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Comment by orionsbelt | Hacker News Reader

His point is not that black people are less capable but that DEI policies causing looser standards causes people to question whether a particular black person they encounter in a role is sufficiently qualified given those well known looser standards, and that this is bad for everyone, black people included. You can argue he’s still wrong, but it’s quite clear from the various clips that this is what he is arguing. In another clip, for example, he cited United’s goal of having 50% of pilots being of color or women, as compared to 13% of the population being black and women having less of an interest in careers like being a pilot; ie he has no prejudice against black peoples capabilities but has an issue with lowering hiring standards for any group of people.

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> His point is not that black people are less capable but that DEI policies [cause] looser standards

These ideas are equivalent. The belief that employers are lowering their standards in order to include more black people is based on the idea that any additional black person hired must necessarily be less competent than a hypothetical white person who could have been hired instead of them; that is, white supremacy. In Kirk's words: "You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."

They don't believe that there are black people who are qualified but weren't hired because of, for example, discrimination, because they don't believe "discrimination" exists per se, they just think of not hiring black people as logical meritocratic decision-making.

No they are not equivalent. This came up with James Damore too.

Let's say there's a pool of 20 candidates, 10 male and 10 female. Since more men than women have an abiding interest in engineering, let us posit that 40% of the men are top prospects for the job, and 20% of the women are equally high-quality workers. The company is trying to fill 6 roles and has an internal mandate to hire 50% women. To serve that mandate, 1 unqualified woman will be hired, at the expense of 1 of the qualified men.

You can apply the exact same logic w/r/t race. Yes, there are legacy-of-slavery reasons why fewer blacks than whites are qualified for any given technical credential, but those are upstream of hiring decisions, and are not the job of e.g. airlines to solve, especially not at the expense of lowering standards for a crucial position like pilot.

This response is very confused. Lack of interest in the field would result in fewer female applicants, but you're describing equal numbers of applicants. This situation where women are half as likely as men to be qualified is just sexism.

The idea that airlines are passing on qualified white candidates to hire unqualified black candidates to fill a diversity quota, because there aren't enough qualified black candidates to fill it honestly, is a white supremacist conspiracy theory. Real life DEI programs don't let them do that. To a white supremacist, any number of black pilots is "just a few too many" to have hired honestly, and so there must be some hypothetical white people being "stolen" from. See GP.

> Lack of interest in the field would result in fewer female applicants

Anyone in a hiring position would tell you, lack of intrinsic interest, or expertise, does not stop people from applying to an open position.

> > His point is not that black people are less capable but that DEI policies [cause] looser standards > These ideas are equivalent…

You’re grossly failing at basic logic here. One case is describing racism and one being racist. Those things are not the same.

> They don't believe that there are black people who are qualified…

Again, you’re failing at basic reading comprehension but now it looks intentional.

Or maybe you are twisting yourself to avoid the text as it is.

Except none of these are based on fact. All of this has been addressed elsewhere. DEI is Critical Race Theory is Affirmative Action.

It is yet another in a long line of politically correct terms used by the American Right to counch their racism. Charlie Kirk's commentary is no different than Rish Limbaugh.

I am not going to argue that many members of the "American Right" are not racist. Many of them are openly and disgustingly so. But we are talking about half the country, and a group that has as many in-group differences as the left.

I am not an expert in Charlie Kirk (I barely knew anything about him a week ago), but from the many many clips I have seen of him since, he seems to me to genuinely not be racist.

It's not worth debating whether DEI and affirmative action are problematic are not. We probably disagree, and this is a waste of both of our time. But in terms of this story, the simple fact is a journalist should not be misquoting someone. If one thinks he's racist by subtext, one can try to argue that, but at least be honest about what he's literally saying.

this "half the country" statistic needs to stop being thrown around, of the eligible voters only 64% actually voted, of those about 50% voted republican. Not even a a third of the country.

I don't think I was arguing for the merits of a quota system. I believe they are not effective. But that was not my point. It is irrelevant what facade is being used. It is just window-dressing for something despicable.

That was my point.

He can you find him not racist, when he is clearly so, and antisemitic, and generally xenophobic all around?

Kirk controlled most of his communication but the mask falls when he is around people on his "side" (podcasts or events).

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