Group 1:
1) white man (Democrat Stanford grad)
2) white woman (Democrat Stanford grad)
3) black man (Democrat Stanford grad)
1) white man (Democrat Stanford grad)
2) white man (Libertarian Kansas kid self-taught)
3) white man (South Africa bootcamp grad)
If that was the idea that Denise Young Smith was trying to get across, that nuance got lost in the backlash.
* Why are there only three seats at the table?
Diversity and inclusion is about analyzing and addressing systemic assumptions and the arbitrary, exclusionary constraints we put on ourselves as an industry.
Contrived hypothetical scenarios fail to frame the real problem because those contrived scenarios are exactly what good policies push back against.
Neither more diversity of thought between members of a group OR a single leaning, shared by all members of a group imply higher value.
> In [Group 2's] case, diversity of thought is valued more than diversity of skin color.
And you claimed, quote, "Why assume Group 2 has, or can produce, higher-valued thoughts?"
Value of Thought and Diversity of Thought are two independent properties that can coexist independently.
Sure. But that's not what parent is claiming. Parent is claiming that the company that prefers to hire Group 1, values diversity of thought over diversity of skin color.
The assumption there is that Group 2 can't offer that same "diversity of thought." Parent doesn't consider whether "diversity of thought" actually follows from how parent defines Group 1, or that valuing "diversity of thought" in the way that it's claimed will make the company better.
This means diversity of thought necessarily follows form the example given as it was defined as such (group 1 has diversity of thought, group 2 not).
The importance of diversity of thought can be illustrated by using machine learning; if your learning factor (diversity of thought) is too low, not all solutions are explored, instead a local minima is found and then reinforced by the ML algorithm. If the learning factor is higher then the algorithm can freely explore for other local minima and maybe even find the absolute minima. (If it's too high then you also don't get anything useful either but that's not quite the point)
Diversity of thought is important for a company that wants to make better product, if you only have people who think alike, regardless of their other properties, they will not find the best optimal solution, only a local optimal solution.
Now, even I am being painted as "Not diverse enough" for the contingent of which you speak. Recently, I read this and it sums up where it's all heading next.
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/straight-black-men-are-...
This sort of language is problematic and harmful in that it implies that "white guys" (not even white people, just men) by default can always "do the job," and that anyone outside of that group must be judged to some sort of different standard. It makes it challenging to talk about diversity when statements start off with racist and sexist undertones.
This is getting to a point that even genuinely talking about it, and rightly so, risks backfiring at you because there’s always somebody willing to make 10 extra mental steps to find it offensive.