Including myself (mixed race). I find the "hang out with people who look like me" mentality to be really weird and when a company's idea of diversity is basically this, it's more offensive than racial slurs to be honest.
I don't really understand why all these groups are around race, sexuality or gender. This seems to me the opposite of diversity. In my view there should be groups around interests instead.
A great, non third-rail example of why this is relevant can be seen in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". There's a shared cultural, religious and other heritage and story that holds the characters together.
As a white guy, I would find a white-guy club really weird. I could see something like a dad group, baseball team or fan group, engineering society, a catholic religious/service group or something similar as something that I would potentially identify with. Maybe some sort of Irish heritage thing, but I don't know if that would be relevant to me, as there isn't really a shared experience there.
As a white male you haven't experienced any of that, which is fine! But you should try to put yourself in the shoes of people who weren't so lucky.
EDIT: I was addressing the poster directly. As a white guy with autism, I'm well aware that white males in general can experience lifelong hardship for any number of traits. But anyone who says "I don't really understand why all these groups are around race, sexuality or gender" presumably hasn't experienced that, or they'd immediately understand why someone would want to associate with folks who've been through the same shit.
(Or maybe I'm still giving him too much credit. But I try assume ignorance rather than malice.)
You know absolutely nothing about this person and yet feel completely at liberty to issue blanket statements about their life and what they have experienced and how they 'should' feel.
White privilege is obviously real. However, that doesn't mean that a white male hasn't ever been nervous around the police or felt queer thoughts.
This is why people resent contemporary 'identity politics' and 'diversity' initiatives. Not because of the end goals themselves (that is, to mitigate racism and prejudice) but because the rhetorical methods currently employed are cloying, tone-deaf, and frankly just plain condescending. The overall point you are making is a noble and important one - to self-reflect and put yourself in other people's perspective - but I don't think this is the most effective way to convey it.
This is almost unbelievably blind.
You don't directly know what the poster has gone through. Prefacing the statement with "as a white male" implies that you know what the poster has gone through because of his race. It is willfully blind. You can make convincing statements that white people in general in certain states at certain times face certain kinds of systemic discrimination. You cannot truthfully make the statement that the poster has not encountered serious discrimination, malice, or personal difficulties merely by knowing his race and sex.
>presumably hasn't experienced that, or they'd immediately understand
This is a Scotsman fallacy. I am certain I could find some people who have faced terrible racism that would agree with the poster's opinion.
Not all white males are the same and face the same challenges. Life is very different if you are good looking, tall, athletic, outgoing vs. being short, non-athletic, nerdy and socially awkward. I was in the second group and faced a lot of discrimination, bullying and ridicule when I grew up. I probably had a lot of advantages too but it's not that simple. There are plenty of rich non-white kids who probably have it much easier than most whites.
I don't see why a reason why you can't have both?
-- Why are 'black pride' and 'white pride' not equal?
The 'white' cultures of the west usually made it through to their colonies fairly intact and recognizable. The French, the Irish (ignoring changing notions of what 'white' is), the Germans etc. So be proud! Be proud of your Irish heritage, your French heritage, your Croatian heritage.
Black people in America... African slaves came from all over Central and West Africa. Their culture was very quickly all melted together in America and the genealogy muddied and for the most part a modern descendant can't say empirically exactly where in Africa their ancestors came from, let alone have had the elements of culture from that place handed down to them reliably. So the only 'shared experience' of black people in America is... being black in America. Then combine in the historic issues of being a 'lesser' race in American history and "black power" or "black interest groups" and holidays like Kwanzaa are a response to that. ---
Anyway, they're not my thoughts but I've paraphrased them as best as I can remember. It makes sense to me at least as a starting point. What do you think?
The real spanner in the works for this line of thinking is 'asian' groups lumping together all the individual cultures of asia!
Ideally, one day we'll have lived alongside each other long enough that this is all a historic curiosity in the same way 'whiteness' has vastly broadened it's scope in the last 100 years.
The reason that it makes no sense to have a "white male" group is that's the dominant culture generally. A lot of that culture, the "baseline American" culture, is of interest to people who aren't in that group, but the reverse is true way less frequently. Indian-Americans are going to know what Christmas is and might even participate in a gift exchange, but are white people going to observe Diwali?
I was the only LGBT person, and THAT experience is way more isolating.
Groups around interests are great, but you run the risk of creating groups that are popular/mainstream and still fail to include those who are not as mainstream in their interests.
The whole point is to help people who feel like they are different find their place, and a lot of potential interest groups can start to look like a white male club under a different label. For instance, consider a craft beer group, or an (American) Football group.
These groups are similar to an ice breaker in a conversation with someone new, usually I try to find something common with a person I've just met that we can share experiences over.
The ERGs at my org are not exclusive at all, the Latino, Women, and Black ERGs organize a yearly leadership conference that everyone is invited too and has a very diverse set of topics that can be discussed. The new grads at my company are automatically enrolled into the ERG mailing list and I've developed really tight bonds with folks I met there, there is a yearly ski trip with about 25 people that I'm apart of that started with folks who met through the new grad ERG.
It's more of a "we share the same challenges and hardships, let's compare notes" mentality.
I try to avoid repeating mistakes and I don't have a lot of comments in the negative. Pointers would be awesome.
As per the site's rules:
Instead of "you're doing it wrong", suggest alternatives. When someone is learning, help them learn more.I have no idea if that's why your post was downvoted but anecdotally, asking why you were downvoted only ever elicits more downvotes. Quoting site rules is definitely not going to help your case. They're just imaginary points. Best to just forget about it and move on.
That was my direct answer to atom-morgan's post who said: “I find the "hang out with people who look like me" mentality to be really weird”.
As for the points themselves I don't care, it's how the post slowly rose to positive and then hit negative in an instant that made me confused. But then again, perhaps I should put away my tinfoil hat.