This is a very thoughtful and sensible reply, but it's going to get lost in the storm and that is a shame.
Personally I've always thought that a lot of these issues boil down to intentional misreading or lack of understanding of things unsaid. As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point.
In your example with Einstein, to me it would be perfectly valid for Gould to have said "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. We should seek to find and develop those people." But of course I would worry that those same people who took umbrage with the example of BLM would assume that it would be done at the expense of others, or that it would be done to exclusively benefit in a zero-sum way the unheralded, unfound geniuses in Gould's example.
I run a small startup, fifteen people, and yes, I believe in diversity in hiring and team composition. If all things are equal, then I will hire the person that brings a diverse perspective to my team, not on basis of identity but on basis of opinion, basis of experience, and basis of perspective. I will not pursue that diversity at the expense of hiring the best candidate, and I suspect my perspective is shared a lot more than people think, solely because the "If all things are equal" part is unsaid and it is simply too easy for the cynic or bad-faith arguer to assume otherwise.
> As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point.
That was never my issue, or the issue of anyone I encountered. My issue (and those other people's issue) was the implicit bad-faith assumption that we didn't already think black lives mattered, and needed to be scolded about it. Such rhetoric is needlessly divisive and should be avoided.
Why would you feel that anybody was personally scolding you by saying "black lives matter" if you already believed that black lives matter?
Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.
People think that black lives matter, you trying to say they don't if they don't agree with the BLM movement is just making things worse. There is no reason to turn allies into enemies.
> Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.
Correction: the movement is aimed at only a very small subset of black lives. It is not aimed at the much larger number of ones taken by other black people.
But I guess "a specific subset of black lives matter, and let's not talk about the others" doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
I think I know why people interpreted “Black Lives Matter” as “Only Black Lives Matter,” and it was the way BLM supporters reacted to the slogan “All Lives Matter.”
I’m not saying either one is right or wrong. I’m saying - if you imagine yourself as someone saying “All Lives Matter” and the response you get back is “No, you can’t say that, you can only say ‘Black Lives Matter’”… not a big logical leap to make
I don't think people are misreading it. Everyone understands what "black lives matter" means. It's a phrase that's been co-opted by a political movement with a broader set of ideological commitments. It's possible to have legitimate disagreements with the movement, about e.g. protest tactics, statistics about bias in policing, defunding the police, institutional racism, or the Israel-Palestine conflict, without disagreeing with the claim that black lives matter.
Honestly I think it is a matter of the current state of the economy. Competition for positions is so vicious, and the people running DEI are already established and powerful. So losing out is life changing and can mean the difference between having a comfortable normal life and a constant struggle. If the system was more fair, or if losing out didn't threaten falling into the economic abyss below it wouldn't be so dire. Who delegated the authority to pick winners and losers to these administrators? This is what happened when the professional class took over the liberal side of politics. They've ignored economic equality to the point where it feels like it is life and death to get positions. Along with the nepotism of people in making these decision, it feels like they're asking everyone else to sacrifice except for them and their friends.
Personally I've always thought that a lot of these issues boil down to intentional misreading or lack of understanding of things unsaid. As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point.
In your example with Einstein, to me it would be perfectly valid for Gould to have said "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. We should seek to find and develop those people." But of course I would worry that those same people who took umbrage with the example of BLM would assume that it would be done at the expense of others, or that it would be done to exclusively benefit in a zero-sum way the unheralded, unfound geniuses in Gould's example.
I run a small startup, fifteen people, and yes, I believe in diversity in hiring and team composition. If all things are equal, then I will hire the person that brings a diverse perspective to my team, not on basis of identity but on basis of opinion, basis of experience, and basis of perspective. I will not pursue that diversity at the expense of hiring the best candidate, and I suspect my perspective is shared a lot more than people think, solely because the "If all things are equal" part is unsaid and it is simply too easy for the cynic or bad-faith arguer to assume otherwise.