I find the idealism present in this thread both sweet and optimistic, and simultaneously incredibly naive. In a way, it's SV/startup culture in a nutshell. "Anything is possible if we work together and use our brains!".... "Move fast and break things!"... "What could possibly go wrong?"
The reality is that we are only a generation from a time when not hiring black people or women for jobs requiring intelligence or competence was standard operating procedure and saying out loud "You really think hiring a black/female engineer is a good idea?" would not have been considered especially controversial. Our parents (or grandparents for some of you) lived through this time, saw the incredible damage it did to millions of people, and wisely decided to seal it away with a powerful ward (laws + social taboo). This is of course an oversimplification of a process that started long ago and is not finished - but it will have to suffice as a metaphor.
Keep in mind, this process was (and is) a hard fought war with many casualties - friendships, families, and of course actual lost lives. When I chastise my 73 year old father for not being progressive enough, he reminds me that his mother, who grew up during the depression in the south, did not consider black people to be human. His outspoken support for civil rights caused a major rift in their relationship that never healed before she died.
Of course there are costs to this ward of taboos - as well as the similar ones we are presently building around LGBT people. Any time an avenue of discussion is cut off, we are all slightly poorer for it. I would argue however that we know what is behind that ward - awful things that hurt people - and I would argue that right now, it is just not worth it. Maybe in a century we will be ready to have more frank conversations about sex, gender, and race, but I am pretty sure we are not ready now.
But that's all that is there. It says "I would argue for X" and then doesn't argue for it, just claims that it must be so. So it is just that minus intellectual honesty.
I think part of the issue is that the pendulum may be swinging too far. Sexist sentiment against men and racist sentiment against whites is growing massively at a time when whites are soon to be a minority in the country.
You say "we are... a generation from a time when not hiring black people or women for jobs... was [standard]..." If this is the case and we truly aren't in a time when this isn't standard anymore, then why should we maintain practices that are discriminatory against whites and men?
What is this meme that whites will be a minority in the United States?
The Wikipedia article [0] on the demographics of the United States, Race and Ethnicity section, states the following breakdown for US populations: Whites are 63% of the population, Hispanics are 16.3%, African-Americans are 12.2%, Asians are 4.7%, other racial and ethnic groups fall under 1% of the population.
Am I missing something here that lends itself to this conclusion that 63% of the population, nearly 200 million people, will "soon become a minority group in the country?"
This is the case for five states right now: Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Texas, and Nevada.
That article suggests the whole United States will be majority-minority by 2043 and for children by 2019. (But a critique is that these studies treat somebody with any Hispanic, Asian, or Black ancestry as non-white.)
That's very interesting. Thank you. I had heard the term majority-minority before (around an election cycle, I'm sure) but had never given it much of a read or consideration. I don't have much time to digest the article right now but hope to return to it this evening.
I think this cuts to the heart of a changing landscape regarding what people consider a "good person".
Your father believes he's a good person because he made a sacrifice for what he believed in. He sacrificed his relationship with someone he loved, and likely felt a lot of pushback which greatly hurt him in many ways. Following the battle of Gettysburg Lincoln consummated the ground to all the soldiers that lost their lives fighting for what they believed in: those fighting for slaves and those fighting for slavery. Both sides were important in shaping the fabric of the US (in his view).
Today good and evil fall along party lines. There are no more martyrs, chastising others counts as being good and even small sacrifices for good are considered exceptional acts. Today change is expected to flow freely while speech is expected to be canned and regulated, a reversal of Lincoln's time.
The reality is that we are only a generation from a time when not hiring black people or women for jobs requiring intelligence or competence was standard operating procedure and saying out loud "You really think hiring a black/female engineer is a good idea?" would not have been considered especially controversial. Our parents (or grandparents for some of you) lived through this time, saw the incredible damage it did to millions of people, and wisely decided to seal it away with a powerful ward (laws + social taboo). This is of course an oversimplification of a process that started long ago and is not finished - but it will have to suffice as a metaphor.
Keep in mind, this process was (and is) a hard fought war with many casualties - friendships, families, and of course actual lost lives. When I chastise my 73 year old father for not being progressive enough, he reminds me that his mother, who grew up during the depression in the south, did not consider black people to be human. His outspoken support for civil rights caused a major rift in their relationship that never healed before she died.
Of course there are costs to this ward of taboos - as well as the similar ones we are presently building around LGBT people. Any time an avenue of discussion is cut off, we are all slightly poorer for it. I would argue however that we know what is behind that ward - awful things that hurt people - and I would argue that right now, it is just not worth it. Maybe in a century we will be ready to have more frank conversations about sex, gender, and race, but I am pretty sure we are not ready now.