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Comment by iamdamian | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the pointer, I will do that.

I followed Bari early on after she left the Times, and I was always intrigued by the examples she brought up of unjust actions taken in the workpace or university in the name of 'wokeness'.

That said, I noticed that some of these examples didn't hold up to scrutiny, at least in my eyes. What I mean is that actions taken in those cases seemed justified to me, even without relying on DEI or 'wokeness'.

A couple of years have passed now, though, so it does seem like I should take a second look.

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bear in mind, Bari is not a neutral player and has an ideological axe to grind.

Just like I dont consider the source for this (the WSJ Opinions are only slightly less unhinged than NRO) to be ideologically neutral.

It’s not surprising that those opposed to this ideology have been most motivated to catalog its excesses.

BTW, to get crisp: she and similar others (I’m in this camp) support fair and equal treatment of minorities. What we oppose is the following (a common def of the form of wokeness they oppose). (1) assertion that any observed inequality is due to racism sexism etc (2) that we should fix this via racial or other quota systems.

We think (1) is obviously wrong and that (2) is highly unethical — Ie this particular ideology is rubbish and very harmful for our society.

Others disagree and they influence many of our institutions today. Maybe you think these axioms are cool, I don’t know. At any rate, There are people who do and in fact they are prevalent. Bari Weiss’s work (among other things now) catalogs examples of people who follow these principles and in this context argues why she and others find their principles wrong.

Bear in mind (look for my other comment in this post), I'm no fan of the emerging DEI Raj, or frankly the New Racialism (that race is the root of all problems) that seems to be developing along side it.

But just like this article, its one side of a complex story - so when I show up and suggest people apply a filter for ideological bias - its just that, a warning that this content should be consumed with and awareness of the ideological priors of the people writing it.

I actually want people to reconsider their own priors - but I think that to do that, you need to have a good awareness of what those priors are - not just for you, but for the media you consume.

FWIW, I'm an ardent believer in Poverty being at the root of most issues, including most cases of perceived institutional racism, because Poverty and Race have become so intrinsically linked that Race is now a proxy for Poverty.

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