The original tweet made incorrect claims about Black students’ IQs (saying that on average they meet the criteria for borderline intellectual impairment) and made incorrect claims that the average SAT scores for students at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) are much lower than they actually are.
Musk endorsed the tweet, without challenging the lies about Black students’ intelligence and educational achievement, and doubled down on the claim that programmes to encourage applications from underrepresented groups will make air travel unsafe. These programmes do not reduce the standards needed to qualify as a pilot. They simply encourage people who would not usually think to apply. There is no evidence that this will reduce safety. In fact, by increasing the pool of applicants, I would argue that it would probably increase standards, since the airlines will have more people to choose from, and there’s no reason to think that the population of young Black people contains fewer potentially excellent pilots than any other group.
Encouraging underrepresented groups to consider a career that has historically not been open to them is not the same as lowering standards for those groups. Airline pilots are still held to the same standards, regardless of their sex or race. It’s just about making sure that people don’t self-exclude from a career because there is a lack of role models, or because those careers have historically been unwelcoming.
If we were neighbours in a small village, and my family had banned your parents and your grandparents from our home, and been violent towards your family, you would naturally be wary of visiting me. I would need to do a lot to make you feel welcome if I wanted us to be friends. Whereas another neighbour, whose grandparents and parents had been best friends with mine, would probably feel welcome and at home without me needing to make a lot of special effort. Sometimes, circumstances mean that certain groups need an explicit sign that they are welcome, and encouragement to participate, because they know that people like them were excluded (often with a lot of hostility and aggression) in the past.