Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

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You ask:

> I also believe that they explicitly give preference to certain groups of people over others. So what is the point here?

You give the example of the journalism, geography, and ethnic studies departments specifically seeking minority viewpoints.

FWiW I don't think the DEI corporate and other programs in the USofA have been particularly well executed, they appear (from afar) to be more performative than substantive, however ...

The three examples you gave should more or less answer your own question for you.

Journalism, good reporting, brings deep informed insights from the ground. That's not going to happen when reporting on foreign countries and disadvantaged communities if all the reporters are (say) from a WASP background and perspective.

Geography isn't just maps, there are strong elements of people's relations with land that are part of that domain .. again a breadth of viewpoints gives richer coverage.

Ethnic studies. .. I mean does this really need a comment as to why diverse viewpoints deliver broader outcomes?

If the sentiments expressed in those internal deliberations seem perfectly normal to you, we really do have irreconcilable moral and ethical viewpoints.

> breadth of viewpoints gives richer coverage

Breadth of viewpoint has nothing intrinsically to do with the color of one's skin.

> Journalism, good reporting, brings deep informed insights from the ground. That's not going to happen when reporting on foreign countries and disadvantaged communities if all the reporters are (say) from a WASP background and perspective.

Again, the quality of a reporter and their work has nothing to do intrinsically with the color of their skin.

> If the sentiments expressed in those internal deliberations seem perfectly normal to you

I didn't say that. Perhaps you might like to re-read. We may have different backgrounds in parsing English.

> Breadth of viewpoint has nothing intrinsically to do with the color of one's skin.

Again, I didn't say that.

The point of these fat fingered US attempts to fix a problem is to ... fix a problem.

The problem is that the starting point in reporting, ethinic studies, and geography was that the fields were dominated by an unrepresentative minority; white faces with vanilla backgrounds being the voices of authority on subjects they had no experience of.

That was the problem. These fixes aren't great.

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