You've misunderstood me. My concern is that a premise held by diversity advocates ('people of different races have different perspectives') could be used justify racist acts (e.g. not hiring a person from a given background). Assuming that people who want to justify racist acts could be referred to as racists, this would mean that diversity activists share a premise with racists - which would be a concern for me. Nowhere in there is a claim that certain people will undertake racist acts 100% of the time.
> Usually, at least from what I've seen, racism is rooted in a belief that the other group is lesser in some way
If we are suggesting that different races have different perspectives, then this becomes an easy belief to support. Presumably perspectives differ in some ways which can make some more valuable than others in some contexts.
> I'm not suggesting that there is one black perspective on things, much as there isn't one white perspective on things, that would be reductive
You may not be suggesting this, but it often seems to be put this way, including by the comment I replied to, which stated that:
> every single member of the marginalized group has some life experience that no member of the majority/powerful group has. So although it's a prejudice, it's a correct one
If 'perspective' here is understood as the thing arising from the single life experience shared by a social group, then it seems like a natural reading to see it as a single thing. But part of the problem with this discussion is that the claim that 'people of x race have a different perspective' is assumed rather than argued for. I am not at all clear on what is shared by black people from all walks of life all over the world and not shared by white people from all walks of life all over the world (who have their own version of it) - and how that thing is relevant to hiring an intern at BigCorp so it would be nice to see the idea expounded on a little more.
> Can a white child and a black child come out of a class on slavery with the same perspective on it?
Possibly not, but would two white children or two black children come out of it with the same perspective on it? What prior judgements can we make on those individual's perspectives based on their race? It may be the case that the white children would feel tremendous empathy with their fellow man and campaign vigorously for reparations. Similarly, the black children might come out of it thinking (like another prominant black man) that 300 years of slavery sounds like a choice. In my view, there is very little we can say in advance about the views of those children based on their race, and we should wait until we have the child in front of us so we can ask them about their perspective. And when that child is older, and applying for a job at BigCorp, we should extend them the same courtesy.