There are very real issues that need to be addressed, but I feel there are better ways to go about it.


Are the benefits worth the backlash we see?

My concern is that the backlash is not coming from "Hey, are we really accomplishing anything or is this just fluff?"

It's coming from "White Heterosexual Christian Males are suffering reverse discrimination and made to feel guilty and oppressed! Woke!"

Sure, but if the approach is not having a tangible impact and also feeding the trolls it just dosnt make sense and we should re-evaluate it.  We should be strategically implementing policies that have impact while minimizing the divisiveness. 

A good example is that one of the main barriers to higher education is financial, regardless of background, but no one seems to be proposing increased financial support for grad students to offset this.  Where I am, housing has become prohibitively expensive for any grad student that is not coming with support.  Addressing this, would directly increase equity and disproportionately benefit marginalized groups without the need for identity politics. 

Having m,e write essays about how accepting my lab and I are does nothing to address this much more real contributor.  I feel like they are making me put window dressing all over the lab to appear like I am doing something while the reality is that this is not really addressing the underlying issues.   

[marshwiggle]

Well, what did Golden hope to accomplish with this?

Under a section titled "Diversity is the word of the Month," Golden defined privilege as "a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group" that operates on "personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels."

What is the hoped-for outcome here?  How would this 'definition' help anyone or resolve anything?

Nobody denies "privilege" exists.  some well-documented ones are

• "pretty" privilege; attractive people get paid more, etc.
• "tall" privilege; taller people (especially men) get paid more, etc.
• "native speaker" privilege; people who speak without a "foreign" accent are more easily accepted

We could go on forever. But so what?

Do we make tall people go on their knees? Do we forbid attractive people from wearing makeup or combing their hair? Do we make native speakers talk with marbles in their mouths like Demosthenes to remove their advantage?

Let me further illustrate with a sadly well-known situation.
There are many cases of people arriving at a hospital ER, but getting ignored or misdiagnosed. It disproportionately happens with Indigenous people, poor people, people from ethnic minorities, etc. THIS IS VERY BAD! (Just in case that wasn't obvious.) However, the solution is not to ignore everyone, or be careless in diagnosing everyone; it is to try to develop objective procedures and processes that are followed to reduce the effect of bias.

If that was what DEI was about, it would get much less pushback. But since DEI is often aimed at highlighting division based on identity, rather than reducing it, the problem isn't going to disappear anytime soon.
 

[Wahoo Redux]

Nobody denies "privilege" exists.  some well-documented ones are

• "pretty" privilege; attractive people get paid more, etc.
• "tall" privilege; taller people (especially men) get paid more, etc.
• "native speaker" privilege; people who speak without a "foreign" accent are more easily accepted

We could go on forever. But so what?

Yeah...pretty sure you're not getting it, Marshy.

[ciao_yall]

This is simply an example of things going to far and that the best solution (and what most people support) is usually somewhere closer to the middle.

I for one support the DEI intentions, but feel that it has simply gone too far and a lot of it is just window dressing anyway.  I suspect I am not unusual in this.  Most people support equity in the work place, but what we are seeing from the hardcore DEI people isn't really accomplishing this  effectively and is introducing new problems.

For me, I now find myself writing extensive DEI sections for every grant proposal.  Most of this is just fluff and has absolutely no substance or impact.  There are very real issues that need to be addressed, but I feel there are better ways to go about it.


Are the benefits worth the backlash we see?

My concern is that the backlash is not coming from "Hey, are we really accomplishing anything or is this just fluff?"

It's coming from "White Heterosexual Christian Males are suffering reverse discrimination and made to feel guilty and oppressed! Woke!"

Sure, but if the approach is not having a tangible impact and also feeding the trolls it just dosnt make sense and we should re-evaluate it.  We should be strategically implementing policies that have impact while minimizing the divisiveness. 

A good example is that one of the main barriers to higher education is financial, regardless of background, but no one seems to be proposing increased financial support for grad students to offset this.  Where I am, housing has become prohibitively expensive for any grad student that is not coming with support.  Addressing this, would directly increase equity and disproportionately benefit marginalized groups without the need for identity politics. 

Having m,e write essays about how accepting my lab and I are does nothing to address this much more real contributor.  I feel like they are making me put window dressing all over the lab to appear like I am doing something while the reality is that this is not really addressing the underlying issues.   

Agreed. I manage a grant right now and of course it has all sorts of lofty goals, but we can't spend the funds on anything that is actually needed by the students or the college to support the students.

[marshwiggle]

Nobody denies "privilege" exists.  some well-documented ones are

• "pretty" privilege; attractive people get paid more, etc.
• "tall" privilege; taller people (especially men) get paid more, etc.
• "native speaker" privilege; people who speak without a "foreign" accent are more easily accepted

We could go on forever. But so what?

Yeah...pretty sure you're not getting it, Marshy.

Please elaborate.

[Wahoo Redux]

Nobody denies "privilege" exists.  some well-documented ones are

• "pretty" privilege; attractive people get paid more, etc.
• "tall" privilege; taller people (especially men) get paid more, etc.
• "native speaker" privilege; people who speak without a "foreign" accent are more easily accepted

We could go on forever. But so what?

Yeah...pretty sure you're not getting it, Marshy.

Please elaborate.

Yeah buddy, I expected you to respond that way, and I will admit that I am not inclined to fill in the blanks for you, but anyway...

The problem is not with human beings' basic tendencies to have prejudices and favoritisms, but with a very specific historical set of problems with North American racism, sexism, and homophobia and the advantages this history gives to, essentially, white men.

The problem is how do we deal with this history, and no one seems to have any good ideas anymore. 

[marshwiggle]

Nobody denies "privilege" exists.  some well-documented ones are

• "pretty" privilege; attractive people get paid more, etc.
• "tall" privilege; taller people (especially men) get paid more, etc.
• "native speaker" privilege; people who speak without a "foreign" accent are more easily accepted

We could go on forever. But so what?

Yeah...pretty sure you're not getting it, Marshy.

Please elaborate.

Yeah buddy, I expected you to respond that way, and I will admit that I am not inclined to fill in the blanks for you, but anyway...

The problem is not with human beings' basic tendencies to have prejudices and favoritisms, but with a very specific historical set of problems with North American racism, sexism, and homophobia and the advantages this history gives to, essentially, white men.

Thanks for the clarification. One of the really annoying things about this is that there's a not-quite-spelled-out-but-implied idea that having "privilege" makes a person somewhat less virtuous than someone lacking "privilege". (And of course, specifically stating that "privilege" is not something that a person had any part in acquiring, so they aren't "responsible" for it.) So it's like original sin, but with no chance of redemption.
The glaring irony is that discrimination on the basis of "privilege" is no more justified than discrimination on any other factor that people have no control over, but many of the people who rail about the latter gleefully engage in the former.

The problem is how do we deal with this history, and no one seems to have any good ideas anymore. 

We don't "deal with" history; by definition, it is immutable. What we can do, if we choose, is try to learn from history. That means choosing to do things differently. But that's not enough for the people who just want to re-write history to make it something they find more palatable.

[artalot]

Well, at the risk of being shouted down, Golden's definition is correct. Peggy McIntosh (one of the most-cited scholars on this issue) defines white privilege as an "invisible package of unearned assets" that white people can count upon without having to think about it. She says nothing about recognition or virtue. Please read McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" and the brilliant critique by Gina Crosley-Corcoran, "Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person."
We're scholars. Do the homework.

[dismalist]

Well, at the risk of being shouted down, Golden's definition is correct. Peggy McIntosh (one of the most-cited scholars on this issue) defines white privilege as an "invisible package of unearned assets" that white people can count upon without having to think about it.

...
 
We're scholars. Do the homework.

White privilege as an

"invisible package of unearned assets"

Invisible! I love it.

Looks like white, Christian males, who have accumulated some assets, are rich in phlogiston, which we can't see.

Just words.

[artalot]

Your condescension is a bad look, especially since you clearly didn't read the essay. Even a student would have read it. It's only three pages long.

[dismalist]

What's wanted are arguments, not citations.

[marshwiggle]

Well, at the risk of being shouted down, Golden's definition is correct.

So, did she lie when she said this?

"The newsletter included a definition of the word privilege which, upon reflection, I deeply regret," she wrote in a memo, obtained by the Daily Mail. "The intent of the newsletter is to inform and support an inclusive community at Hopkins, but the language of this definition clearly did not meet that goal.

"In fact, because it was overly simplistic and poorly worded, it had the opposite effect," she continued. "I retract and disavow the definition I shared and I am sorry."

[Kron3007]

The major issue I see is that DEI is mostly fluff and these discussions just devolve into arguments over the wording.  You will never convince Marshy and their ilk that white privilege is the problem or a suitable term.  However, almost all of them would support a system that provides equal access to opportunity for all, so the whole argument is mostly meaningless.  It is quite possible to address the problem without agreeing on the terminology, and force feeding everyone these concepts is largely counterproductive.

For the bulk of us who reside somewhere in the middle, it is hard to take DEI proponents seriously when there are so many easily remedied problems that are left unaddressed.

I am in Canada, so my examples are from here, but we had a truth and reconciliation commission do a report in which they produced 94 calls to action.  I believe the report was released in 2015.  Since then, I think they have addressed 13.  This is from a government that claims to put DEI front and centre and launched the commission in the first place.

In Canada, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we still have hundreds of first nation communities without safe drinking water. First nation schools in Ontario receive less funding per student (funded federally) compared to non-indigenous schools (funded provincially). 

These are examples of problems that are glaringly problematic and have fairly easy solutions.  There are plenty more.  Instead of actually taking action, we just do a bunch of meaningless work and establish new administrative positions and offices to give the impression that we are doing something.  I now put a lot of time and effort into dressing my windows despite the fact that it has almost no impact and has only made me bitter and skeptical about the whole thing.